Kara Walker, Cotton Hoards in the Southern Swap, Harper's Pictorical History of the Civil War (Annotated), 2005. Purchased with funds from the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Joseph A. Chazan. © Kara Walker
Introduction
United Histories
This exhibition interrogates some of the issues and profound differences that characterize the past, present, and future of the United States. How do race and class define lived experience in America? How do we address changing values and notions of domesticity and motherhood? What shifting contingencies of “freedom” are presented by differing interpretations of the Constitution? How are our national histories reflected in the complicated relationships we maintain internationally? The works in United Histories, and the conversations staged between them, encourage us to reexamine and reconsider American history from new and possibly challenging perspectives.
Dominic Molon
Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art
RISD Museum
