Untitled (Cotton Pickers)
May one see it?
Not receiving at present
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
In Untitled (Cotton Pickers), Rico Gatson creates a foundational image based on a historical black-and-white photograph of enslaved field workers harvesting cotton, which he then repeated, rotated, and distorted. The background imagery is overlaid with an array of bright “spotlights” in green, red, yellow, orange, and black, colors associated with Pan African emblems and ideology. By obscuring portions of the underlying imagery with geometric shapes, Gatson pushes the viewer to look more closely at the background details and activity, encouraging a deliberative consideration of the people and events of our past.
Read on
Gatson studied fine art and graphic design in college, which prompted him to experiment with the formal simplicity of minimalism. His regular use of brilliant color and simplified geometric representations in his work speaks to his use of an abstract visual language inspired in part by African American traditions of optical patterning. “There’s a fast and slow thing that occurs within the work, ” notes Gatson. “The pattern and color are spatially active to the point that I hope the loudness produces a focus that slows the viewer down.”
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Particulars
- Accession number
- 2021.105.3
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — Copyright © Rico Gatson, published by Highpoint Editions
