Vastly larger than any work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jacolby Satterwhite’s commissioned six-channel projection ‘A Metta Prayer’ transforms the museum’s cavernous lobby space into a celebratory, uplifting and politically insistent digital realm. Inspired by the Buddhist mantra of loving-kindness, phrases including, “May we always hear ourselves clearly” and “May your martyred fate start a revolution against hate” (seen here) appear over computer generated individuals running as if in a video game to collect ‘mantra coins.’ In the segment pictured here, dancer O’Shea Sibley appears in white sweats, filmed months before he was murdered in a racist and homo-phobic attack in a Midwood gas station last summer. Satterwhite’s prayer continues, ‘May your candid grace deface, replace this senseless race.’ (The museum will be closed Jan 1st. On view through Jan 7th.)
