{"id":490979,"date":"2026-10-10T01:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T01:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/490979\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T01:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T01:04:11","slug":"dread-scott-imagines-a-world-without-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/490979\/","title":{"rendered":"Dread Scott Imagines a World Without America"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, \u2018The Body Politic\u2019 demonstrates the inherent power of art.<\/p>\n

Oct 9, 2026<\/p>\n

Updated 4:45 pm PT<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/p>\n

Dread Scott, ‘Obliterated Power (Pentagon),’ 2022; Screen print, archival inkjet print.\u00a0(Courtesy the artist and YBCAurtesy the artist and YBCA)<\/p>\n

When I stepped inside Brooklyn-based artist Dread Scott\u2019s latest exhibition at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts<\/a>, I was terrified.<\/p>\n

A man in military fatigues armed with an M4 carbine loomed in the corner, guarding an American flag hanging from a short flagpole. When I approached the man, he jerked to life and admonished me, \u201cHalt, stand back from the perimeter. I\u2019m defending the flag. The flag of the U.S. must be respected at all times.\u201d It wasn\u2019t clear when or how I had crossed some invisible boundary, only that he had the power to decide. Artists push back against state power all the time \u2014 but it isn\u2019t every day that that role is reversed inside an art gallery.<\/p>\n

Defending the Flag is a new commission for the YBCA show The Body Politic<\/a>, and it\u2019s in direct dialogue with the artwork that put Scott on the map nearly 40 years ago, while he was still a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dread Scott, Installation view of \u2018The Body Politic\u2019 with \u2018Defending the Flag\u2019 at right.\u00a0(Matthew Millman Photography)<\/p>\n

The 1988 installation What Is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag?<\/a> consisted of a flag that viewers could step on while writing their reflections of the experience in a guestbook, below a photomontage of the flag desecration. Vietnam veterans, calling themselves \u201cdefenders of the flag,\u201d called for Scott\u2019s death. President George Bush Sr. called the piece \u201cdisgraceful\u201d and Congress outlawed the work. Then, in 1989, Scott was arrested for burning a U.S. flag on the steps of the Capitol for a photography project, which led to a landmark decision<\/a>, confirming citizens\u2019 rights to desecrate the flag under the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

In a 2018 TED Talk<\/a> detailing the experience, Scott stated that he does not \u201caccept the economic foundation, the social relations or the governing ideas of America.\u201d That holds true today, he tells KQED, but adds that, \u201cLong-term, I look forward to a day when people have gotten beyond America \u2014 including the foundation of capitalism America rests on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first piece visitors to The Body Politic encounter hangs both outside YBCA as a vinyl banner and outside the exhibition\u2019s main gallery. It visualizes this fantasy of a decentered United States. The 2025 screen print shows a black and green world map with America moved to the margins, overlaid with the phrase \u201cimagine a world without America,\u201d which also serves as the work\u2019s title.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dread Scott, \u2018Imagine a World Without America (Green Land),\u2019 2025; Screen print on canvas.\u00a0(Courtesy the artist and YBCA)<\/p>\n

A similarly straightforward 2022 triptych of altered photographs titled Obliterated Power shows the Capitol, Pentagon and Supreme Court buildings \u2014 three major sites of governmental power in the United States \u2014 erased by black ink, manifesting, on a national level, Scott\u2019s ideal of a vanquished America. For now, we can only imagine such erasure. As long as America persists, the power of the state is enacted on the bodies of its citizens \u2014 and non-citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is becoming fascist and nationalist,\u201d Scott says, \u201cand who is and who is not an American can determine if you live or die. Those who can\u2019t claim citizenship basically have no rights whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bodies take center stage in the rest of the show, which consists of several of Scott\u2019s ghostly sepia body prints, at once detailed and abstract, but no less direct in their messaging. In Fight the Power and Hands Up, both 2023, clusters of hands take on different meanings: fists clench in gestures of revolution, fingers spread in pleading. The diptych Mugshot (2023) features Scott posed in profile and face-forward, holding an identification card typical of an arrest photo.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dread Scott.\u00a0(Matthew Millman Photography)<\/p>\n

The method of body printing Scott uses was pioneered, along with Yves Klein and Jasper Johns, by David Hammons<\/a> in the 1960s and 70s, who used it to make similarly politically charged work around issues of the Civil Rights movement. By repeating the motif today, Scott draws a clear parallel between the urgencies of that era and current American political pressures, reminding viewers that the struggle for liberation continues.<\/p>\n

The largest work on view, another commission for the show, is Life\/Death\/America, a roughly 14-by-35-foot piece. In it, 32 body prints scatter across four canvas panels as though in free fall. The individuals, friends and friends of friends of the artist, range in age, race, gender and class, highlighting the social range of a democratic society. The way in which they are depicted varies too, and was determined by each participant, some wearing business suits, others keffiyehs. In emphasizing representation and diversity, the piece reminds us of the freedom of identity and expression Scott and many others are fighting for.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dread Scott, \u2018Life\/Death\/America\u2019 at YBCA.\u00a0(Matthew Millman Photography)<\/p>\n

Without direct artistic visualizations of both what we stand to lose and what shedding the current power structures might look like, it can be difficult to maintain a clear picture of the collective future Scott puts forward. Sometimes, in the face of censorship and federal defunding of the arts, it feels like the current administration understands the importance of the arts better its opposition does. Imagination is a powerful weapon in the war against fascism \u2014 and one we mustn\u2019t forget. Art like Scott\u2019s reminds us of its potency.<\/p>\n

\u201cArt itself doesn\u2019t make political change,\u201d Scott says. \u201cBut there hasn\u2019t been a progressive movement I know of that hasn\u2019t had art at the foundation of it in some way. It helps people see the world in a new way and stand strong in the face of their oppressors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Dread Scott: The Body Politic<\/a>\u2019 is on view at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (701 Mission St., San Francisco) through Jan. 31, 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, \u2018The Body Politic\u2019 demonstrates the inherent power of art. Oct 9,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-490979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}