Arrogate: Andrew Ellis Johnson at University of Dayton Index Gallery at the Dayton Arcade, OH.
March 24 – May 20, 2022
“We are indoctrinated to not see our own privilege. This willful and self-serving blindness is difficult to sustain, not a trait to be pitied or suffered. Yet privilege continues to excuse itself.
ARROGATE is a verb meaning to ‘assume or appropriate to oneself without right.’ The large drawings in ARROGATE portray five of our first seven presidents who were masters of this verb—as they were masters of hundreds of enslaved people. They were masters of an institution that amassed wealth for themselves and our nation, through claiming rights without right.
In ARROGATE, images of indictment, comeuppance, reflection and revenge allude to rights violated, abrogated, lost and won—struggles that persist today.”
