Whites for Sale

2022 - NFT (NFT)

Dread Scott


In conjunction with his first NFT sale of White Male Dread Scott made and circulated a poster titled Whites For Sale . The indigo-colored poster advertises a “cargo” of newly arrived white slaves, from which one will be for sale. This work is adapted from a 1796 slave sale announcement poster that is now archived in the library at Columbia University, NYC. Remaining true to the format, design, and phrasing of the original document, the artist only altered the wording to offer “Prime, Healthy Whites” instead of “Negroes”. Using imaging-software, the work conceptually and materially color-inverts the original document—black becomes white, yellowed paper becomes a dark indigo. The use of the color indigo for this work is significant insofar as indigo cultivation and processing was brought to the United States by enslaved Africans. By the 1700s the profits from indigo sales far exceeded other common industries such as cotton and sugar, and subsequently, indigo dyed textiles became a form of currency traded in exchange for slaves.


Dread Scott is an interdisciplinary artist who for three decades has made work that encourages viewers to re-examine cohering ideals of American society. His interdisciplinary practice employs symbolic and visual forms to instigate, rile, and provoke social transformation. He works in a range of media including performance, photography, installation, screen-printing and video. In 1989, the US Senate outlawed his artwork and President Bush declared it “disgraceful” because of its transgressive use of the American flag. Dread became part of a landmark Supreme Court case when he and others burned flags on the steps of the Capitol. He has presented a TED talk on this subject. A skilled public speaker, Scott often unflinchingly calls out tense political issues rather than aesthetic ones. He uses the name Dread Scott firstly to call up the presence of history, for Dread Scott was a slave, sued for his freedom, and his case was a landmark Supreme Court decision. Secondly, Scott uses the name to obfuscate his identity, creating a protective barrier between his personal life and artistic persona.


Colors:



Related works sharing similar palette

Taiwan WMD - Uranium
© » KADIST

James T. Hong

2012

Taiwan WMD (Taiwan and Weapons of Mass Destruction) is part of a long-term research started in early 2010 on the history and aftermath effects of Japanese biological and chemical warfare in China during WWII, as well as the unknown history of Taiwan’s nuclear program...

Top 5 Art Fairs to see during Art Basel Miami Beach 2023.
© » FAD MAGAZINE

Top 5 Art Fairs to see during Art Basel Miami Beach 2023...

Freehand artist Mr Doodle comes to Hong Kong on mission to ‘doodle the world’: Briton’s work on show at K11 Musea and Pearl Lam Galleries
© » SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Freehand artist Mr Doodle comes to Hong Kong on mission to ‘doodle the world’: Briton’s work on show at K11 Musea and Pearl Lam Galleries | South China Morning Post Advertisement Advertisement Art + FOLLOW Get more with my NEWS A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you Learn more British artist Sam Cox, better known as Mr Doodle, draws on a model spaceship at Hong Kong MTR station in Central, Hong Kong on November 19...

Better Lives: Francois Bangurambona
© » KADIST

Sue Williamson

2003

In her 2003 series “Better Lives”, Sue Williamson explores stories of immigrants in search of a better life in a historically contentious South Africa...

Artur Zmijewski
© » KADIST

Screening of the film “Them / Sie” (2007) Followed by a conversation with Pierre Bal-Blanc, Director of CAC Bretigny, which will adress the artist’s text “Applied Social Arts” published in 2007 in the journal Krytyka Poltyczna (Political critique)...

Days of Future Passed
© » LENS CULTURE

Days of Future Passed - Photographs by Florence Iff | Text by Marigold Warner | LensCulture Feature Days of Future Passed Collecting photos from her daily life, the Internet, newspapers, and free image libraries, Swiss photographer Florence Iff amalgamates vast webs of organisms, structures, and scenes into a portrait of a planet in crisis...

New York: Ways of Reading, Symposium
© » KADIST

Participants include American Artist (artist); Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (data-visualization, data analysis, and storytelling collective); Jérôme Bel (choreographer); James Bridle (writer, artist, and technologist); Kate Crawford (Distinguished Research Professor at NYU); Martha Kenney (Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies at San Francisco State University); Laura Kurgan (Professor of Architecture at GSAPP, and Director, Center for Spatial Research, Columbia University); Trevor Paglen (artist and researcher); Gala Porras-Kim (artist); Kameelah Janan Rasheed (artist and learner); Steve Rowell (artist); Davide-Christelle Sanvee (performance artist); and Andros Zins-Browne (choreographer)...

Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Protests over Marcos-sponsored play; the Spaniard in Singapore films
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Protests over Marcos-sponsored play; the Spaniard in Singapore films | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar The Star/Azhar Mahfof September 11, 2019 ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Radar features articles and posts about arts and culture in Southeast Asia, drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region...

Same Old Crowd
© » KADIST

Li Ran

2016

The four-channel video installation Same Old Crowd departs from the documentation of an unknown city and takes place in an ambiguous temporal and spatial frame...

Back images
© » KADIST

Sarah Lai Cheuk Wah

2015

Back images is a series of six photographs by Sarah Lei Cheuk Wah that explore the semiotics of power and their intersection with representations of masculinity...

The Mythical Art of Curiot Tlalpazotl
© » HIGH FRUCTOSE

Mexico City artist Curiot Tlalpazotl's mythical creations call upon cultural iconography and traditional craftmaking...

Aquaphobia
© » KADIST

Jakob Kudsk Steensen

2018

The virtual reality work Aquaphobia by Jakob Kudsk Steensen examines it’s title subject matter – the fear of water...

What remains is future
© » KADIST

Laurent Montaron

2006

This film refers directly and fictionally to one of the first media dramas: the burning of the Zeppelin aircraft LZ 129 Hindenburg as it landed in New York in 1937...

How UCCA Center For Contemporary Art's Expansion Project Is Bringing New Life To Shanghai's Art Scene - via Hong Kong Tatler
© » LARRY'S LIST

For years the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art has been at the forefront of the art scene in Beijing—now it’s expanding beyond the capital....

Dislocations — Exposition collective
© » SLASH PARIS

Dislocations — Exposition collective — Palais de Tokyo — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Dislocations — Exposition collective — Palais de Tokyo — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Previous Next Dislocations — Exposition collective Exhibition Mixed media Upcoming Sara Kontar, Série Towards a Light, cyanotype, dimensions variables, 2021-2022 Courtesy de l’artiste Dislocations Exposition collective In 4 days: February 16 → June 30, 2024 At a time when international geopolitical developments are a palimpsest of times and spaces in crisis, The “Dislocations” exhibition brings together fifteen artists from different generations and backgrounds (Afghanistan, France, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Myanmar, Palestine, Syria and Ukraine) whose work is marked or informed by the experience of exile, of being torn between here and there, between past and present...

Beau Soleil #7
© » KADIST

Stephen Beal

2010

Beau Soleil #7 ’s title (translated as Beautiful Sun) gives a good sense of its effect...

Fireflies
© » KADIST

Fiamma Montezemolo

2011

Montemozolo writes of the work: “ Fireflies is the result of a sudden event—and its transformation/translation into an art work—that erupts within a life, altering its flow, suspending it, creating a momentary intensity and deviation of the flow, channeling it somewhere unexpected...