Screen print on paper, Edition of 30, 24 in x 18 in. Produced for our 2021 Winter Benefit.
Delano Dunn was a 2018 Family Residency Alumnus, 2018 Wassaic Project Exhibition Artist, and a current Wassaic Project Board Member.
This print is based on the Supreme Court trial Whitus v. Georgia, in which two Black men, Clifton Whitus and Davis, were indicted and convicted of murder by an all-white jury in Mitchell County, Georgia. Despite African Americans making up roughly (45%) of Mitchell County's population, not a single Black person had ever served on a grand or petit (trial) jury in the county within the memory of the witnesses. This was due to Georgia law at the time requiring jury commissioners to select names for prospective jurors from the county tax receiver's books. These books were maintained on a strictly racially segregated basis (with names of Black residents marked with a "c" or "colored"). From these lists, the commissioners further hand-selected individuals, which resulted in a virtually all-white jury pool. The Supreme Court determined these circumstances established a prima facie (sufficient) case of racial discrimination in 1967. The Court reversed the convictions of the two men because the State of Georgia could not provide a legitimate, non-discriminatory explanation for this extreme racial disparity in jury pools.
Delano Dunn (born 1978 in Los Angeles, California) uses painting, mixed media, and collage to explore questions of racial identity and perception, drawing from his experience growing up in South Central L.A. He has had solo exhibitions in New York City, Los Angeles, and Paris, with Montague Contemporary, Bermudez Projects, among others. Group exhibitions include Places & Spaces at Fredrichs’ Pantone Gallery, All That Light: A Ten Year Retrospective of The AIR Program (2012-2022) Logan Center, The Uptown Triennial 2020 at the Wallach Gallery Columbia University, I Like The Sound of That at Artspace in New Haven, Liberty and (in)Justice for All at Project for Empty Space in Newark, NJ, PULSE New York, PULSE Miami with Project for Empty Space and The Long Gallery Harlem, The Delaware Contemporary, and more. His works are in such public collections as the Studio Museum of Harlem, New York City Public Art for Public Schools, along with numerous private collections. Dunn holds an MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts and a BFA in Illustration from Pratt Institute. He is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and serves on the board for the Wassaic Project. Dunn lives in Oak Park, IL with his wife and two children.
