Rob Swainston and Zorawar Sidhu, “July 4th 2020” (2021), museum purchase
“Dreams Deferred: Reflections on Liberty, Equality and Sovereignty in U.S. Art” is now on view at the Syracuse University Art Museum. The exhibition examines the idea of freedom in the United States as expressed in art, including its possibilities, its oversights, its uneven implementation and its attacks on Indigenous sovereignty.
Curated by incoming master of arts students in art history and under the direction of Associate Professor Sascha Scott, the exhibition is on view through May 14.
Featuring work drawn from the museum’s extensive permanent collection, including newly acquired artwork, the exhibition highlights how structural inequities, oppressive histories, disenfranchisement and degradation of personhood are variously perpetuated, elided and disrupted in U.S. art.
“Dreams Deferred” also highlights art that advocates for equality, accentuates personhood and unmasks structural racism and histories of misogyny, enslavement and dispossession—violences that are still felt today.
Associate Professor Scott says, “It was a pleasure to guide this project, as the first-year graduate students in art history honed their research, writing and interpretive skills throughout the fall semester. The student-curators of ‘Dreams Deferred’ offer compelling interpretations of artworks produced in the United States from the 19th century to the present, addressing the possibilities, exclusions and failures of concepts of freedom in the United States.”
Lunchtime Lecture: “Dreams Deferred” tour with the curators
March 23, 1 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
