There’s a chilling calm to “The Breath of Empty Space,” an exhibition of Shaun Leonardo’s drawings of Black and Brown men lost to violence, most often by police, newly installed at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. It’s the stillness at the eye of the storm. In June, the show was abruptly canceled by the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland after Samaria Rice objected to drawings of her 12-year-old son, Tamir, killed by Cleveland police in 2014. Leonardo, who identifies as Afro-Latinx, blamed “white fragility” for the cancellation. (He had hoped to do significant community outreach with the show.) Jill Snyder, the museum’s director, blamed herself and resigned. Mass MoCA stepped into the breach just a few weeks ago, and here we are. (Leonardo’s two drawings of Rice are absent here, replaced by large black squares on the wall.)
