Sing-Along American History: War and Race
Joyce Kozloff
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
This powerful commentary on the history of war and race in America is from a series of nine mixed-media collages that the artist Joyce Kozloff calls “a kind of personal, quirky history of America.” The current invasion of Iraq was the emotional catalyst for this work, which portrays a trail of geopolitical conflicts. This piece, the fifth in the series, is composed of appropriated imagery, including musical notes and song lyrics taken from 1920s game boards given to the artist by her mother. It depicts laboring slaves as well as Civil War soldiers, languid antebellum women, cotton fields, steamships, trains, churches, and other period structures. Words from slave songs and Bible hymns, and texts about “The War of Independence,” the Mason and Dixon Line, and Gettysburg are dispersed throughout the work.
MEDIUM
Mixed media collage
DATES
2004
DIMENSIONS
32 3/4 x 47 5/8 in. (83.2 x 121 cm) (show scale)
COLLECTIONS
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
2006.71
CREDIT LINE
Gift of Rudolph DeMasi, by exchange
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION
Etching, collage, watercolor, pigment print, acrylic, and color pencil on paper
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Joyce Kozloff (American, born 1942). Sing-Along American History: War and Race, 2004. Mixed media collage, 32 3/4 x 47 5/8 in. (83.2 x 121 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Rudolph DeMasi, by exchange, 2006.71. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2006.71_PS20.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 2006.71_PS20.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2023
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RIGHTS STATEMENT
© Joyce Kozloff
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