VIDEO: POLITUS (Refined) : What we choose to remember

Tyler Moorehead, 2019. Running time 11:09

Politus is a silent performative exploration of respectability, aspiration and class, through domestic artefact.

The artist uses items to hand to reflect on the symbols of refinement cherished by her mother. In the process of memorialising one symbol of respectability, she defiles another.

Politus was installed at Tate Modern ‘Art on Air’ as a response to Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus in the adjacent Turbine Hall. The piece takes its name from Walker’s insight ‘what we choose to remember’.

The silent piece uses the shadow of cut crystal glasses as a symbol to explore patterns of achievement, acceptability and assimilation among the black middle classes.

Seeking to acknowledge her elders, whilst denying the power of these cultural expectations, the artist uses wine and condiments to hand to memorialise the image of crystal glasses on a fine linen tablecloth.

Photographs: Malcolm Dixon