Contending with Contingency III

2021

Not on view

The nine sheets of paper that make up this monumental drawing’s support are embossed with transcripts of the U.S. Senate’s 1864 debate around the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which eventually served to enshrine the abolition of slavery first augured by President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Over these impressed words, the artist drew the portrait of a choreographer in mid-movement, the dancer’s dynamic gesture captured in deep gray pencil. Where her body intersects with the text, the words are legible. For Davis, the congruence of poetry and the figure underscores how freedom itself can be bounded by law and language.

Artwork Details

Title: Contending with Contingency III
Artist: Kenturah Davis (American, born Los Angeles, 1984)
Date: 2021
Medium: Carbon pencil over debossed text with graphite on wove paper, in nine parts
Dimensions: 87 1/2 in. × 11 ft. 1/2 in. (222.3 × 336.6 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Purchase, Amy and John Griffin Gift, 2023
Object Number: 2023.141a–i
Rights and Reproduction: © 2021 Kenturah Davis
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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