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4 Apr, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Highly recommend this exhibition @metmuseum: metmuseum.org/exhibitions/li…
One of many spectacular works: metmuseum.org/art/collection….
The label describes Mexkehme-Sukahs' "buckskin shirt lined with otter fur and covered with brass discs and strips of beadwork." His face paint has "zigzag designs that emanate from his vermilion-lined eyes and mouth." The ermine pelt in his hair has blue glass beads for eyes.

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More from @artcrimeprof

Erin L. Thompson Profile picture
4 Apr
Today, I'm thinking about the inmates of the Stone Mountain Correctional Institute, who dyed eggs for the world's largest Easter egg hunt in the shadow of the world's largest Confederate monument - one they were forced to help make. Here's the story.
Stone Mountain is, in the words of the SPLX, “the largest shrine to white supremacy in the history of the world.” It was begun in 1916 and finished only in 1972, on the side of a mountain outside Atlanta famous as birthplace of the revived Klan: splcenter.org/fighting-hate/…
While researching it for my book, I grew fascinated with one little-known aspect of its history: the convict labor at the heart of its economics.
Read 17 tweets
Erin L. Thompson Profile picture
26 Feb
Since the 2020 protests, thirteen state legislatures have considered bills that would make the removal of public monuments more difficult, ranging from adding a few bureaucratic hoops to flat-out prohibitions. Here's my list:
Alabama: hyperallergic.com/623101/alabama…
Georgia HB 238 (2/2021): forbids authorities from removing or concealing any publicly owned monument to any military personnel, whether of US or the Confederate States of America.
Read 16 tweets
Erin L. Thompson Profile picture
26 Feb
I've been tracking state legislatures that have seen the introduction of bills proposing increasing criminal penalties for vandalizing monuments since the 2020 protests. Here's my list:
Alabama HB 133 (2021): would establish the crimes of damaging a public monument in the 1st and 2nd degrees, would provide criminal penalties, including a mandatory minimum sentence for a violation, and would provide for a mandatory holding period for an arrest.
Arizona HB 2552 (2021): damaging a public monument = aggravated criminal damage

SB 1639 (2021): recklessly damaging a public monument = criminal damage and enacts punishments for different degrees
Read 21 tweets
Erin L. Thompson Profile picture
25 Feb
Super specific question time: can anyone remember an instance of someone praising an artwork they deliberately destroyed?
I can only think of people saying what they destroyed or damaged was not really art, or not good art (with possible exception of Rauschenberg erasing that de Kooning).
I'm asking because I'm thinking about what a common move it is for iconoclasts (writ broadly) to say they don't think what they're destroying is art or good art. I had been thinking of this as a rhetorical technique, to convince an audience, but I'm starting to wonder if...
Read 4 tweets
Erin L. Thompson Profile picture
7 Jan
Want to know more about how white supremacy is baked in to the US Capitol Building? Let's think about the statue topping its dome. She symbolizes Freedom... and was made in part by Philip Reed, an enslaved man. (Thread)
Thomas Crawford was commissioned to sculpt Freedom in 1854 - but he had to redo his original design (left) after Jefferson Davis threw a temper tantrum about... her hat.
The future president of the Confederacy was then the Secretary of War and oversaw the expansion and decoration of the Capitol Building. He used his position made sure that none of the new sculptures and paintings for the building criticized slavery.
Read 23 tweets
Erin L. Thompson Profile picture
29 Oct 20
There've been many protests over monuments honoring people who did horrific things. But what does it mean that America's public art is filled with statues of generic white men? Read @intersectionist's brilliant essay on America's imagery of white heritage: intersectionist.medium.com/american-power…
Her essay starts from the question of why no statues have fallen in NYC this year and broadens to explain the white suprematism underlying America’s heritage of public art and architecture, from her point of view as a POC in the white-dominated field of historic preservation.
I'll summarize some of her essay in this thread. She begins by noting that NYC has the dubious honor of being one of the only major US cities that has not lost a statue during the uprisings after the death of George Floyd.
Read 31 tweets

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