‘One million points of light’ by Alfredo Jaar reflects the artist’s ongoing engagement with memory, historical trauma and the politics of representation. The image was taken from the coast of Luanda, Angola, looking out across the Atlantic Ocean toward Brazil, the primary destination for millions of enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade. At first glance, the photograph appears serene, capturing shimmering points of light across a darkening sea. Yet this visual beauty conceals a profound violence, with the title referencing the estimated fourteen million Africans forcibly transported across that expanse. Presented as a colour transparency in a lightbox, the work creates a quiet space for reflection, illuminating the ocean’s surface while also invoking the lives submerged beneath it. As with much of Jaar’s practice, the work uses visual restraint to evoke deep emotional and political resonance, transforming a landscape into a site of remembrance and compelling viewers to reconsider the narratives held within seemingly neutral geographies.
"Men fucks women, subject, verb, object"
Catherine A. McKinnon, Toward a feminist theory of State
© Theaster Gates. Photo © White Cube (Edouard Fraipont)
EQUIPMENT
Pedestal (1)
Bottles of wine (3)
Disposable drinking cups
Lidless trash can (1)
Instructions for use (1)
GUIDELINES
The flag should be displayed vertically, with the stared canton to the top-right corner at a distance of 8 feet from the floor.
Placed to the left of the flag, a pedestal measuring approximatively 3 feet should serve as a support for three bottles of wine (standard size) and a stack of disposable drinking cups (7/9 fluid ounces).
A lidless trash can (5 gallons and under) containing 5 crushed disposable drinking cups (identical with the disposable drinking cups on the pedestal) should be placed to the left of the pedestal.
Placed to the right of the flag, above the artwork label (with similar text formatting), instructions printed on stiff paper should be displayed.
white hair no face