  About the Artwork
  
  
  Using folklore and totems drawn from the traditions of the African diaspora, Europe, and America, Robert Colescott examines the vexing power of luck. A rabbit's foot or a four-leaf clover can bring luck. Luck is needed to win at dice or cards. Voodoo dolls offer protection and control the fate of others. In some traditional African tales, blacksmiths possess supernatural powers, but in the American South, blacksmiths of African descent often labored hard for little reward. This smith forging a horseshoe--an enduring symbol of luck in Western cultures--has mottled skin. Is he black or white? Colescott interlayers his meanings with ambiguous irony; the inter-racial couple in the upper right may illustrate an idiomatic reading of the phrase "Change Your Luck." The futility of it all is captured in the despairing expression of the man on the right. 
From Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 89 (2015)
  
  
  Title
  Change Your Luck
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1988
  
  Artist
  Robert Colescott
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1925 - 2009
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
  ----------
  
  
  Medium
  Acrylic on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 84 × 72 inches (213.4 × 182.9 cm)
  Framed: 84 3/4 × 72 3/4 × 2 5/8 inches (215.3 × 184.8 × 6.7 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  African American Art
  
  
  Credit
  Museum Purchase, Friends of African and African American Art
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  2002.126
  
  
  Copyright
  Non-commercial all standard museum
