“Artist/Activist: Speaking Truth to Power” exhibit

The Kruizenga Art Museum’s current exhibit, titled “Artist/Activist: Speaking Truth to Power”, features a large and diverse collection of art pieces. These are specifically focused on giving light to critical social and political issues around the world. The phrase “speaking truth to power” was popularized during the American Civil Rights movement. While originally meant to encourage people to use their voice – to speak – and stand up for what is right, it has expanded to include the use of other media including visual art. The spotlighted artists have all used their “voices,” in the form of oil paintings, photographs or woodcuts to speak out about racial violence, climate change, war, the genocide of Indigenous people and more societal concerns. 

A major example of speaking truth to power through the medium of visual art is the group “Guerrilla Girls”, which is an anonymous group of female artists founded in 1985 for the explicit purpose of “exposing gender and racial discrimination in the art world”. Their piece in this exhibit, “The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist”, is a list of major inequalities within the art world including pay discrepancy, lack of recognition and stigmatization, which are all presented as a deeply sarcastic list of “advantages”. By beginning with the appearance of gratitude, the artist(s) let the viewer fill in the stereotype of these women as grateful, demure and obliged to the consideration of the viewers. Soon, however, one starts to understand the sarcasm, and the dramatic shift from first impression to last impression works powerfully to communicate an equally dramatic shift the Guerrilla Girls are looking for in female art. Their stand against discrimination is just one of many by artists across time as they use their platforms for issues close to their hearts.   

Artist Milton Derr, in his ink and wash on paper work “Missippi,” cries out against the murder of three Civil Rights activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner by the Klu Klux Klan in 1964. Created the following year, Derr’s artwork communicates despair and tragedy through dark ink, representing their ignominious burial and the brown skin that was their only sin. The bodies are twisted and covered in dark lines – the viewer can see their bondage, both physical and symbolic, and the agony in every strange contortion. Derr intended to make the viewer uncomfortable – horrified, even, because he saw a world in which too few people were moved, and realized his voice as a powerful one in communicating these raw emotions to the larger world. 

With similar grief and plenty of satire, Wendy Red Star’s photograph “The Last Thanks” challenges the stereotypical Thanksgiving scene. Red Star herself sits in the center dressed in traditional Crow ceremonial attire, flanked on both sides by cheap plastic skeletons crowned with dollar-store facsimiles of Indigenous headdresses, stand-ins for the millions of Indigenous people killed by White violence or disease since the arrival of White settlers. The arrangement of the setup is reminiscent of “The Last Supper,” emphasizing the role that evangelical colonization played in the destruction of Indigenous culture. The viewer can see a representation of the way this treatment has created widespread poverty in Indigenous communities in their poor Thanksgiving spread: bologna, margarine and white bread. As a satirization of a celebration of White survival, the photograph is a striking reminder of the steep cost of colonization and its lasting effects, created and shared by Red Star with careful intention. 

“Speaking Truth to Power” is a moving collection of pieces curated by the Kruizenga Art Museum not only to spread awareness of the subjects but also to inspire. Walking through the exhibit conveys a sense of human care and dedication to justice. Through the diversity of issues and media, visitors will begin to understand that everyone has a voice, whether literal or through a pen and paintbrush. However you decide, there is a voice within every person – a formidable tool that can and will speak truth to power. 

(Featured image credit: Evie Austin)