CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/26/2020

'Colored People Time' is new from ICA Philadelphia

Sable Elyse Smith's "Coloring Book 33" (2019) is reproduced from Colored People Time, the ICA Philadelphia's text-heavy, multifaceted exploration of the ways that dominant notions of time have been used to control and condemn Black people. This 50x60-inch work on paper is from a series that sources imagery from found coloring books meant to teach children how to interface with court systems. The accompanying text explains: "Woven into a series of connect-the-dots and maze games ('Can you help Pat to the metal detector?') is an implicit message about who does and doesn’t belong in a courtroom, presenting criminality as a foregone conclusion to children who receive such a book. Within these pages is the source for Smith’s "Coloring Book 33," a nearly blank page with the text 'Draw your own picture,' a line that reads as an uncanny invitation to exercise freedom within a document meant to foreclose access to it. Here, Smith’s intervention fills the space with evidence of her own hand. By combining child-like mark making with a text of refusal Smith effectively counteracts the sinister visual and textual language of everyday structures that feed into the carceral state."