What's precious inside of him does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence (All American), 2017

Ekow Eshun: We see here a figure in a shirt that represents the American flag in a Stetson. We know that there have been and there continue to be Black cowboys. Perhaps, he's a cowboy, perhaps, he's a figure from the West or from the South. 

And so, this figure, perhaps, is a figure of assertion, pride, display. Also, perhaps, a figure of refusal, resistance. Perhaps, he's a patriot. Perhaps, he wears this shirt as a sign of insistence upon offering a more complex, more layered and more mutable story of America and its making, and its ongoing invention. Or perhaps, he just likes the colors. 

I think one of the things that Amy Sherald is very good at is suggesting possibility almost with quite, well, certainly, with very deft strokes. But to my mind, she's not a painter that has a single message, that's offering a single message. She's allowing us ways to think and see.

And in this painting, this figure stands against a blank backdrop, not a landscape, not an interior or exterior, just a blank space. And that space, I think, gives us space, gives us room to imagine further on what ground he's standing, on what basis he's asserting his presence, so, we can think of him as a patriot, or a rebel, or a resistor, or someone who chooses to assert their visibility in relationship to America as a nation, America as a story, America as an idea