DREAD SCOTT

Dread Scott makes revolutionary art to propel history forward.  He first received national attention in 1989 when his art became the center of controversy over its use of the American flag while he was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. President G.H.W. Bush called his art “disgraceful” and the entire US Senate denounced this work and outlawed it when they passed legislation to “protect the flag.”

He has been written about in The New York Times, Art In America, Sculpture Magazine, ArtNews, ArtForum, Art21 Magazine, Time, The London Guardian and several other newspapers, magazines and books. He has appeared on numerous local and national TV and radio shows including Oprah, The Today Show, and CBS This Morning speaking about his work and the controversy surrounding it.

He works in a range of media including performance, photography, installation, screen-printing and video.  His works can be hard-edged and poignant.  Dread plays with fire—metaphorically and sometimes literally—as when he burned $171 on Wall Street and encouraged those with money to burn to add theirs to the pyre.

"I work in a range of media: performance, installation, video, photography, printmaking and painting. The thread that connects my work is an engagement with sharp social questions confronting humanity and a desire to push formal and conceptual boundaries as part of contributing to artistic development. My projects are presented in venues ranging from major museum galleries to street corners. Sometimes work is presented to an unexpecting audience. I bring contemporary art to a broader public and the audience is often an active element of the artwork."