My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation
1 of 6
Object Label
In 2016 Sadie Barnette’s family gained access to some five hundred pages of files that the F.B.I. kept on her father, Rodney Barnette, a postal worker and former Black Panther Party member. The chilling set of documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, confirmed their belief that Rodney had been under federal surveillance for decades, his movements and activities recorded in prosaic reports. Struck by this impersonal portrait of her father, Barnette enlarged the files and embellished each one with graphic splotches and bright washes of magenta spray paint. This gesture allows the artist to reclaim the F.B.I.’s reports and transport them into the world of the personal and the familial.
Caption
Sadie Barnette American, born 1984. My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation, Photographed 2017, printed 2018. Inkjet print, sheet: 22 × 17 in. (55.9 × 43.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Emily Winthrop Miles Fund and Alfred T. White Fund, 2018.11a-e. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2018.11a_PS9.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation
Date
Photographed 2017, printed 2018
Medium
Inkjet print
Classification
Dimensions
sheet: 22 × 17 in. (55.9 × 43.2 cm)
Signatures
Signed and dated by the artist
Credit Line
Emily Winthrop Miles Fund and Alfred T. White Fund
Accession Number
2018.11a-e
Rights
© artist or artist's estate
The Brooklyn Museum holds a non-exclusive license to reproduce images of this work of art from the rights holder named here. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org. If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.
Have information?
Have information about an artwork? Contact us at