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Sadie Barnette (American, born 1984). <em>My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation</em>, 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)
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)
Sadie Barnette (American, born 1984). <em>My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation</em>, 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)

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)

Sadie Barnette (American, born 1984). <em>My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation</em>, 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, 2018.11b_PS9.jpg)

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, 2018.11b_PS9.jpg)

Sadie Barnette (American, born 1984). <em>My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation</em>, 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: Photo courtesy Fort Ganvesvoort, CUR.2018.11a-e_FortGanvesvoort_photograph.jpg)

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: Photo courtesy Fort Ganvesvoort, CUR.2018.11a-e_FortGanvesvoort_photograph.jpg)

Sadie Barnette (American, born 1984). <em>My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation</em>, 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, 2018.11c_PS9.jpg)

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, 2018.11c_PS9.jpg)

Sadie Barnette (American, born 1984). <em>My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation</em>, 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, 2018.11d_PS9.jpg)

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, 2018.11d_PS9.jpg)

Sadie Barnette (American, born 1984). <em>My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation</em>, 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, 2018.11e_PS9.jpg)

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, 2018.11e_PS9.jpg)

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My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation

Sadie Barnette

Contemporary Art

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.
ARTIST Sadie Barnette, American, born 1984
MEDIUM Inkjet print
DATES Photographed 2017, printed 2018
DIMENSIONS sheet: 22 × 17 in. (55.9 × 43.2 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Signed and dated by the artist
COLLECTIONS Contemporary Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 2018.11a-e
CREDIT LINE Emily Winthrop Miles Fund and Alfred T. White Fund
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Five inkjet prints
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
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)
EDITION Edition: 5/5
IMAGE component, 2018.11a_PS9.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2021
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT © Sadie Barnette
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.
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Sadie Barnette (American, born 1984). <em>My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation</em>, 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)

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