Yall Wanna See A Dead Body?
This work was part of Looking 101, a 2024 exhibition that supported Northwestern University’s undergraduate curriculum with an emphasis on first-year students.The following text was made available in the exhibition via cell phone camera (QR code) and booklet
The title of this work is based on a line from the 1991 film Boyz n the Hood. John Singleton wrote and directed the film, basing it on his life as a young African American boy in Los Angeles in the 1980s. The image references a scene in the film in which the adolescent protagonists encounter a dead human body near train tracks in their neighborhood (below). Artist Pat Phillips transports these figures to the landscape of suburban Louisiana, where he grew up, alongside Interstate 49. The body they encounter is that of a deer, rendered in the style of Disney’s Bambi; nearby skid marks imply that it was the casualty of highway traffic. The shoulder of the highway is abloom with flowers and littered with empty packaging and animal feces. Phillips found his way to art through spray painting and photographing boxcars. He often embraces this background in his work. Here he has used spray paint as a material in his work, including to create graffiti near the highway sign.
