Item #30575 "NBA Against Police Violence"
(Social Justice)

"NBA Against Police Violence"

Carrilho, André (illus.)

André Carrilho, 2020. Silkscreen print. One of twenty copies, signed and numbered by the artist, André Carrilho. Part collage, part cartoon, Carrilho’s illustration highlights the particular position of Black athletes in the fight against police brutality. Black athletes have a long history of using their platform to bring awareness to racial injustice; this graphic captures the act of kneeling for the national anthem, a practice begun by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in response to the 2016 shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and the overarching issue of systemic racism in the American judicial system. In the summer of 2020 following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and a subsequent surge in the Black Lives Matter movement, kneeling for the anthem became more visible than ever, with professional athletes across sports adopting the gesture. Being the first major sports league to resume play during the COVID-19 pandemic, NBA players led the way. Carrilho’s use of a red-white-and-blue color scheme and his juxtaposition of the length of the NBA player against the size of the gun capture the weight of kneeling: its true patriotism, its elevation of the community over the self, and the urgency of its meaning against such insidiously rooted injustice. Carrilho is a Portuguese cartoonist, animator, and illustrator whose work comments as much on pop culture as on modern crises from the fight for racial equity to political corruption. Fine. Framed. (26 by 32 in.). Item #30575

Price: $750.00