Art and Authenticity in the Age of Fake News
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Michael B. Platt (1948-2019), Angela Davis at 15, 1987 |
Photoengraving, image: 23 3/4 × 17 5/8 in. (60.3 × 44.8 cm) |
Gift of Mary H. D. Swift and Family |
2018.26.18
Angela Davis at 15 is a photo engraving of the eponymous scholar and activist. In 1987, when Michael Platt made the work, Davis was in her early 40s, but the work claims to be a portrait of her in her youth. To make this work, Platt would have used an existing photograph, but he has clearly altered it. His treatment of the image renders the subject illegible and unidentifiable. Platt’s work thus visualizes the violence that Davis witnessed and experienced growing up in Birmingham, Alabama under Jim Crow. His work intercedes into popular perceptions of Davis, such as an FBI Wanted Poster that classified her as a threat to society. In 1970, the State of California charged, but later acquitted, Davis for involvement in the Marin County Courthouse Incident. Platt defaces a childhood image in order to posit racism—versus Davis—as the real threat to civil society.
Portfolio
(Click on the image below to launch a full-size slideshow)
Left: “The Radicalization of Angela Davis.” Ebony Magazine, July 1971. [Detail of Angela Davis as a 10-year-old girl scout in Birmingham, Alabama]. Right: “The Radicalization of Angela Davis.” Ebony Magazine, July 1971. [Detail of Angela Davis as a student at Goethe University, Frankfurt Germany.]
Jeremy Gray, “Horrific years of 'Bombingham' captured in vintage photos,”AL.com, May 18, 2019. [Left: Detail of Dynamite in the woods photograph originally published in The Birmingham News in 1966. Right: Detail of Monk House photograph originally published in The Birmingham News in 1950]
Angela Davis, An Open Letter to Black High School Students, March 23, 1971. Papers of Angela Y. Davis, 1937-2017, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Left: “The Radicalization of Angela Davis.” Ebony Magazine, July 1971. [Detail of Angela Davis as a 10-year-old girl scout in Birmingham, Alabama]. Right: “The Radicalization of Angela Davis.” Ebony Magazine, July 1971. [Detail of Angela Davis as a student at Goethe University, Frankfurt Germany.]