Amadou Diallo

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In February 1999, police searching for a rape suspect knocked on New York resident Amadou Diallo’s door. When the Guinean immigrant opened the door, he reached inside his pocket. Officers responded by firing 41 bullets at him, hitting him 19 times. It turned out he was reaching for his wallet. Zeldis’s painting illustrates a version of the shooting that accords with newspaper descriptions. Tiny windows in the building show neighbors going about their daily activities, unaware of the tragedy unfolding on their doorstep. Diallo’s prominent body assumes a cruciform pose. The many bright red wounds, the body’s position and the use of relative scale all recall the medieval tradition of the martyr portrait, suggesting that Diallo may be a present-day Saint Sebastian.

Keywords

Violence
United States
Oil painting
Murder
Folk Art
Guns