Artwork Details
- Title
- New Kids in Class
- Artist
- Date
- 1994
- Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- 86 x 69 in. (218.4 x 175.3 cm)
- Copyright
- © Pacita Abad Art Estate
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
- Mediums Description
- acrylic, oil, cloth, sequins, buttons, beads on stitched and padded canvas
- Classifications
- Subjects
- Object — other — flag
- Occupation — education — student
- Figure group
- Object Number
- 2023.25
Artwork Description
New Kids in Class reflects Pacita Abad's experience teaching art in DC public schools, including Oyster Bilingual School, Thompson Elementary School, and Savoy Elementary School, from 1986 to 1994. An immigrant from the Philippines, she was fascinated by the mix of people from around the world found in DC classrooms, and by how cultures interact with and transform one another in the United States.
Abad sought to make visible "the American immigration experience of people of color," illustrating the hopes, opportunities, and struggles of those arriving from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The colorful stitchwork and applied lace, beads, and buttons in New Kids in Class echoes the artist's vision of US society as "a fabric of nationalities that combines many threads of all sizes and colors."
Gallery label, 2024