Nigrum Paenitentiam — When Oprah Wept

Oprah Wept is a mobile sculpture performance traveling within three blocks of Union Square in both directions. Wearing a custom-built confessional booth construction on his back, the artist invites passersby to approach the booth as “penitents” and make a spoken confession of any cultural insensitivity they once enacted. The artist formed the project in order to satirically investigate pervasive attitudes about race, religion, sex, and class in society as well as the media-inspired notion of absolution through public confession in our “post-ism” American mediasphere.