Howardena Pindell had already created the spiraling mess of oranges, yellows, blues, and greens, footprinted with red arrows indicating the path of the swirls, when she realized that the lithograph resembled a hurricane tracking map. She titled the piece Katrina Footprint, memorializing the over 1,800 people killed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. What was once a relatively simple design of colors and shapes became a political statement. In hindsight, it feels as if the politics were already embedded in the art. Pindell only had to bring them to the surface.
Katrina Footprint is one of many images with a message on display in the Yale University Art Gallery’s exhibition“Everything is Political in America,” running now through mid-November.“Everything,” it turns out, includes the art. The exhibit touches upon many of the issues affecting the country today and in the past, running the gamut from environmentalism to the AIDS crisis to gun violence. That art transmits important messages about the world we live in, through paintings, prints, and multimedia pieces.
