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Mirzoeff, Chapter 6: The Changing World

"We have to make climate change less abstract."

"Human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels, has raised that number to 400 parts per million—still tiny, still invisible, but now causing increasingly powerful effects in the climate worldwide."

A paragraph explanation

The chapter provides detailed information about climate change, its causes, and possible solutions. The chapter linked human activities as the major causes of climate change. Activities such as fossil fuel burning were believed to have increased to 400 parts per million. Also, industrialization was among the notable ongoing transformations contributing to climate change. Events like hurricanes, droughts, floods, record snowfalls, and escalating temperatures result from climate change.

Amy Sherald on her Breonna Taylor portrait

"I wanted this image to stand as a piece of inspiration to keep fighting for justice for her. When I look at the dress, it kind of reminds me of Lady Justice."

"The color that I chose almost had a resplendence to it. The monochromatic color allows you to really focus on her face. The whole painting really becomes about her."

Amy Sherald Effect

"Like some other commenters, I was bemused, when I saw the work in reproduction, by what seemed an overwhelming of the wearer by the worn."

"Peculiar to Sherald is a consistent nuance, in her subjects' expressions, which can take time to fully register—it's so subtle."

Kehinde Wiley: Classic spin on contemporary subjects

"I know how young black men are seen, they're boys, scared little boys oftentimes. I was one of them. I was completely afraid of the Los Angeles Police Department."

"My work is not about paint, it's about paint at the service of something else. It is not about gooey, chest-beating, macho '50s abstraction that allows paint to sit up on the surface as subject matter about paint,"

Black masculinity

"As I wrote just after the unveiling, the portrait helped bring the many parallels between "portraitist and President" even more clearly into view."

"It was interesting for me, personally, to be able to meld the language of the decorative in painting with his life story." 

Short response

Kehinde Wiley's work is a reflection of naturalistic painting of Black people. Among his work was the portrait he did for former President Obama. He uses his work to pass on information about black people.

          This is similar to Amy Sherald, but this artist's works mostly depict African Americans in everyday settings. She brings realism into her work. For instance, she stated, "I wanted this image to stand as a piece of inspiration to keep fighting for justice for her. When I look at the dress, it reminds me of Lady Justice."