Strange Fruit

You could be forgiven if your first reaction to "Laocoon" is laughter. Even Dr. Chris Reitz, gallery director of the University of Louisville's Hite Art Institute, admits to laughing when he first saw the piece in Miami. Simply put, it's a 10-foot-tall inflatable Fat Albert laying face down, hooked up to an air pump so it appears to be breathing. But when you learn more about the original Laocoon, and the identity of the artist, there's more to the piece than a pop culture reference. Remember the Trojan horse? A supposed peace offering that was actually stuffed with enemies trying to get inside the gates? In "The Aenid," Laocoon was the only one who smelled a rat — and he was killed for his protests. You might say he was #woke ahead of his time. Who would be Laocoon's modern-day American counterpart? Eric Garner? Mike Brown? Any number of black bodies we've seen in news footage, lying face-down, struggling to breathe? That's what Laocoon asks its viewers to think about. Also, there's no th