Richard Serra

Abu Ghraib
2004

A monochromatic artwork depicting a stylized, abstract figure with outstretched arms and a pointed hood, reminiscent of a person in a cloak or shroud. The figure is set against a rough, textured background that fades from dark to light. The bottom of the image features handwritten text, "5/50 ABU GHRAIB" and a signature with the year 2004.

A monochromatic artwork depicting a stylized, abstract figure with outstretched arms and a pointed hood, reminiscent of a person in a cloak or shroud. The figure is set against a rough, textured background that fades from dark to light. The bottom of the image features handwritten text, "5/50 ABU GHRAIB" and a signature with the year 2004.

Not on view

Date
2004

Classification
Prints

Medium
Lithograph

Dimensions
Sheet: 20 × 14 9/16in. (50.8 × 37 cm) Image: 16 × 10 9/16in. (40.6 × 26.8 cm)

Accession number
2012.203

Edition
89/250

Publication
Printed and published by Gemini G.E.L.

Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Susan and John Hess in memory of Norma Hess

Rights and reproductions
© Richard Serra / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

API
artworks/41729

Audio

Richard Serra, Abu Ghraib, 2004

In America Is Hard to See

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Richard Serra, Abu Ghraib, 2004

0:00

Narrator: Richard Serra used this image as the basis of a poster that he produced for the 2004 presidential election. It’s an interpretation of the most famous photograph to emerge from Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi prison where members of the American military were found to be torturing prisoners of war. In the poster that relates to this drawing, the text read “STOP BUSH.”
Richard Serra: The Stop Bush image was made as a political poster that anyone could download. And I went on to distribute it—we made a couple hundred thousand for both the conventions and for marches and rallies. And then I went on, actually, to make a signboard on 10th Avenue.
If you look at the original image, the original image is in color, the person is balanced on a box, he has a dahiki on, and it’s very, very colorful. The image is easy to almost consume as an advertisement, and I think that’s how it has been consumed.
I think with all appropriation you can’t add to an image, that only devalues the image. You have to subtract from the image and try to find what its sign and symbolic value is, to turn the image in—transfigure it or mutate it. And that was my concern. My concern wasn’t aesthetic at all. My concern was completely political.

Exhibitions

America Is Hard to See

May 1–Sept 27, 2015

Richard Serra
24 works in the collection

View artist