SLA Group Shot #1

During the 1980s and 1990s, Cady Noland created an incisive body of work that looked critically at American culture, particularly histories of violence, conspiracy, and what has been described as the dark side of the American dream. Her installations have included stockades, wire fencing installed like Minimalist sculpture, and wire baskets filled with found objects that register as both Americana and detritus to be discarded. Silkscreened aluminum panels, such as this one, depict images sourced from newspapers and archives. Here, Noland examines the legacy of Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). In 1974, Hearst, the granddaughter of the American publisher William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped by the SLA—a far left militant organization—and coerced into participating in violent crimes including an infamous bank robbery. The work shows Hearst with members of the SLA in a group portrait that encapsulates an episode in American history, commingling a popular fascination with fame and wealth with the cultural cataclysms of the 1960s and 70s and crystallizing Noland’s preoccupation with breaking down the façade of American exceptionalism.