{"object":[{"sourceId":{"label":"Source ID","value":"62601"},"creditline":{"label":"Credit Line","value":"Paul Sokal Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza"},"labelText":{"label":"Description","value":"\"21 November\" is a photographic triptych by local Dallas photographer Paul Sokal that imagines the night before the Kennedy assassination. Rather than focusing on the actual event, the artist evokes an assassin\u2019s mental state as he contemplates what the next day will bring. Each image shows the same intimate setting in a living room with strewn magazines and a decreasing volume of whiskey in a bottle on a side table next to an armchair. A clock on the wall and shifting shadows illustrate the passage of time in each of the images. These small differences between the three images offer glimpses into the changing state of mind of the unseen occupant of the room as the artist asks the viewer to consider the assassin\u2019s point of view and decision. \r\n\r\nIn his oral history with the Museum, Sokal said of his work, \u201cI started to think about what a monstrous act it was, [and] that [the assassination] was committed by one or more human beings, not by a monster. And what was that like the night before?\u201d"},"invno":{"label":"Object number","value":"2019.015.0001"},"description":{"label":"Description","value":"Artwork titled \u201c21 November\u201d by donor and local Dallas photographer Paul Sokal that is a photographic triptych meant to represent the night before someone is going to kill the president of the United States. Each separate photographic print in the triptych is labeled as a part (2019.015.0001.0001-.0003). Each image shows the same intimate setting in a living room with strewn magazines and a decreasing volume of whiskey in a bottle on a side table next to an armchair; a clock on the wall and shifting shadows illustrate the passage of time in each of the images. By creating this piece as a triptych, it allowed the photographer to demonstrate the passage of time and growing intensity in each successive image. Title date format and individual triptych title times are intended to be reflective of military time, which the photographer intentionally employed to allude to the possible involvement of the U. S. military in Kennedy's assassination.\r\n\r\nSokal likes a quote from Ansel Adams that refers to photography being an analytic art, which is very reflective of the fact that these are quite analytical compositions - all set props were chosen for specific reasons and to communicate intentional messages to the viewer. The artist was inspired to create these pieces based on this question: \"What's it like the night before you plan to kill the president of the United States?\" His goal was to allow the viewer to almost step into the images so that the details can be studied. Sokal has noted that \"21 November\" is \"not specific to Lee Harvey Oswald as I'm not trying to address the question of who committed the crime.\" [See accession records for artist quotes in communication with Curator of Collections Lindsey Richardson.] \r\n\r\nThe images were photographed with an extremely high-resolution medium format digital camera so that the detail of the composition is high enough to make it seem like the viewer is there. Sokal created the set for this photographic work by collecting the mid-century artifacts seen in the images over the period of a few years; the television set was the first purchase though. He constructed the set in his normally all-white studio over a couple of months. The set was eight feet wide; the back wall of the set was composed of two pieces of four-foot wide wood paneling. He sets the scene with the magazine dates visible in each triptych image. He had the pages of the magazines used in the images trimmed on the frayed sides so they would look like freshly new publications. The magazines were slightly touched up in Photoshop so that the coloring was restored closer to the original printing color and so they would look brand new; this was the only implementation of Photoshop in \"21 November.\" The Statler matchbook cover on the side table is from the historic Dallas Statler hotel and dates to 1959 when the hotel opened. The artist did not seek out a specific brand of alcohol to use in the composition; he was only looking for a vintage bottle with no zip code on it. The framed picture on the wall is crooked because it contributes to the \"down on your luck\" atmosphere in the composition Sokal was attempting to create. The photographer had to reshoot the image several times because there were modern barcodes and zip codes that appeared on various objects in the composition depending on how he positioned them, and those non-1960s elements ruined the November 21, 1963 time frame of the set. A couple weeks would pass between Sokal shooting each triptych composition; each set change was shot in a couple hours though. \r\n\r\nThe six original magazines Sokal used to create the set for the composition of \"21 November\" were included in the donation. Sokal was very deliberate about which magazines were selected for the scene he was creating. The magazines he chose are TV Guide, 08/17/1963 (2019.015.0002); True Police Cases, October 1963 (2019.015.0003); TRUE's Gun Annual, 1962 (2019.015.0004); and LIFE, 03/29/1963, 11/22/1963, 11/15/1963. (2019.015.0005 - .0007, respectively). These magazines were specifically and methodically chosen to represent what the possible motivation was for the assassin and what materials the assassin might have needed to build up their courage to perform such a horrific act. \r\n\r\nThe artist thinks the best way to view these pieces is in a book-like format where each image is on a separate page and the viewer flips through them to view them individually. His concern in them being hung on a wall altogether is that the viewer wouldn't read them properly. \r\n\r\nSokal discusses a lot of the above-mentioned background information about creating \"21 November\" in his Oral History recorded with Curator Stephen Fagin on February 8, 2019 (2019.001.0009).\r\n\r\nArtist Paul Sokal retains the rights to \"21 November.\""},"medium":{"label":"Medium","value":"Paper, Photo"},"onview":{"label":"On View","value":"0"},"media":{"label":"Media","value":[{"mediaURL":"https://emuseum.jfk.org/internal/media/dispatcher/60318/full","displayOrder":"0","mediaType":"Image","mediaId":"60318"},{"mediaURL":"https://emuseum.jfk.org/internal/media/dispatcher/58645/full","displayOrder":"0","mediaType":"Image","mediaId":"58645"},{"mediaURL":"https://emuseum.jfk.org/internal/media/dispatcher/58647/full","displayOrder":"0","mediaType":"Image","mediaId":"58647"},{"mediaURL":"https://emuseum.jfk.org/internal/media/dispatcher/58651/full","displayOrder":"0","mediaType":"Image","mediaId":"58651"}]},"title":{"label":"Title","value":"\"21 November,\" photographic triptych by photographer Paul Sokal"},"classification":{"label":"Classifications","value":"Art"},"primaryMedia":{"label":"PrimaryMedia","value":"/internal/media/dispatcher/60318/full"},"depth":{"label":"Depth","value":["0E-10"]},"thesconcepts":{"label":"Terms","value":["Photographs","Pop Culture","Artwork","Artist","Assassination","Rifles","Cuba","Mafia","Photographer","Firearms","Castro, Fidel","Kennedy, Robert F.","LIFE Magazine","TV Guide","TRUE","True Police Cases","Statler Hilton Hotel","Dallas"]},"culture":{"label":"Object","value":"Artwork"},"displayDate":{"label":"Date","value":"2018"},"width":{"label":"Width","value":["91.4401828804"]},"textEntriesTextentries":{"label":"Curatorial Commentary","value":["An October 2020 gallery talk with Paul Sokal, part of the Museum's \"Interrogating Art\" virtual series to support the special exhibit \"Art Reframes History,\" may be viewed on the Museum's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9roGBdydn-k. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator","Exhibit Label: A native Texan, Paul Sokal got his first real camera, a Voigtlander Rangefinder, in 1964 and won his first photography prize in 1969 in the Buffalo Evening News Amateur Snapshot Contest. He then took a 25-year hiatus to become a medical doctor but returned to photography and began shooting weddings in 2004. Sokal shifted his focus to fine art photography, and his images have been exhibited in galleries as well as private and corporate collections. He has won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize in Dallas\u2019 inaugural Trinity River Photography Contest and two merit awards in the Black and White Magazine Individual Image Contest. He is a photography judge for the State Fair of Texas, and one of his large Dallas panoramas hung in the office of former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. (Special exhibit, \"Art Reframes History,\" on view on the Museum's seventh floor from September 9, 2020 through May 9, 2021)","Dallas photographer Paul Sokal was ten years old and living in Williamsville, New York, at the time of the assassination. That early childhood memory played a key role in the inspiration for his triptych, \"21 November.\" In his 2019 oral history, Sokal recalls, \"I was in one of my favorite junk stores, and I saw this TV. And I said, 'I've got to have that TV. I don't know why. I just know I need to have it.' And it sat in my studio for several months, and I was waiting for it to inspire me.\" Sokal began to think about the great television event of his childhood, when such a vintage TV would have been in use, and quickly decided that it had to be the Kennedy assassination. From there, Sokal began to think \"about what a monstrous act it was, but it was committed by one or more human beings, not a monster. And what was that like the night before? And so, the TV led me to construct a set piece in my studio....\" -- Stephen Fagin, Curator"]},"id":{"label":"Id","value":"66137"},"dimensions":{"label":"Dimensions","value":"each piece in triptych measures: 46 7/8 × 36 in. (119.1 × 91.4 cm)"},"height":{"label":"Height","value":["119.0627381255"]}}]}