The Brooklyn Museum’s Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties exhibition is an extensive showing of various artists and their powerful works regarding a decade characterized by injustice, cruelty and change. It’s impossible to dislike the show due to the large variety of styles expressed through media including: painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography. Usually, I am not that keen on photography, but in this case the photography is essential to the exhibition and its message. For example, there are a few shocking photos of the Birmingham bombing incident of 1963. To see these unbelievable, yet all too real, images of African Americans being violently oppressed for fighting for their obvious rights of equality is both disturbing and powerful.

This show, more than anything, is about capturing a moment in history and bringing the wicked truths of our past to light. The art created during the 60s will forever encapsulate the suffering and strength of the black community and their fight against oppression. This show could almost be considered more of a historical exhibition because the subject matter is more shocking then any individual piece of art. However, there were quite a number of notable pieces, including May Steven’s Big Daddy Paper Doll acrylic painting (shown above). The image of an old, smug white man and his overweight dog is Steven’s take on Uncle Sam. The idea of Big Daddy being a doll that you can dress up as one of a collection of corrupt figures in America, from a cop to a butcher, illustrates the crooked white man’s capacity for violence. Many more conceptual, as well as literal images of the civil right’s movement are included in this exceptional show, which closes on July 6^th.

Image: brooklynmuseum.org