Carolyn Prescott discusses
the Overthrow Series
The paintings in the Overthrow series were inspired by a book by the journalist Stephen Kinzer: Overthrow, America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, which I discovered soon after it came out in 2006, three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Like many who came of age during the Vietnam War era, I have questioned my country’s many interventions, and I wanted to understand the patterns of our involvement in the overthrow of other governments and our leaders.
Kinzer, who served as the New York Times bureau chief in Nicaragua, Germany and Turkey, and as Latin American correspondent for the Boston Globe, documents regime change operations carried out by the U.S. in fourteen sovereign nations over the course of a century, writing only about those cases in which “Americans played the decisive role in deposing a regime,” whether by threatened or actual invasion or through covert operations. In these accounts, I was struck by the elegiac statements of the deposed, which convey the asymmetry of confronting a nation as powerful as the United States of America. Some of these heads of state submitted their resignations in order to save their people from bloodshed; sometimes we have only the words of their compatriots.
In thinking about how to bring these events to light, I thought almost immediately of the Mexican and Latin American tradition of retablo painting These votive paintings typically tell stories of misfortune followed by a rescue through the miraculous intercession of a saint. The artist recreates the story as told by the protagonist, whose words are written on the painting. The role of the artist as a faithful listener yet imaginative recorder of stories not widely known seemed to me a fitting one for rendering these stories of regime change. Thus, I have appropriated the retablo genre, rejecting the concept of a unified historical narrative, instead combining fragmentary story elements and knowing these stories have been and will continue to be told by the people whose governments were overturned.
Kinzer, who served as the New York Times bureau chief in Nicaragua, Germany and Turkey, and as Latin American correspondent for the Boston Globe, documents regime change operations carried out by the U.S. in fourteen sovereign nations over the course of a century, writing only about those cases in which “Americans played the decisive role in deposing a regime,” whether by threatened or actual invasion or through covert operations. In these accounts, I was struck by the elegiac statements of the deposed, which convey the asymmetry of confronting a nation as powerful as the United States of America. Some of these heads of state submitted their resignations in order to save their people from bloodshed; sometimes we have only the words of their compatriots.
In thinking about how to bring these events to light, I thought almost immediately of the Mexican and Latin American tradition of retablo painting These votive paintings typically tell stories of misfortune followed by a rescue through the miraculous intercession of a saint. The artist recreates the story as told by the protagonist, whose words are written on the painting. The role of the artist as a faithful listener yet imaginative recorder of stories not widely known seemed to me a fitting one for rendering these stories of regime change. Thus, I have appropriated the retablo genre, rejecting the concept of a unified historical narrative, instead combining fragmentary story elements and knowing these stories have been and will continue to be told by the people whose governments were overturned.
In formal terms these paintings employ many features of retablo: flatness, the condensation of pictorial space, and the inclusion of written narrative. They contain components of a linear story of a coup, but like many retablos, they may also jump backward and forward in time, referring to causes and subsequent events. In other ways I have taken liberties with the genre. These paintings do not feature saints; rather, they give voice to the deposed leaders or their representatives. Unlike most retablos, they are not meant to connect to a divinity or supernatural world; rather, they commemorate grief and loss, alluding to the psychic trauma experienced Carolyn Prescott, Berlin, 2021
References Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow, America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York: Times
Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2006. (Note: Mr. Kinzer does not bear responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation in the painting series or in this portfolio.)
Elin Luque Agraz and Michele Beltrán, “Powerful Images: Mexican Ex-Votos,” Retablos y ex votos. Museo Franz Mayer, Artes de México, 2000
References Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow, America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York: Times
Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2006. (Note: Mr. Kinzer does not bear responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation in the painting series or in this portfolio.)
Elin Luque Agraz and Michele Beltrán, “Powerful Images: Mexican Ex-Votos,” Retablos y ex votos. Museo Franz Mayer, Artes de México, 2000
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