Adrian Burrell
Black Americans, July 4th, 2018
Estimated Value: $4,000

Archival pigment print
40 x 28 inches
Framed
Edition 1/6
Signed, front
Donated by the artist.

My grandmother had 16 children, 58 grandchildren, 112 great-grandchildren, 158 great-great-grandchildren. She's 94 and has been in Oakland, California, since 1945.

"Mama's Babies” takes a look at my family's migration from sharecropping farms in Louisiana to Oakland, California. This series shows the impact of a necrocapitalist understructure via my family's experience with mass incarceration and drug epidemics while leaving space for joy and the quotidian.

Black Americans shows my younger cousin Camari watching the fireworks in front of our grandmother's house on the 4th of July 2018.

LICENSE AGREEMENT
As a protection against the ongoing exploitation of Black labor and to offset the historical inequity created by institutional customs and expectations, Adrian Burrell (“Artist”) presents the following terms and conditions of license. 

Artist, on behalf of himself and any successors and/or assigns, grants to the licensee (“Licensee”) of “Black Americans” (“Artwork”) a non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, fully paid-up, revocable, and non-perpetual limited right, license, privilege, and immunity, under all claims of Artwork’s intellectual property to possess and display Artwork. Any and all any rights not expressly granted hereunder are reserved to Artist. 

The term of the rights, licenses, and privileges granted herein under Artwork and its related intellectual property shall exist from, and including, the date hereof, for a period not to exceed 100 years.

No verbiage in this contract shall be interpreted as constituting the sale of Artwork. Upon conclusion of the terms of this license, all Artwork and related rights shall revert back to Artist. In the event Artist is unable to personally recover Artwork, it shall be returned to Artist’s estate. 

This work may not be transferred without permission of Artist, and in the event of transfer, all future transferees shall be bound under these same terms and conditions. Notwithstanding any other terms of the possession and transfer of Artwork, these clauses shall control the terms of possession of Artwork.

About the Artist:
Adrian Burrell

Adrian L. Burrell (b. 1990, Oakland, California) is a storyteller who uses photography, film, and site-specific installation to examine issues of race, class, gender, and intergenerational dynamics. His work focuses on notions of kinship, diasporic narratives, and the gaps between place and belonging. His series “Mama's Babies” traces his family's history through slavery, the Great Migration, the crack era, and the current displacement of Black people in Oakland through gentrification. Adrian won the 2019 SF Camerawork Juror's Choice Award and the SFAI John Collier Award. He has lived and worked in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Adrian earned a BFA in film from the San Francisco Art Institute, is a United States Marine Corps veteran, and is currently earning his MFA from Stanford's Department of Art & Art history. 

Instagram: @1.living
Cash App: $adrianlburrell