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Update: Controversial Artist Who Saved Rosa Parks' Home Is Back in Detroit to Raise Questions About George Washington

March 30, 2019, 5:29 PM by  Allan Lengel
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Abdul Mumin, left, and Ryan Mendoza make the teeth.

Update, Sunday, 10:36 p.m.: A video below shows the beheading of Washington's bust.

Original article, Saturday 

American-born artist Ryan Mendoza, who lives in Berlin, knows how to stir things up in Detroit. In the summer of of 2016, he deconstructed a three-bedroom home at 2672 S. Deacon St. in Southwest Detroit where the civil rights icon Rosa Parks once lived. He then shipped it to Berlin where it was put back together and displayed on his property. It then got shipped to Rhode Island for display briefly before it went up for auction. It was never sold.

Now, he's back in Detroit with his latest project that is bound to stir up controversy over a revered president.  

On Sunday, he plans to unveil the bust of President George Washington and 317 teeth inside of it. He said he and Abdul Mumin, an African refugee who escaped the human trade business, sculpted the teeth out of ceremics, with each representing the number of slaves Washington owned.

At 3 p.m., at 7601 Rosa Parks Blvd. in Detroit, across from St. Agnes Church, local Detroit rapper Breanna "Breezy" Caprice will sever the head to expose the 317 teeth inside. Rosa Park's niece Rhea McCauley was supposed to do the ceremonial beheading, but she's in the hospital, Mendoza said. Journalist Greg Dunmore of Pulsebeat Media is moderating the event. 

Why go after Washington? 

Mendoza says Washington's old house, unlike Rosa Parks' home in Detroit, would never have gone unsold. Parks' home, where she lived with relatives briefly in the late 1950s, was offered at Guernsey's auction house in New York last July, but wasn't sold and is in storage in New York. Some claim Parks never lived there at the Detroit home, but McCauley, the niece says she lived there with Parks.  

"I'm comparing the two worlds," Mendoza says, noting that one person was a very famous slave owner, the other one was an icon of the civil rights movement.

"George Washington owned 317 slaves," Mendoza said. "Not one of them was set free during his lifetime. Though his views on slavery changed over time, during his life, Washington, like Jefferson, punished his slaves by whipping them, seperating families and selling them at auction. At least nine of his slaves are documented as having sold their teeth to Washington to complete his sets of dentures.

"In response to Trump‘s comments regarding Confederate monuments: where does it end? Do we take down Jefferson and Washington as well?"

Mendoza says Yes.

Mendoza says he'll take the severed head, bust and teeth to an upcoming international artist festival , the 12th Havana Biennale in Cuba, which opens April 12. There his wife Fabia Mendoza, will also show her award winning documentary on the Rosa Park's home. Mendoza will also show three paintings of muscle men who represent the "toxicity" of males. 

Mendoza knows he won't win this fight to bring down Washington. "We're going to lose the battle," he says. "George Washington is on currency, he's everywhere."

But not winning, Mendoza says, isn't a reason for not trying.



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