Research Catalog

Title

Sonya Clark : monumental cloth, the flag we should know.

Author

Clark, Sonya

Publication

• Philadelphia, PA : The Fabric Workshop and Museum ; New York, NY : MW Editions, 2020.
• ©2020

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Talbott, Susan Lubowsky
• Cassel Oliver, Valerie
• Brundage, W. Fitzhugh (William Fitzhugh), 1959-
• Fabric Workshop and Museum, host institution, issuing body.

Description

95 pages : color illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

In the spring of 1865, a seemingly unremarkable dishcloth played a crucial role in ending the Civil War as the South's flag of surrender at Appomattox. A Confederate horseman carried a humble white linen towel into the lines of General George Custer, near the courthouse at Appomattox. The horseman was sent on behalf of General Robert E. Lee, who was requesting a suspension of hostilities while General Ulysses S. Grant proposed terms of surrender. Focusing on this Confederate Flag of Truce, Afro-Caribbean American artist (and professor at Amherst College) Sonya Clark (born 1967) explores the legacy of symbols and challenges the power of propaganda, erasures and omissions through her works. By making the Truce Flag a cloth that brokered peace and represented the promise of reconciliation into a monumental alternative to the infamous Confederate Battle Flag and its pervasive divisiveness, Clark instigates a role reversal and aims to correct a historical imbalance.

Alternative Title

Monumental cloth, the flag we should know

Subject

• Clark, Sonya > Exhibitions
• Clark, Sonya
• 1861-2099
• African American women artists > History > 21st century > Exhibitions
• African American artists > History > 21st century > Exhibitions
• Artists, Black > 21st century > Exhibitions
• Textile crafts > History > 21st century > Exhibitions
• Flags in art > History > 21st century > Exhibitions
• Performance art > History > 21st century > Exhibitions
• Textile crafts
• Performance art
• Artists, Black
• African American women artists
• African American artists
• Flags in art
• United States > History > Civil War, 1861-1865 > Art and the war
• United States

Genre/Form

• History.
• Art.
• Exhibition catalogs.

Note

• Catalog of an exhibition held at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, March 29, 2019 - August 4, 2019 ; H & R Block Artspace at Kansas City Art Institute, MO, January 31 - March 21, 2020 ; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, October 8, 2020 - March 7, 2021.

Contents

Foreword / by Susan Lubowsky Talbott -- We hold these truths / by Valerie Cassel Oliver -- "A piece of cloth that brings a nation to its knees" / by W. Fitzhugh Brundage -- Monumental and many -- Reconstruction exercise -- Lesson plan (Confederate Truce Flag) -- Reversals -- Propaganda and title wall -- About the artist -- Acknowledgments -- About The Fabric Workshop and Museum.

Call Number

Sc E 21-806

ISBN

• 9780998701868
• 0998701866

OCLC

1157344919

Author

Clark, Sonya, artist.

Title

Sonya Clark : monumental cloth, the flag we should know.

Publisher

Philadelphia, PA : The Fabric Workshop and Museum ; New York, NY : MW Editions, 2020.

Copyright Date

©2020

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Chronological Term

1861-2099

Local Subject

Black author.

Added Author

Talbott, Susan Lubowsky, writer of foreword.

Cassel Oliver, Valerie, contributor.

Brundage, W. Fitzhugh (William Fitzhugh), 1959- contributor.

Fabric Workshop and Museum, host institution, issuing body.

Research Call Number

Sc E 21-806