ART + DESIGN
The South Dakota artist was inspired by Warhol’s work to create his piece, but Braveheart focused on the Oceti Sakowin cultural practice of giving, rather than the consumerism that was often Warhol’s subject. The two pieces come together to create a new conversation “about image, identity, value, and what different cultures choose to recognize or elevate.” Howardena Pindell’s Slavery Memorial Narratives (on loan from the collection of Arthur Primas ) is exhibited alongside a doll representing Scarlett O’Hara by Jerry Ross Barrish . This pairing conveys two very different visions of the plantation South, considering the distance between plantation mythology and historical reality. “Pindell’s work asks us to see land and water as witnesses to history,” said Merkt. “Across the darkened sky, names appear like traces of lives carried through slavery’s violence and aftermath. Below, the names of slave ports locate that history geographically, tying the Middle Passage and the transatlantic slave trade to specific places.” A differing cultural memory is introduced by the reference to Gone with the Wind —one shaped by beauty, nostalgia, and inheritance. Placed near Pindell’s memorial landscape, that fantasy becomes harder to sustain.
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