Focus on The American People Series 20: Die and explore the History.
Die was painted during the riots and uprisings of the 1960s and following the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, and was finished the year before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the riots that followed. As the final work in The American People Series, Die represents the endpoint of the series' tonal shift from optimism to violence as the early successes of the Civil Rights Movement gave way to political assassinations and widespread bouts of violence in Black communities during the summer months. Ringgold was inspired to paint the work in part by her extensive viewing of Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica (1937) during its longterm loan to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York that began in 1939. Additionally, Ringgold was inspired by Jacob Lawrence's reimaginings of historical portraiture.Die was shown for the first time at Ringgold's debut solo show, American People, in 1967 at Spectrum Gallery in New York. The opening reception for the show was attended by Romare Bearden and Richard Mayhew along with hundreds of the artist's friends and family; the gallery owner set up a record player and children danced to Motown music. Ringgold has said that an unidentified woman at the reception, upon seeing Die when exiting the elevator into the gallery, immediately "let out a yelp" and left the building. The artist has referred to the work as a mural since its original showing, despite the fact that political murals by Black artists of the era were generally painted on buildings or shown in public spaces; critics have argued that this distinction was meant to communicate Ringgold's desire to bring Black artists, aesthetics, and politics into traditionally white institutional art spaces.Following its original showing, Ringgold kept the work in storage along with The American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding (1967) for over 40 years. Prior to 2010, Die had only been brought out of storage for Ringgold's solo survey at the Rutgers University Art Gallery in 1973 and for Tradition and Conflict: Images of a Turbulent Decade, 1963-1967 at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1985. The work was shown in 2010 in Ringgold's retrospective American People, Black Light at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York, which traveled in 2013 to the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC; in 2014 at the Museu Picasso's exhibition Post-Picasso: Contemporary Reactions in Barcelona; and in 2017 at the Tate Modern's original showing of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power in London.MoMA acquired the painting in 2016 directly from Ringgold and subsequently showed it in the museum next to Picasso's painting Les Demoiselles D'Avignon (1907) starting in 2019. MoMA's choice of placement for Die was widely discussed by critics, art historians, and artists, some of whom, including Helen Molesworth, believed that placing Die next to Les Demoiselles D'Avignon served only to reiterate Picasso's place in the canon. Others, including Mark Godfrey, believed the placement reflected Ringgold's own vision of "working [both] with and against the canon," as her work directly drew upon, acknowledged, and challenged canonical artistic figures like Picasso.Following MoMA's acquisition of the work, Die was covered extensively in the media; the museum published Faith Ringgold: Die by Anne Monahan in 2018, from the One on One series of books focused on a single work, and the painting was reproduced on the cover of Artforum in January 2020. Die was featured in Ringgold's solo retrospective at the New Museum in 2022.
Artforum Washington, DC New Museum Purchase, New York Tate Modern assassination of Malcolm X Neuberger Museum of Art riots Barcelona Mark Godfrey The American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding Les Demoiselles D'Avignon Civil Rights Movement New York Museu Picasso National Museum of Women in the Arts Jacob Lawrence Romare Bearden Studio Museum in Harlem Faith Ringgold assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Guernica Museum of Modern Art Helen Molesworth Motown Richard Mayhew mural London Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Rutgers University Art Gallery canon riots and uprisings Pablo Picasso