Dread Scott

Activist, Artist, Atheist, Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Idea generator, Photographer

Dread Scott (b. 1965) is an interdisciplinary artist who for three decades has made work that encourages viewers to re-examine cohering ideals of American society. In 1989, the US Senate outlawed his artwork and President Bush declared it "disgraceful" because of its transgressive use of the American flag. Dread became part of a landmark Supreme Court case when he and others burned flags on the steps of the Capitol. He has presented a TED talk on this subject. His art has been exhibited at MoMA/PS1, The Walker Art Center, CAM St. Louis, Kunsthal KAdE (Amersfoort, Netherlands) and Cristin Tierney Gallery. It is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Ackland Art Museum and Worcester Art Museum, and has been featured on the covers of Artforum and The Brooklyn Rail, and on the front page of NYTimes.com. In 2019 he presented Slave Rebellion Reenactment, a community engaged project that reenacted the largest rebellion of enslaved people in US history. The project was featured in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, by Christiane Amanpour on CNN and highlighted by artnet.com as one of the most important artworks of the decade. In 2021, Scott received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Frieze Impact Prize and a Purchase Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also completed a residency at KADIST that year and was named a Senior Fellow at the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby College in Maine. He was the 2019 Open Society Foundations Soros Equality Fellow and has received fellowships from United States Artists and Creative Capital Foundation. This past December, ARTnews named his NFT White Male for Sale one of the defining artworks of 2021. His studio is in Brooklyn, New York.

I am an interdisciplinary artist whose work is exhibited in the US and internationally. My art encourages viewers to re-examine harmful cohering norms of American society. It confronts existing injustices and challenges audiences to dream how the world could be fundamentally changed. A recurring theme is how history both sets the stage for the present as well as resides in the present in new form. My platforms range from museums to street corners. My recent project, Slave Rebellion Reenactment, restaged and reinterpret Louisiana’s 1811 Revolt, the largest rebellion of enslaved people in America. With 100s of re-enactors, SRR animated a suppressed history of people who planned, organized, and took up arms, to seize Orleans Territory and end slavery. It is a project about freedom. I’m also an avid road cyclist.

We need fundamental social change. Art is a key component of this, enabling people to see the world in unexpected ways and dream of a radically different future.

I am an avid road cyclist. I have entered races in the past, but now I ride exclusively for fitness and pleasure. I love watching soccer, especially the English Premier League. I am passionate about science. I am curious about the universe. Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene have all contributed to my awe and wonder at the universe we inhabit.