Artwork Page for Mankind (An Oriental, a Caucasian, and a Black weighted according to current population statistics)

Details / Information for Mankind (An Oriental, a Caucasian, and a Black weighted according to current population statistics)

Mankind (An Oriental, a Caucasian, and a Black weighted according to current population statistics)

1983–85, printed 1999

Nancy Burson

(American, b. 1948)
Culture
America
Medium
gelatin silver print
Measurements
Image: 22.8 x 19.4 cm (9 x 7 5/8 in.); Framed: 48.4 x 44.5 cm (19 1/16 x 17 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
The Jane B. Tripp Charitable Lead Annuity Trust 2020.76
Edition
edition 14/15
Copyright
© Nancy Burson
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

Burson used pictures from a 19th-century book of racial stereotypes and weighted their visibility in the resulting composite to reflect world population statistics in the mid-1980s.

Description

Although the image, if done with 2020 population statistics, might not look terribly different, the concept of race has changed in the intervening decades. Racial identity is often now discussed as a social rather than biological construct and is no longer considered a valid division by most geneticists.
Pixelated black-and-white computer composite of multiple faces into a face with a light skin tone, square jaw, and light hair falling across forehead before disappearing into a dark band around the top of the head. The face looks out at the viewer, with narrow eyes, a flat nose, and lips pressed together in a line turned slightly down.

Mankind (An Oriental, a Caucasian, and a Black weighted according to current population statistics)

1983–85, printed 1999

Nancy Burson

(American, b. 1948)
America

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