ELYSE GRIECO
Life & Arts Editor
Fredonia’s Visiting Artist Program presented guest speaker Dread Scott this past Thursday, Feb. 28.
Scott is an award winning artist who some may call reckless, but others call revolutionary.
In 1998, while he was still a college student, Scott’s work titled “What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?” had America talking.
This installation used audience interaction to enhance the viewers experience while observing it.
This artwork consisted of a montage of pictures of South Korean students burning the American flag and flag-draped coffins of fallen soldiers hanging on a wall.
Below the picture was a book filled with blank pages where the audience was allowed to record their answer to the question asked, “What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. flag?”
In front of this book and picture was an American flag laying flat on the ground.
Scott offered his audience the ability to step on the flag while sharing their answers.
The installation soon became a nationwide controversy. President Bush Sr. even deemed it “disgraceful.”
However, this outcome was not Scott’s full intention.
“To both be able to have this work and have it be able to talk back to people telling you the way the world was, when that’s not really how it was, was great,” said Scott. “But it was completely unexpected, and even though I thought that art could matter, until that point I sort of thought it had to be a movie or music because I knew that that reached thousands to millions of people.”
Since then, Scott’s art has challenged the ideas and beliefs behind the U.S. government and society.
According to his mission statement as an artist located on his website, “I make revolutionary art to propel history forward. I look towards an era without exploitation or oppression. I don’t accept the political structures, economic foundation, social relations and governing ideas of America.”
Scott’s work, as well as several other unorthodox minority artists, is currently featured in the traveling exhibit, “Artists as Innovators: Celebrating Three Decades of New York State Council on the Arts/New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships” on display at the Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery.
Scott’s featured work in the gallery is called “Money to Burn.”
This piece of performance art questions the idea and structure of Wall Street.
“Wall Street has the situation where people at the push of a button can move billions of dollars from one continent to another continent, which can cause tremendous harm,” Scott said. “There’s always seeking the highest profit, but his has tremendous consequences for ordinary people all over the world. This is a country that fetishsized wealth and money … but a world that creates billionaires on one end and extreme poverty on the other, that’s intolerable.”
In 2010, Scott occupied Wall Street, walking up and down the sidewalk singing, “Money to Burn” and asking pedestrians if they had any money they would like to burn as well.
The performance started with $250 that Scott burned, one bill at a time.
Only about 25 minutes after starting, Scott was stopped by the police and ticketed for disorderly conduct.
He used this to signify the idea that burning money is viewed as crazy, yet there is a market that burns other people’s money every day.
Scott is currently working on a new project, “Slave Rebellion Reenactment.”
This performance will restage the biggest slave revolt in American history, the 1811 German Coast Uprising. The revolt took place in the Territory of Orleans, which is modern-day Louisiana.
The staging will include 500 black actors dressed in historically accurate clothing representing slaves.
Re-enactors will march 26 miles over a two day span on the land right outside New Orleans where the original revolt took place.
The intentions of the revolt were to seize this territory and establish a republic.
“That fact that there are no slave revolts in America widely known is a tragedy,” said Scott. “You can’t understand American history if you can’t understand slavery. You can’t understand slavery if you can’t understand slave revolts.”
“Slave Rebellion Reenactment” will take place on Nov. 9-10, 2019.
“Money to Burn,” as well as the rest of the work featured in “Artists as Innovators,” will be on display at the Marion Art Gallery from now until March 10.
For gallery hours, visit fredonia.edu/about/art-gallery.
For more information on Dread Scott and his specific works, please visit his website at dreadscott.net.