<I>Psychological Redlining (13 Studies)</I>
date: label: Date
content: 2020
name: label: Created by
content: Rashaun Rucker, American, born 1978
notes: label: Caption
content: Rashaun Rucker is best known for his work dealing with Black male identity and social conditioning. In his Psychological Redlining series, he merges portraits of African American men with images of rock pigeons. Rock pigeons are generally viewed as urban, unclean nuisances. Rucker asserts that people perceive Black men much the same way—essentially pigeonholing them psychologically into a space where they don’t belong. The red cages framing each portrait relates to redlining, a systemic real estate policy demarcating communities of color by red lines on a map to limit access to home loans, insurance, and even grocery stores. Rucker says he created these images to “communicate why we as Black men often don’t fly, even though we have the ability to go far and beyond our circumstance.”
label: Description
content: This is a mixed media portrait of a man with a pigeon beak and feathers in place of a mouth and nose. The portrait is framed within a red frame in the shape of a birdcage. The graphite portrait shows the man from the neck up. His face is in three-quarter profile. He is bald. The feathers on his face begin just below his eyes, above his chin, and along his cheeks surrounding his mouth. The feathers culminate in a large beak bird beak proportionate to his face, complete with a nasal cere at the base. The portrait is enclosed in a frame of red paint in the shape of a birdcage. A thin red line is used to create a domed “cage” around the portrait head. There is a thick red bar directly below the head to create the bottom of the birdcage. The red bar has seven small square notches cut out of the bottom margin. The rounded top of the birdcage has several links of red chain leading towards the top margin of the page. The artist's signature "Ruck" appears along the man's neck.
place: label: Place made
content: Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, United States, North and Central America
topic: label: Topic
content: African American
label: Topic
content: Art
label: Topic
content: Identity
label: Topic
content: Men
label: Topic
content: Mental health
label: Topic
content: Race discrimination
label: Topic
content: Stereotypes
label: Topic
content: Urban life
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
label: Portfolio/Series
content: Psychological Redlining (13 Studies)
label: Classification
content: Visual Arts
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Partial gift of Arthur Primas and Jumaane E. N’Namdi and museum purchase.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Object number
content: 2023.107.6
objectType: label: Type
content: multimedia works
label: Type
content: portraits
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: © Rashaun Rucker
label: Restrictions & Rights
content: Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: graphite and paint on paper
label: Dimensions
content: H x W x D (frame): 32 1/8 × 26 × 2 3/8 in. (81.6 × 66 × 6 cm)
label: Dimensions
content: H x W (work): 23 3/4 × 18 in. (60.3 × 45.7 cm)