Vision and Justice: The Art of Citizenship

, University Teaching Gallery, Harvard Art Museums
  • Faculty Tea
  • Blow for Blow
  • In the Swamp
  • Study for
  • Study for
  • Study for
  • The Christmas Week
  • Study for
  • Study for
  • Untitled (During the Freedom march that Martin Luther King led from Selma to Montgomery, organized to show support for a drive to register black voters. Voting registration held in the former gallows, near Selma, Alabama)
  • African/American
  • Condition Report
  • Ran Away, a man named Glenn. He has almost no hair...
  • Untitled, Phoenix, Arizona, 1963
  • Untitled (arrest of a demonstrator, Birmingham, Alabama)
  • Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay)
  • Condition Report
  • Victory!
  • Make Way for Liberty!
  • The Lash
  • Study for
  • The Parting -
  • He Died for Me!
  • Study for
  • Races, Negroes: United States: Extent of the Negro Problem. Social Conditions, United States Census of 1900. Composition and Distribution of Population
  • Sharecropper with His Cotton Sample, Discusses Price with Cotton Broker, near Clarksdale, Mississippi
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., Montgomery, Alabama
  • Is
  • The Sale
  • In the Cotton Field
  • Study for
  • Stand up a Man!
  • Study for
  • Study for
  • Free!
  • Negro using outside colored stairway to enter movie theatre, Belzoni, Missisissippi
  • The March From Selma to Montgomery
  • Washington, D. C. Government Charwoman
  • Kitchen of a Farm Security Administrator's Tenant Purchase Client
  • Memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr., Central Park, New York
  • Sea Garden, Bahamas
  • Ran Away, Glenn. Medium height, 5'8
University Teaching Gallery, Harvard Art Museums

This University Teaching Gallery installation examines the contested relationship between art, justice, and African American culture from the 19th through 21st century in the United States. The over 40 works on display range from prints by Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon that challenge the nexus between vision and justice during slavery to photographs by Bruce Davidson and Gordon Parks that synoptically summarize events from the segregation era through the civil rights movement.

This installation complements a course taught by Sarah Lewis, Assistant Professor in the Departments of History of Art and Architecture and African and African American Studies, Harvard University, and is the conceptual companion to the recent “Vision & Justice” issue of Aperture magazine, guest edited by Lewis.

The University Teaching Gallery serves faculty and students affiliated with Harvard’s Department of History of Art and Architecture. Semester-long installations are mounted in conjunction with undergraduate and graduate courses, supporting instruction in the critical analysis of art.

The installation is made possible in part by funding from the Gurel Student Exhibition Fund and the José Soriano Fund. Modern and contemporary art programs at the Harvard Art Museums are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.

Related Articles 1

A Conversation with Sarah Lewis

 We spoke with Sarah Lewis, assistant professor in the Departments of History of Art and Architecture and African and African American Studies, about her University Teaching Gallery installation Vision and Justice: The Art of Citizenship.