Unarmed, 2016
Gold and silver nameplats on jewelry board
45,7 x 61 cm
Ed. 1/2 of an edition of 2
[Photo: Courtesy Azikiwe Mohammed]
The African American artist Azikiwe Mohammed focuses his work on the needs and subjectivity of people of color in the United States, casting light on how likely it is, unfortunately, for them to die at the hands of the police.
Unarmed (2016) consists of a jewelry board with gold and silver plates with the names of unarmed Black people who were killed by the police in 2016. The difference between the gold and the silver plaques depends on whether or not they were in police custody at the time of their death.
A 2005 graduate of Bard College, where he studied photography and fine arts, Azikiwe Mohammed received the Art Matters Grant in 2015, the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant in 2016 and the Rauschenberg Artist Fund Grant in 2021. Mohammed is an alumnus of Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, New York, and Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, New Jersey. Mohammed has held a number of solo shows at locations including the Knockdown Center, Maspeth, New York; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah; Ace Hotel Chicago, Illinois; Anna Zorina, New York, and Mindy Solomon, Miami. He has participated in group exhibitions at MoMa PS1, Queens, New York; Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana; Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.