Domestic Terrorist Kerkow

Based in Brooklyn, American artist Suzanne McClelland is fascinated by the properties of language. Laced with words and numbers, her shimmering abstract works seek to visualise the ways in which information is transmitted, and the ease with which fact slips into fiction. Shown in the Saatchi Gallery’s 2016 exhibition Champagne Life, the present work belongs to her Domestic Terrorist series. It is based on the story of Catherine Kerkow, who – as a member of the Black Panthers – was involved in hijacking a plane travelling from Los Angeles to Seattle in 1972. She obtained political asylum in Algeria, and – with her current whereabouts unknown – has never been arrested. Having exhibited widely since the 1990s, McClelland was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019, and is currently the subject of a solo show at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro. Her works are held in numerous major public collections, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.