"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." - The Declaration of Independence
What does it mean to be an American? For much of history in many places, such a question was trivial. One was French, because one was born in France, like one's parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, children-to-be, and so on. But that was never the case in the United States. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted, a unique American quality is mobility - social, economic, and geographic. Americans have never tied their identity or "American-ness" to a specific plot of soil or village as was common in Europe.
In 1850, when the question of who is an American was in particular peril, preacher and abolitionist Theodore Parker gave a sermon to the New England Anti-Slavery Convention in Boston in which he argued that The Declaration of Independence's concept of inalienable rights and equality is the "American Idea."
Later that decade, in shockingly twisted fashion, Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney agreed with that concept of the "American Idea" while denying descendants of imported African slaves - even if freed - American-ness. He reasoned that because they were not the people who wrote the Declaration of Independence declaring that "all men are created equal," they could never be equal.
Can a shared, revolutionary idea define American-ness? Has the concept been reduced to a particular plot of land? Or could the answer be an ever-evolving cultural one?
In this hyper-partisan time, conflicting visions of who is an American seem as present as ever. Providing no more than the title of the exhibition, we asked five artists - George Longfish, Leonard Meiselman, Natasha Mayers, Daniel Minter, and Robert Shetterly - to participate and provide their own unique answer: I Am An American.