With July 4th approaching, it’s a fitting time to reflect on what it truly means to be American, especially through the lens of the arts, where identity, resistance, and possibility are continually reimagined.
The museum includes foundational works that are essential to the history of American art, but we also recognize that Americanness is not static. It is constantly being reshaped by individual and collective experiences. Our collection includes the works of American-born artists who are politically engaged, confronting injustice and imagining new futures. We also showcase artists who immigrated to the United States and use their practice to reflect on identity, displacement, and belonging.
Whitewashed, an artwork by American artist Sonya Clark, is an artwork that depicts the American flag painted using three housepaint colors from Sherwin Williams: Incredible White, Storyteller, and Natural Choice. The artwork, painted directly onto the walls of the museum strips away the iconic color trio of red, white, and blue from the American flag. By doing so, Clark invites us to consider how the American flag is charged and colored with histories of violence, slavery, and systemic racism which have been sanitized or altogether scrubbed from dominant narratives of American identity. Through this piece, Clark asks us to consider: who has the power to define what is remembered, and by extension, who gets to belong in the story of America? To be truly American, in her view, is to take responsibility for that history and commit to confronting it, not erasing it.
A spotlight artwork in Lynn Herrick Sharp Gallery for contemporary art, is Luis Cruz Azaceta’s work Oppression. In this example, the visual imagery of the piece corroborates the artist’s personal experience as a Cuban-born artist living in the U.S. He explores themes of exile, identity, and survival. His perspective challenges the idea that American identity is singular, showing instead that it’s shaped by movement, memory, and cultural hybridity. Through his art, Azaceta reminds us that being American includes stories that cross borders.
These two works are examples of the ways in which the idea or identity of American is not one-size-fits all. It is important that we recognize that American art, and by extension, American identity, is expansive and evolving, and often shaped by contradiction. By highlighting artists that challenge dominant narratives, we can continue to enrich our sense of identity through the stories we tell, the histories we confront, and the art we choose to uplift.
Top: Whitewashed, 2017. Sonya Clark (born 1967). Sherwin-Williams house paint, 43 1/4 × 82 inches. Delaware Art Museum, F. V. du Pont Acquisition Fund in honor of David Pollack, 2023. © Sonya Clark.