Dee: My Name is Dee. I am a Teen in Residence at the MoMA and my co-host is…
Taiwo: My name is Taiwo and I’m also a Teen in Residence at the MoMA.
Dee: And we’re looking at Revisionist History.
Taiwo: This is from an original photograph.
Dee: Mmhmm. It’s a man. His name is Peter, and he is showing his back and the scarring of whippings. And you can see on his face that he kind of looks upset.
Taiwo: I can feel the pain. It gives the impression of like, why did you do this?
Dee: But when I see the image and it’s whited out, it kind of reminds me of our discussion earlier about how people really didn’t need a reason to do certain things. They just see difference and either want to destroy it or just replicate it. And the white out on his scars is just erasure in some type of way.
But I want to know what you think about it, honestly.
Taiwo: I very much agree with what you said. And also, in the artist statement, they said, “A couple days after I finished the painting, the original photograph was ordered to be taken down from a national park by Trump’s administration,” which is showing that even now there’s still erasure ging on. There’s still major parts of our past that isn’t being publicized or being shown. And I think that also stems from shame.
Dee: Mmhmm.
Taiwo: Because we know what brutality is. We know how to treat our fellow human beings. So rather than own up to their actions, they would rather—
Dee: —hold themselves accountable—
Taiwo: —yeah! Rather than take accountability—thank you for that—they would rather hide it. See no evil, do no evil.
Dee: I strongly believe that this artwork has sometimes with how the government has been treating Black pain, and Black culture in general. This is saying like, in the near future, Black culture just won’t be a thing.
Taiwo: And also history repeats itself.
Dee: It’s actively happening right now.
Taiwo: Exactly. It’s also not even just future. It’s the present as well. It’s a call to attention that these people should not be forgotten.