Skip to main content

Visit Main Menu Block

  • Hours & Admission
  • Accessibility & Amenities
  • Tours & Group Visits
  • Visitor Guidelines

Exhibitions and Events Main Menu Block

  • Exhibitions
  • Events

Art and Design Main Menu Block

  • The Collection
  • Projects & Publications
  • Past Exhibitions

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Image

Previous 1 / 1 Next

Rashid Johnson

Thurgood in the Hour of Chaos, 2009

Description

Maker

  • Derriere L'Etoile Studios, printer
  • Rashid Johnson, American
  • Exit Art, American, publisher

Title

Thurgood in the Hour of Chaos

Year

2009

Medium

Photolithograph on wove paper

Dimensions

Image/sheet: 56 x 76 cm (22 1/16 x 29 15/16 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Verso LR: inscribed in graphite: 36/50 Rashid Johnson, 09

Identification

Edition

36/50

Type

  • Works on Paper,
  • Prints

Credit

Gift of Exit Art

Object Number

2012.133.3.5

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

United Histories

March 23 - August 12, 2018

These two works offer starkly different perspectives on the American justice system, informed by the 160 years separating them, and their emphasis on white or African American subjects.

The painting takes place in a barn and depicts a trial, presumably of the figure leaning back in the Windsor chair. The artist’s name is likely a pseudonym for “a Whig,” declaring an affiliation with the Whig Party. This work was made just after the 1848 presidential election, which had been won by the Whig candidate Zachary Taylor, a slave-holding Southerner. Whigs from the North and South soon became bitterly divided over slavery, and the party collapsed entirely leading up to the Civil War. This painting may represent an effort to deflect attention toward the less serious or troubling affairs of the time.

The sharply critical tone of Johnson’s work is emblematic of the more active role political considerations have played in American art since the 1950s. Johnson spraypaints crosshairs over a model representing Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993), the first African American Supreme Court justice, underscoring the racial injustices Marshall challenged as a lawyer and a judge. It also recalls the logo for the hiphop group Public Enemy, whose song “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” is referenced in the work’s title. The song presents the perspective of an African American man imprisoned as an antiwar protestor.

[see also: 43.346]

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Thurgood in the Hour of Chaos with the accession number of 2012.133.3.5. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

RISD Museum

  •  Facebook
  •  Twitter
  •  Instagram
  •  Vimeo
  •  Pinterest
  •  SoundCloud

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Footer Secondary

  • Image Request
  • Press Office
  • Rent the Museum
  • Terms of Use