Working at the intersection of printmaking, photography,weaving and sculpture, Noel W. Anderson (1981, Louisville, USA) has forged a practice that tackles the history of anti-racism through the prism of visibility and legibility. Knowing the overwhelming circulation of images showing the death of and violence against Black bodies, Anderson explores the possibilitiesof transmitting this oppressive reality, while ensuring that he does not reiterate its traumatic consequences. Deploying his tapestries in a sculptural manner, Anderson creates haptic objectsthat not only evidence his acute sense of space, but also his knowledge of art history. Often suspended, folded, and warped,his works play with the limits between figuration and abstraction,painting and sculpture. As such, he can be inscribed within a history of postmodern artists who strove to expand the boundaries of abstraction by creating three-dimensional paintings such as Sam Gilliam (1933–2022) and Alan Shields(1944–2005).

Suspended from the ceiling at five different points in a way that renders the image printed on it difficultly visible, Hood Dreams I (2012–19) is emblematic of these formal and ethical concerns.Indeed, the work’s starting point is a news photograph documenting an episode from the 1992 Los Angeles uprising (commonly referred to as the Los Angeles or Rodney King Riots). What the viewer hardly deciphers is three white officers forciblyand aggressively pushing two Black people on the hood of a car tostop them from moving. Anderson displays the tapestry in a waythat distorts and obscures this evidentiary image of physical violence. These sculptural gestures aim to counter the stereotypical images of Black people as illegal bodies that can be mistreated, thus complicating the discourse on identity within the United States.