Seeing the Story: Visual Art and the Racialization of Crime

Abstract

Political black art, producing dynamic conceptual art, has a significant amount to offer in the way visual artists view the world of white oppression. However, much of what we know about visual black art remains locked away in galleries, museums, and archives. Black visual art provides an embodied space that moves beyond words, notes, and movement that demands the observer stands still, observe, and processes the observed. An interrogation of black visual art in relation to the racialization of crime and criminal justice therefore becomes important here.