Kahlil Robert Irving: Inheriting Place

On New Year’s Day, on the sixth floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Kahlil Robert Irving and I are standing beside his work 100’s, part of Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950-2019, highlighting works from the museum’s collection. 100’s is a stoneware and porcelain assemblage with layers of opalescent, gold and silver metallic lusters, comprised of pieces of ceramic with brand decals and transfers of newsprint clippings relating to the 2017 acquittal of a white police officer, Jason Stockley, who stands accused of the fatal shooting and murder of Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011.