Center of Creation (Michael),

2019

As a 2018–19 Mary Mackall Gwinn Hodder Fellow in Visual Arts at Princeton, the artist Mario Moore set out to paint portraits of members of the University’s workforce, particularly Black men, who make up a significant proportion of its staff. Here he depicts Michael Moore (no relation), then a security officer at the Art Museum, holding the elevator door for visitors to the Museum’s former building, specifically its Kienbusch Galleries, here reimagined as installed with works by Black artists. Moore depicts a bronze Ife head, Charles White’s engraving of Frederick Douglass—the only work on display that is in the Museum’s collections—and a portrait by the artist Barkley Hendricks, among other works. With these references, the artist situates his own work within a long tradition of figurative work by African and African diasporic artists. At the same time, Moore offers a visual corrective to collecting and display practices, including Princeton’s, that have marginalized Black artists and subjects.

Comparative image: Charles White (1918–1979; born Chicago, IL; died Altadena, CA), Frederick Douglass, 1951. Princeton University Art Museum. Museum purchase, Kathleen Compton Sherrerd Fund for Acquisitions in American Art (2003-240).