How Breonna Taylor's Life Inspired an Unforgettable Museum Exhibition

Right now, there's an exhibition at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, that is gaining international attention for a tragic reason. That’s because the show, titled “Promise, Witness, Remembrance,” is dedicated to the memory of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black woman who was killed by police during a raid of her Louisville home on March 13, 2020.

A former emergency medical technician whose unjustified slaying led to widespread protests and the nationwide "Say Her Name" campaign, Taylor has become something of an inspiration to some of the country’s most prominent socially engaged artists, whose tributes to her have made her a symbol of the protest movement.

Those tributes, by artists like Hank Willis Thomas, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Theaster Gates, now fill the exhibition at the Speed, where the centerpiece is the already iconic portrait of Taylor by the artist Amy Sherald that originally graced the September cover of Vanity Fair.

The show, celebrated for its emotional power, was organized by the Alison Glenn, associate curator of contemporary art at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

So how did a museum exhibition dedicated to a victim of police violence come to be? To find out, we're pleased to have Allison Glenn on the show today.