Stay Woke

© Mario Moore

Stay Woke

On view

Print and Drawings
Howard Mele Gallery

Stay Woke,

2018

Mario Moore, born 1987; born Detroit, MI; active Detroit
2019-331

Stay Woke is part of a larger group of works about recovery completed after I underwent brain surgery. It references the two-sided mental state that Black men face, needing to be constantly prepared even when taking time to recover from traumatic experiences. The poster above my head in the drawing is of the political activist Fred Hampton, who was chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party when he was assassinated in his Chicago apartment at the age of twenty-one on December 4, 1969, by the FBI and local police force. Fred Hampton was killed while he was sleeping. The figure of me lying down represents how unreasonably prepared Black men need to be at all times—so much so that I have on all of my clothes, a coat, and a gun at the ready.

Mario Moore

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More Context

Special Exhibition

More About This Object

In Conversation with Mario Moore and James Steward

Mario Moore's Stay Woke

Information

Title
Stay Woke
Dates

2018

Maker
Mario Moore
Medium
Silverpoint
Dimensions
91.4 × 134.6 cm (36 × 53 in.) frame: 96.5 × 140.3 × 4.4 cm (38 × 55 1/4 × 1 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Felton Gibbons Fund
Object Number
2019-331
Place Made

North America, United States, Michigan, Detroit

Culture
American
Type
drawings
Materials
silverpoint drawings, prepared paper
Techniques
silverpoint (technique)
Subject
self-portraits, beds (furniture)

[David Klein Gallery, Detroit, MI]; purchased by the Princeton University Art Museum, 2019.

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