“Alabama got me so upset / Tennessee made me lose my rest / And everybody knows Mississippi Goddam,” Nina Simone sings in a 1964 hymn of protest in reaction to two events the year before: the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Mississippi and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which robbed four young black girls of their lives. If the High Priestess of Soul were with us today, she would also know the names Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Daunte Wright, George Floyd and many more killed by cops and white supremacists across the country.
In Dread Scott Shit at Manhattan’s Cristin Tierney Gallery, four of Simone’s most recognizable protest songs, including “Mississippi Goddamn,” materialize into works of visual art. The other three, also associated with eponymous paintings, are “Four Women” (1966), “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” (1967) and “Pirate Jenny” (1964).
In the first piece, Scott scribbles his own “Goddams” alongside floating maps of Florida, Texas, Minnesota and Georgia – states with high rates of hate crimes against Black Americans and LGBTQ+ people. An image of the US Capitol floats in the center of the canvas on a silver background.
In “Pirate Jenny”, Scott transforms the song’s protagonist, a hotel maid who takes revenge on her male attacker, into a smiling, modern barista, who appears alongside scenes of police violence against protesters in Black Lives Matter. “Four Women” also features contemporary black women, and it’s up to the viewer to guess which of them represents Aunt Sarah, Saffronia, “Sweet Thing” and “Peaches” from Simone’s song.
Most impressive is Scott’s haunting “I wish I knew what it would be like to be free,” which peaks at 84 inches. A charcoal body print of Scott – evoking artist David Hammons’ use of the technique – is winged and haloed with a glittering disc of gold leaf. It is a transfiguration that echoes Simone’s words about the wish to fly freely like a bird. A mixture of feathers and tar at the bottom of the canvas recalls the brutal torture method of tarring and feathering that originated in Europe in the Middle Ages, and which was also used against blacks in the United States. This particular work requires a longer search and has the ability to transport the viewer out of time and space.
Shit is a song from a show lamenting ongoing systemic oppression in four verses. And it is certainly worth the detour. The question is: How long should we sing this song?
Dread Scott: Shit continues at Cristin Tierney Gallery (219 Bowery, Floor 2, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through June 24. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
