English 1302

Affan Chowdhury

Hilary Dietz

English 1302

April 3, 2018

"Should Art That Infuriates Be Removed?"

Displaying a work of art in which the artist transmutes the suffering of one race for their own fun as well as profit is not acceptable to anyone who cares (Smith). This is in spite of the fact that the practice has been normalized for a long time. This is the message the author Roberta Smith communicates in her critic’s notebook letter in the New York Times. She goes on to quote Hanna Black’s open letter to the curators and staff of the Whitney biennial exhibition and museum in the United States. In her open letter published in the New York Times on 27th March 2018, Black is writing to the facility asking them to remove Dana Schultz’s painting “Open Casket” and recommending that the artistic work must be destroyed so that it is never entered into any market or museum in future. The painting Black is referring to is based on the images of the funeral of Emmett Till, an African American 14-year-old boy brutally lynched in 1955 after false accusations that he had flirted with a white woman in Mississippi. Schutz’s painting is a medium-sized canvas depicting till’s mutilated face and chest as he lies in his coffin. Skillfully, the author uses rhetorical devices such as appeals to, contrast, comparison, irony, and epiphany to create a convincing exposition about why it is utterly unacceptable for an artist to depict or profit from the very systems of racism that commodify the suffering of the black race.

Rhetorical Analysis

Hannah Black begins her open letter article with an introductory paragraph that appeals to the emotions of the readers through imagery. She describes how the painting portrays the dead body of a teenage boy, Till, in the open casket that his mother had chosen for people “to see what she had seen” (Black). By saying in the beginning that “that even the disfigured corpse of a child was not sufficient to move the white gaze from its habitual cold calculation…...” the author aims to stoke the feelings of her audience. In other words, her description of the paintings and the racial attitudes of the whites intends to persuade the target audience, specifically the black readers, through the use of deductive reasoning. In particular, she is appealing to their logic in respect to the painting.

In the second paragraph, Black uses irony to illustrate to her readers the difference or the contradicting nature of the artist’s intentions and the real intentions from the audience’s point of view. She argues that whereas Schutz’s intention in the painting may have been to present the embarrassment of the American white people for killing Emmett till despite his young age, the “shame is not correctly” depicted in the painting. Instead, the “painting of a dead boy by a white artist…” does not “highlight the shameful nature of white violence” on the black people because the white have been shown to treat black pain and suffering as a raw material.

Basically, imagery, irony and contradiction are effectively used to appeal to the readers’ mood in order to help them to relate to the occurrence of till’s murder. Moreover, they have been applied skillfully to communicate and explain the author’s main idea as well as offering substantial proof and support for the argument that capitalizing on other people’s suffering and or pain is unethical and should never be accepted. The author also uses anadiplosis style to stress her point. In this regard, she repeatedly uses the phrase “The painting must go” at the end of almost every paragraph to emphasize the need for the curators to remove it from the biennial exhibition.

The article uses emotionally-filled terms and phrases to appeal to pathos as they create the feelings of sympathy and frustration among the black race. Specifically, phrases like “Till was made available to Black people as an inspiration and warning” appeals to the readers’ empathy for the blacks who have faced endless injustices from the white majority in America. The author also appeals to logos by providing facts about the challenges faced by the African Americans in the hands of the European Americans. She explores the frequency of blacks’ persecution by the whites by saying that Black people go on dying at the hands of white supremacists, that Black communities go on living in desperate poverty not far from the museum where this valuable painting hangs, that Black children are still denied childhood (Smith). By using the paintings in her open letter, the author aids the reader in exploring the visual elements of line shape, tone, pattern and form of the composition of Schutz’s images. The visual elements are also used to convey different expressive qualities that stir up anxiety and emotions in the viewer.

Response

I agree with the author’s opinion that it is unacceptable for the white artists to use the pain and suffering of the black people for their own financial gains. As a matter of fact, it was an ill-conceived attempt by Schutz to behave as if he was justifying an atrocity. Allowing the painting to be included in the biennial Whitney’s exhibition is tantamount to perpetuating “the same kind of violence that was enacted on till” (Kennedy). In other words, this is akin to insinuating that black lives do not matter, a trend that has also been perpetuated by the non-black media in America and Europe. For example, images and footages of dying children or malnourished adults in the African continent have been widely shared in the Western media. Moreover, images of unarmed black men shot by white policemen have been flushed in the front pages or television screens of the American media. Thus, sharing images of black people in torment even at the point of death is unacceptable, as Black says. It is especially immoral and shameful when the same are used by the whites to make a name or profit for themselves at the expense of the blacks’ pain and distress (Kennedy).

Conclusion

Overall, the author has purposely used the rhetorical devices and techniques to make the target audience to take her arguments seriously. Largely, she has applied the techniques and devices in a planned manner that convinces both the addressed party at the biennial art museum as well as the black readers whose emotions she aims to appeal to. Specifically, rhetorical elements such as irony, imagery, contrast and others have not only helped the author in presenting her key views but also aided in presenting them in an authoritative manner that is fundamentally helpful to the readers.

Works Cited

Smith, Roberta. “Should Art That Infuriates Be Removed?” New York Times, 27 Mar. 2017. www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/arts/design/emmett-till-whitney-biennial- schutz.html?smid=tw-share . Accessed 30 Mar. 2018.

Kennedy, Randy. “White Artist’s Painting of Emmett Till at Whitney Biennial Draws Protests.” New York Times, 21 Mar. 2017. mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/arts/design/painting- of-emmett-at-whitney-biennial-draws-protests.html. Accessed 30 Mar. 2018.