The exhibition Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America was presented in 2021 at the New Museum, New York, originally conceived by the curator Okwui Enwezor in the runup to the presidential elections of 2016 between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to address the concepts of mourning, commemoration, and loss, against the backdrop of a national emergency of violence and particularly racist violence against Black communities across America.1 Enwezor then wrote: “Before Trump’s candidacy, the American public was confronted with the rising number of killings of black men and women across the country by the police and vigilante groups. In 2013 the activist group Black Lives Matter was founded in direct response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the shooting death of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin. The group’s simple demand was not only about accountability for the spate of killings but also the systematic racism directed at communities...

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