Carter Kustera
Nomadic in style, Carter Kustera has an atypical journey through his relationship with art. Born in Canada in 1962, attending Ontario College of Art and Algonquin College in Ottowa, he eventually relocated to New York City in the 1980s at the height of the Pictures Generation- a time with an influx and upheaval of the gallery scene, Larry Gagosian, and prime periods in artist’s work including Jean Michele Basquiat, when other famous artists such as Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and Barbara Kruger were featured in the famous Met exhibition of Pictures, receiving recognition for representations of critiques to the mass media.
Kustera, known then as Kevin Carter, worked for distinguished artists such as James Rosenquist and Robert Longo, as well as the now closed gallery, Metro Pictures, who championed Pictures Generation artists. His name change was due to his marriage to gallerist and art dealer Anna Kustera. This unconventional reversal of last name represents his affinity for the idea of change. While he had artworks in the 1993 and 1997 Venice Biennale, he took himself out of art for a while as a response to the elitism that is evident then and now in the world of art; the opaque nature of the institutions in the art world makes being unlike others difficult to be ‘successful’.
This work, Based on a True Story #12: Mass Hypnosis: Rodney King/L.A. Riot (1992-93), aligns with themes of criticism and exploitation of media seen with the Pictures Generation Movement, using photography and mixed media to portray how the news media’s power incites violence to the public. Kustera’s work is an appropriation of film and photography stills of the coverage of the brutal beating of Rodney King, an African-American man, by L.A. Police on March 3, 1991. When the four white officers were acquitted by a jury in April of 1992, riots broke out across the city, killing 63, injuring thousands, and causing over one billion dollars in damages. In scale, this work is massive, allowing the viewer to take in a hypnotizing perspective of how the media told the story of this tragedy. We see thoughtfully placed red hands holding cameras, quills, bats, hammers, and even shaking hands, alluding to the unacknowledged manipulation that is said about police brutality and its relationship to the media. This work overall responds to the perpetual history of race relations in the US, a work from 1993 that still rings true in 2023.
Lilly Reed '23, Sociology and Art History Double Major
Like many people at the time, in March of 1991, I was horrified watching on television Rodney King, an African American man and a U.S. citizen, being beaten by white (LAPD) officers and the aftermath a year later of the L.A. riots. The assault itself was an abomination. Violent, brutal, and in violation of Mr. King's rights as a human and as a citizen. The riots were a misguided outlet for rage and contempt.
The event, as mentioned earlier, is a centuries-old ugly story in this country of the discrimination and abuse of people of color and the contemptuous use of power by the authorities. Most "white" Americans never experience the humiliation, degradation, and loss of dignity at the hands of the police, whereas many, if not all, minorities do. With the presentation of this event on a 24/7 television news cycle, an American dirty little secret was outed and witnessed by millions of people worldwide. The media itself, a precursor of propaganda meant to terrorize, titillate and monetize the human experience, did, however, serve to bring the plight of "black Americans" via bystander George Holiday's home video to the forefront.
In, Based on a True Story #12: Mass Hypnosis: Rodney King/L.A. Riot, I was examining the injustice of the beating of Mr. King, the fallout of the riots as well as the role home video and the media at large played in the telling and re-telling of the events. With that in mind, I set out to create a work of art that, through the use of digital printing and hand painting, emphasized and expressed those thoughts. I am sad to say that to this day, there have been many more brutal victimizations, with far worse outcomes than the night of Mr. King's beating.
Carter Kustera, Artist
In March 1991, Rodney King, a Black man, was brutally beaten by four White LAPD cops; it was captured by a citizen’s video and shared by the mass media with a mostly horrified public. Before and since, the number of brutalized and murdered people of color at the hands of the police shamefully climbs into the thousands: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tyre Nichols are among the more recent and widely known. While this societal tragedy continues, we must reflect on whether seeing videos, images, or paintings of these atrocities are a moral duty calling us to witness and action, or merely an aesthetic experience? In the case of this painting, it is worth noting that the artist is White; his work earned him thousands of dollars; its value is now part of Wake’s bankable assets. Wake is a historically White college, born with enslaved labor; segregated for the first 128 years of its existence. The artist and this college have profited from the monetization of this crime. Did the artist or Wake contribute anything to help communities of color end police brutality? Are there any reasons to consider this display in an obscure location as accomplishing anything more than signaling Wake’s liberal virtues?
Dr. Joseph A Soares, WFU Professor of Sociology and Department Chair 22-24
Mark H. Reece Collection of Student-Acquired Contemporary Art, CU1993.2.1