Lex Leifheit

It is Martin Luther King Jr Day, and for that reason I woke up thinking about a work of art I saw in Austin nearly two years ago, American Dream by Kurt Mueller. Mueller was featured in a show of 20 up-and-comers at the Austin Museum of Art. The marketing materials described his work as follows:

“Imitation insinuating itself into action is the crux of Mueller’s installation ‘American Dream,’ wherein a karaoke setup transforms the experience of singing a favorite song into a restatement of a world-altering speech. As the text of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech courses across the monitor much like a pop song, the viewer as performer finds that an everyday voice can be as effective as any other.”

For me, this work was the most memorable in the show. I was visiting Austin with Dan, the exhibition was busy that day but not crowded. I turned a corner and there it was … the karaoke machine! It was placed in the corner so that one had to step behind it, into the corner, and then there you were with your back up against the wall, in front of the microphone, looking out at the room.

The room was empty except for the security guard, a tall black woman in her 40s who was looking directly at me.

And on the karaoke screen, a crowd was cheering and a ball was bouncing and the words are racing across the screen, I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

And, in that moment, I didn’t feel like the marketing text said I would, like my “everyday voice can be as effective as any other.” I felt self-conscious, afraid to speak the words, even with the bouncing ball. I was reminded of the courage of Martin Luther King Jr, and the importance of lifting up many voices so that the right one, at the right time, may be heard.