<I>I Can't Breathe (Water Table)</I>
date: label: Date
content: 2018
name: label: Created by
content: Torkwase Dyson, American, born 1973
label: Subject of
content: Henry Box Brown, American, 1815 - 1897
notes: label: Caption
content: Torkwase Dyson’s work is informed by geometry, architecture, and abstraction. She is known for creating art that explores how people of color have, and continue to negotiate, spatial order. I Can’t Breathe refers to the phrase desperately uttered 11 times by Eric Garner while held in a prohibited chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo until Garner fell unconscious and eventually died. Even though the incident was captured on video and officially deemed a homicide, Pantaleo was not indicted.
label: Caption
content: Part of Dyson’s Water Table series, I Can’t Breathe was exhibited in her 2018 solo exhibition, Dear Henry. The exhibition was created as a visually symbolic letter/homage to Henry “Box” Brown, an enslaved African American who escaped to freedom by shipping himself to Philadelphia in 1849.
label: Description
content: An acrylic painting on cotton canvas with a grey background. Centrally depicted three distinct shapes created with various brushstrokes. On each side of the canvas is a bright cloudy white cube. Bright and wide brushstrokes of red and white impasto feature strongly at the top middle and right of the canvas, while the same white and red impasto features minimally at the top and bottom of the canvas. The painting was executed primarily in thin, horizontal washes, which resulted in the layering of numerous vertical drips. Occasional passages of thick impasto are present throughout.
place: label: Place made
content: New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
topic: label: Topic
content: African American
label: Topic
content: Abstraction
label: Topic
content: Architecture
label: Topic
content: Art
label: Topic
content: Fugitive enslaved
label: Topic
content: Self-liberation
label: Topic
content: Transportation
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
label: Portfolio/Series
content: Water Table
label: Classification
content: Visual Arts
label: Exhibition
content: Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience.
label: On View
content: NMAAHC (1400 Constitution Ave NW), National Mall Location, Culture/Fourth Floor, 4 052
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Object number
content: 2018.77
objectType: label: Type
content: paintings
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: Courtesy of the Artist and Davidson Gallery, © Torkwase Dyson
label: Restrictions & Rights
content: Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: acrylic paint on canvas with wood and wire
label: Dimensions
content: H x W x D: 96 × 72 × 2 in. (243.8 × 182.9 × 5.1 cm)