- Gallery Text
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Based in San Francisco, Ewing focuses on the intersections of body, memory, and place. The quotation in this print—“My country needs me, and if I were not here I would have to be invented”—comes from a ground-shaking essay by Black feminist literary critic Hortense Spillers. Ewing splices Spillers’s words literally and visually, performing the very action of the original declaration. Further, the inter-connected images between the clauses rely on each other in order to exist: the horizontal gray and blue lines intersect with and fill in the gaps in the Black face at center, and the splintered face completes the horizontal lines. The shared color of the letters (text) and face (image) suggests a relationship between self and utterance. The face itself is fractured, evoking the fragmented nature of imagination and dreamwork. What’s more, the lines allude to but do not reflect outright the American flag. Together, the interlocking images make a larger statement on identity and disruption in the country’s racial landscape.
- Identification and Creation
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- Object Number
- 2018.33.8
- People
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Rodney Ewing
- Title
- My Country Needs Me
- Classification
- Prints
- Work Type
- Date
- 1996
- Culture
- American
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/361187
- Physical Descriptions
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- Medium
- Offset lithograph on white wove paper
- Technique
- Offset print
- Dimensions
- 54.6 × 76.2 cm (21 1/2 × 30 in.)
- Inscriptions and Marks
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- Signed: l.r. in graphite: Rodney Ewing 96
- Provenance
- Rodney Ewing, created 1996; [Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia, PA], sold; to the Harvard Art Museums, 2018.
- State, Edition, Standard Reference Number
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- Edition
- 24/80
- Acquisition and Rights
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- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Margaret Fisher Fund
- Copyright
- © Rodney Ewing
- Accession Year
- 2018
- Object Number
- 2018.33.8
- Division
- Modern and Contemporary Art
- Contact
- am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
- The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
- Exhibition History
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This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu