This fall, we’re taking a look at how artists in the Brooklyn Museum collection have promoted civic
This fall, we’re taking a look at how artists in the Brooklyn Museum collection have promoted civic engagement through their work.The subjects of Whitfield Lovell’s hand-drawn portraits are anonymous: their names have been lost but their images are preserved in an archive of historic studio photographs, which serves as Lovell’s inspiration. He includes a found object paired with each portrait—in this work, a vintage playing card—as if personalizing the image or attaching a memento. Bringing individual faces out of the archive is a reminder that just because there is no record of a person’s name doesn’t mean they lived less of a life. In a year of critical record keeping, with the US census coming to a close, it is important to consider how we as individuals get recorded and what that record represents.Whitfield Lovell (American, born 1959). Global Card III, 2011. Charcoal pencil on paper with playing card. Brooklyn Museum, Emily Winthrop Miles Fund, 2011.8. © artist or artist’s estate (Photo: Image courtesy of DC Moore Gallery -- source link
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