Death's Futurity

Sampada Aranke is Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Acknowledgments vii Introduction. The Visual Life of Black Power 1 1. "1,000 Bobby Huttons" 21 2. Fred Hampton and the Political Life of Objects 53 3. George Jackson's Murder and Fugitive Imaginaries 90 Epilogue. The United States of Attica 135 Notes 147 Bibliography 171 Index 181

"The author's close readings of the role of visual artifacts in generating consciousness, agency, and a sense of futurity about a better future in their audiences is both compelling and original, and her engaging prose makes it a pleasure to read." - Simon Stow (European Journal of American Studies) "Aranke provides a lyrical and materially nuanced account of how the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense mobilized a range of visual media, objects, and tactics. . . . In the process, Aranke not only reorients our understanding of 'the political' in art of the 1960s, but also puts tremendous pressure on art-historical conceits such as 'the curatorial,' which in the Panthers' hands does not mean protecting priceless artworks within neoliberal institutions, but rather involves preserving the bloodstained objects left in [Fred] Hampton's apartment in order to make visible the anti-Black violence that enables the coherence of American 'civil society" and the ongoing expansion of the carceral state undergirding it." (Artforum) "Aranke demonstrates a keen awareness of the politics of looking, production, and consumption of images of Black death. . . . Death's Futurity provides a model for describing images that feels implicitly in service to a larger project producing scholarship around traumatic scenarios without being unnecessarily graphic." - Les Gray (Theatre Journal)