“General strike” is a direct response to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers’ killings of American citizens and residents. It is a refusal of all that has come before — all the polite manners in the way that Americans like myself react to growing authoritarianism. It is also a rejection of my own symbolism that came before Trumpism took such a lethal and immediately life-threatening turn.

In my practice, I frequently use food as part of my language of subversion. In a previous painting entitled “Hanoi Hayoun,” I describe a dinner party as an instance of my grandfather’s revolutionary spirit. Here, I overturn the whole dinner table. This piece is a recognition that the whole playing field is rotten and must be subverted. It is intended as an incitement to greater revolutionary boldness.

- Massoud Hayoun