Dana Schutz's Emmitt Till
Introduction
A canvas by Dana Schutz ‘Emmitt Till’ received numerous criticism due its perceived racial insensitivity (Siegel, and Jörg, 2006, 118). The canvas displays the disfigured face of Emmett Till, a 14 year old boy viciously killed in 1955 after he was dishonestly accused of seducing a white woman. The artist belonging to the black art community did not take the painting lightly and accused Dana Schutz of using black suffering as a means of making profit. This essay looks into all the issues revolving around the framework of the painting using Discourse Analysis I and II.
Analysis
According to Rose, (2016,135), specific psychoanalytic approaches to pictorial images suggest that some mechanisms of psychoanalysis does not focus on the impact a writer or in this particular case an artist makes on certain group of people in the community or the social structure variances existing within communities. This argument exists due to two aspects: first of all, psychoanalysis can fail to cover all kinds of social variances, for example, race, and economic class. Secondly, some psychoanalysis mechanisms pay attention to psychic, social construction and the resulting outcomes from the differing variances between the two aspects. Conversely, the same concept applies to the Dana Schutz painting. From a psychoanalysis perspective, a critic can miss the mark while addressing the pertinent issues surrounding the painting. In addition, Discourse of the painting would only capture the author’s meaning while assuming the society’s interpretation of the meaning of the painting. Therefore, psychoanalysis cannot capture thoughts and underlying meaning at ago. Simply put, an artist work can fail to capture discourse by applying some methods of mechanisms of application.
In terms of intertextuality, the painting fails to capture public discourse consequently intertextuality falls out of place. As stated earlier, the artist depicted an image of Emmitt Till whose death was as a result of racism. Therefore, the artist ignored the background context the image carried and its influence on the actual painting. Hence, the meaning of the image in relation to racism and police brutality failed (Rose, 2016, 136) to create a persistence theme. For this reasons the image received criticism from various black American community members. It is vital to note that intertextuality comes into place after an image carries the same meaning regarding other images.
Looking closely at the image by Dana Schutz, ‘Emmitt Till’, it is hard defending it from the scathing attacks of other artists. The artist was insensitive while creating the image. Since time immemorial, black Americans experienced various forms of police brutality accompanied with racial discrimination and mistreatment from the some members of the white community. After missing the discourse and intertextuality, the artist failed in generating power using discourse (Rose, 2016, 137). Power fuels influence and influence has the potential of making the image relevant for a long time to come. Discourse has the ability of generating curiosity and push discussions and issues pertaining an image. Thus, the lack of discourse led to the image lacking power to change or influence and later have a mark in history.
In summary, the painting was an insensitive and inconsiderate of the black community it failed to capture attention and display the thoughts of people through discourse. Dana Schutz failed to capture her intention and nobody seems to care about her point of view. Therefore, the art did not gain any traction from any section of the community.
Reference
Rose, Gillian. Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials. sage, 2016.
Siegel, Katy, and Jörg Heiser. Dana Schutz: Paintings 2002-2005. Rose art museum, 2006.
