I just got back from the press preview for the latest exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery, In Plain Sight, which officially opens tomorrow. This group show features work from both national and international artists and addresses “narrative, communities, and histories that are typically hidden or invisible in our public space.” There are a lot of really great pieces and artists featured that I’m going to have fun writing about in the upcoming months, but today I’m going to focus on one of the installations in the show by Sanford Biggers, a black-American multidisciplinary artist residing in Harlem.
I cannot profess to being a huge fan of Biggers’s work. I studied him in my African-American Art History course in college, and previous to me being reintroduced to his work today, I probably could not visualize anything that he’d done. But “And?”—which is one of five of his works on view—is beautiful, nearly shouting at me to pay attention to it. And it’s totally seared into my brain.
The sculptures in front are vaguely recognizable as West African, familiar to anyone who has traveled to the region or walked past them in a museum. Biggers collects these sculptures, which are often made for thirsty tourists that harbor specific ideas of African culture. He then transforms these pieces, often doing what he calls “ballistically sculpting,” meaning he shoots the objects using a gun.
The results from that process he sometimes turns into giant bronze sculptures (one of which is in the show) or here, covered in tar, giving them a charred-like appearance. This destruction of the sculptures speaks to the violence perpetrated against Africans and the African diaspora. Their reconfiguration, a testament to the endurance of the African people, culture, and influence on the rest of the world.
Though my phone had a hard time capturing it, the black and gold material that composes the sculptures’ shadow is made of sequins, kind of like those insanely satisfying pillows.
The image is from Biggers’s research into the Civil Rights era. One of the figures is allegedly Angela Davis, though to the artist it’s less about the individual identities of the figures, but rather about the collective identity of the group. I love the way that the golden-bronze sequins denote skin and hair color and how it glimmers as you move through the space. And though there are negative connotations to shadows (overshadowed, left in the shadows, cast a shadow over.., etc.), I think that, here, the shadow acts as a connective, enduring thread—from black-Americans’ origins in Africa to our fight for Civil Rights in the 1960s and 1970s. And, ostensibly, to now as well.
You’ll have a chance to see Sanford Biggers’s work—and the rest of the show—for yourself tomorrow from 7-9 p.m. at the Henry. The show will be up until April 26th. Don’t miss out!
