Untitled: Remembrance of Things Present

Inscriptions

Signed, in charcoal, on reverse, upper right: Enrico Riley 2017; inscribed, in charcoal, on reverse, top left edge: UNtitlED: REMEMbrANCE of THiNgS PrESENt", 2017

Label

In this image of a mother mourning the death of her son, Enrico Riley provides a contemporary Pietá that calls to mind Mary's grief after the death of Christ. The modern-day Christ figures lies supine on an examination table with only his feet exposed. This painting simultaneously engages the religious sentiment of sacrifice and the social cost of police brutality. Riley signals the latter through the motif of three clubs, which appears in some of his other works. Here is associates the murder and abuse of black bodies with the injustice of the crucifixion. Through his work, Riley portrays the black body as an infinite recepter of dehumanization and violence. Riley is an alumnus of Dartmouth College and a professor in Dartmouth's Studio Art Department.

From the 2019 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 97, Black Bodies on the Cross, curated by Victoria McCraven '19, Homma Family Intern

Course History

SART 15.01, Drawing I, Colleen Randall, Spring 2020

ANTH 50.17, Rites of Passage, Sienna Craig, Spring 2020

ANTH 50.17, Rites of Passage, Sienna Craig, Spring 2020

AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021

ANTH 73.01, Main Currents in Anthropology, Sienna Craig, Winter 2022

GEOG 72.01/AAAS 67.50/WGSS 66.09, Black Consciousness Black Feminism, Abby Neely, Spring 2022

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 97, Black Bodies on the Cross, Victoria McCraven, Class of 2019, Homma Family Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 9, 2019-January 4, 2020.

Publication History

Victoria McCraven, A Space for Dialogue 97, Black Bodies on the Cross, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2020.

Provenance

Fred Giampietro Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut; sold to present collection, 2019.

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Subjects