{"data":{"id":"20758","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":20758,"topgoose_id":14983,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":20758,"title":"Legality is not Morality","display_artist_text":"Sam Durant","display_date":"2003","accession_number":"2004.635","dimensions":"Overall: 74 1/8 × 56 in. (188.3 × 142.2 cm)\r\nLength (cord attached to back): 250 in. (635 cm)","medium":"Vinyl text on electric sign","department":"collection","classification":"Sculpture","credit_line":"Partial and promised gift of James A. Gordon and Andrea S. Gordon","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eSam Durant, \u003cem\u003eLegality is not Morality\u003c/em\u003e, 2003. Vinyl text on electric sign, overall: 74 1/8 × 56 in. (188.3 × 142.2 cm)\r\nLength (cord attached to back): 250 in. (635 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Partial and promised gift of James A. Gordon and Andrea S. Gordon 2004.635. © Sam Durant. Coutesy of the Artist and Paula Cooper Gallery.\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLegality is not Morality\u003c/i\u003e exemplifies Sam Durant’s ongoing investigation into how the political unrest, popular music, and avant-garde artistic practices of the late 1960s and early 1970s have been historicized. Part of a series of seven illuminated signs inspired by photographs of protestors in a May 1968 issue of \u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c/i\u003e magazine, the work’s title phrase originally appeared on a hand-written placard carried by a demonstrator at Columbia University in New York City. By altering the phrase’s original context and form—Durant reproduces it on an illuminated lightbox that can be installed in different places—he seems to both assert and question the contemporary relevance of this historically traumatic moment. Yet his focus on the idealism—even the utopianism—of a previous era does not involve a longing to return to that time, nor is he concerned with directly effecting social or political change. Instead, Durant looks critically at nostalgic constructions of a romanticized past, examining little-known, misrepresented, or overly mediated histories in order to better understand our current condition.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Bright orange poster displays bold black text reading \"Legality is not morality.\"","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:23:30.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:01:04.668-05:00","images":[{"id":105557,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/20758/2004_635_vw1_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"9281","type":"artist"}]}}}}