See No Evil 

Michael Parkes created ‘See No Evil’ using mixed media. It presents us with a winged figure and a black monkey in an ambiguous, possibly dreamlike, setting. The title ‘See No Evil’ points us to a familiar set of figures: the three wise monkeys who represent the proverb ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ The monkey in Parkes’s work, then, becomes a meditation on this proverb, which has often been used to promote censorship or the turning of a blind eye to injustice. Parkes, an American artist working in the late 20th and early 21st century, may be commenting on the political climate of his time, when many felt that unpleasant truths were being ignored by those in power. To understand this work more fully, we might research the history of the ‘three wise monkeys’ and the varied ways the proverb they illustrate has been used, both to encourage wisdom and to justify ignorance. As historians, it is our role to investigate those different meanings within their social and institutional contexts.