Wanton Zhang, Artist

Melting Landscape

High fired clay with glaze

24 x 25 x16 inches

A few more pieces by this artist below. 

Go to artsy.net to see more work. 

Whitney Plantation, Louisiana

Within the boundaries of the “Habitation Haydel”, as the Whitney Plantation was originally known, the story of the Haydel family of German immigrants and the slaves that they held were intertwined.

In 2014, the Whitney Plantation opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 262 year history as the only plantation museum in Louisiana with a focus on slavery.

Through museum exhibits, memorial artwork and restored buildings and hundreds of first-person slave narratives, visitors to Whitney will gain a unique perspective on the lives of Louisiana's enslaved people.

whitneyplantation.com

Field of Angels, Rod Moorhead

rodmoorhead.com

The field of Angels is a section of the slave memorial dedicated to 2,200 Louisiana slave children who died before their third birth date and documented in the Sacramental Records of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Their names are engraved on granite slabs along with quotes describing their everyday life. There are no indications of death rates in the plantation inventories but further documentation from the Sacramental Records of the Archdiocese of New Orleans reveals earliness of motherhood among the enslaved women and high mortality among their children. Thirty-nine children died on this plantation from 1823 to 1863, only six reaching the age of five. The level of this death toll can be better understood when one thinks of a house where a child dies every year. Some of the children, either on this site or elsewhere, died in tragic circumstances such as drowning, epidemics, being burned or hit by lightning.

A black angel carrying a baby to Heaven is built in the middle of the field. Rod Moorhead made this bronze sculpture. The latter’s work ranges from small clay figures to large bronzes. In 1993 he started Southside Gallery in Oxford, Mississippi, and was co-owner until 1997. Among his public commissions are Concerto, a seventeen foot bronze of a violinist and cellist which stands in front of the Gertrude Ford Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Mississippi, and a life size sculpture of James Meredith for the Civil Rights Memorial also at the University of Mississippi. He has work in the Roger Ogden Collection in New Orleans, and the collection of Morgan Freeman, among others. whitneyplantation.com

The Wall of Honor is a memorial dedicated to all the people who were enslaved on the Whitney Plantation. The names and the information related to them (origin, age, skills) were retrieved from original archives and engraved on granite slabs.

So far, more than 350 slaves were identified on official records. Sexual exploitation gave an additional level of horror to the lives of enslaved women.  Every individual identified in legal records as a “mulatto” was, by definition, a product of white parentage in some measure. This occurred virtually exclusively due to slave owners impregnating their slaves.  This was a common occurrence prior to emancipation and the “relationship” between white owners and enslaved women was sometimes documented through birth records.

The couple who would become the ancestors of the African American Haydel family, Victor Theophile Haydel (1835-1924) and Marie Celeste Becnel (1840-1885) were both born on the Whitney Plantation. Victor was the son of an enslaved woman named Anna, who was herself a mulatto. Victor was fathered by Antoine Haydel, the brother of Marie Azelie Haydel, the last Haydel family member to own the Whitney. Celeste was a daughter of Francoise, the enslaved cook of Marie Azelie, and was fathered by Florestan Becnel, Marie Azelie’s brother-in-law. It is known that each of these men was married, and that refusing to engage in sexual relations with a white man was not an option available to either of these women.

Victor is the ancestor of all the black Haydels many of whom became successful entrepreneurs, educators, and politicians. One example is the Morial family which gave two mayors to New Orleans. Victor Haydel was the great grandfather of Sybil Haydel, an educator, activist, and a community leader. Sybil became the First Lady of New Orleans when her husband, Ernest N. Morial, was elected the first African-American Mayor of the Crescent City. Their son, Marc Morial, also rose to fame and was elected President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, while serving two full terms as the mayor of New Orleans like his father. whitneyplantation.com

theatlantic.com

Louise Bourgeois, b. 1911 France, d. 2010 NYC

Cell (Glass Spheres and Hands)

"Cell (Glass Spheres and Hands)" is one of several freestanding sculptural installations by Louise Bourgeois. The title "Cell" can refer to the most basic building block of a living organism or a prison. Bourgeois' Cells combine aspects of both definitions, pairing the organic with the correctional. Matching used perfume bottles, vanity mirrors, model homes, and excised limbs with steel fencing, broken furniture, a guillotine, and a mechanical saw, each composition employs domestic and institutional elements to tell a story. In "Cell (Glass Spheres and Hands)," two fragmented marble arms rest on a fabric covered table. With hands clasped in a gesture of prayer, the isolated arms appear to be soft and vulnerable in spite of their rock-hard substance. Encircling the table are five glass spheres of different sizes, each resting on its own worn chair. Each enclosed sphere is like a bubble, self-contained but fragile in its existence. The chairs and spheres face the table in a united front, cornering and further isolating the hands. The work plays with relationships such as teacher/student and parent/child. In an arrangement that is reminiscent of a family gathering or classroom situation, "Cell (Glass Spheres and Hands)" invests inanimate objects with human qualities by enacting a drama in space. kelua.com

Cell II (1991)

The mirrored table could be a lady’s vanity where she would display her bottles of perfume.  Shalimar could be the scent her mother wore throughout Bourgeois’ childhood.  The mirror reflects the hands, contorted with distress, as are the stylized glass bottles, doubling the impact of both.  The wooden doors connect together as though they have joined hands, confining the memories and emotions associated with the objects inside, unwilling to release.

The simple placement of an empty bottle can evoke so much.  Jacques Guerlain created Shalimar in 1921 on the heels of the end of World War I, when Bourgeois would have been 7 years old.  With notes of vanilla, bergamot, and iris, it is a perfume in the category of “Oriental” that was immensely popular at the time.  Shalimar epitomized elegance, taste, and romance.  It was the story of the Mughal emperor who built the Gardens of Shalimar for his great love in Lahore, and then the Taj Mahal, that inspired Guerlain to put forth this enduring classic.

A perfume, inspired by the story of ideal love, is used up, has dried away in Bourgeois’ sculpture.  Yet the involuntary memory stirred upon smelling the perfume, much like Proust’s experience with tea and the madeleine, is irrepressible.  This is the power of scent.  All that is left are the tortured memories that do not wish to go away. madperfumista.com

“Structures of Existence” at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is the largest overview to date of Franco-American artist Louise Bourgeois’s “Cells” – a series of sculptural environments created over a period of two decades that deal with issues of memory, emotion, pain, anxiety, and abandonment.

Within each of the architectural “Cell” enclosures, Bourgeois composed found objects, garments, furniture, and sculptures into emotionally charged theatrical sets, establishing a barrier between the interior world of the artist and the exterior world of the exhibition space. blouinartinfo.com

Cynthia Lahti, Artist

See more by this artist here. 

Aly Schaper, Student Work

Link here to Aly's blog.  You can see more of her work and follow her journey. 

Rosa Verloop, Artist

Artist website link here.

Moataz Nasr, Artist

Read about it.  Link here.

George Segal, Artist, Bread Line

Read about it.  Link here.

Ofer Lellouche, Artist

Alina Szapocznikow; Sculpture Undone, 1955-1972

Showing at the Museum of Modern Art, October 7, 2012 - January 28, 2013.  Link here.

A sculptor who began working during the postwar period in a classical figurative style, Alina Szapocznikow radically reconceptualized sculpture as an imprint not only of memory but also of her own body. Though her career effectively spanned less than two decades (cut short by the artist’s premature death in 1973 at age 47), Szapocznikow left behind a legacy of provocative objects that evoke Surrealism, Nouveau Réalisme, and Pop art. Her tinted polyester casts of body parts, often transformed into everyday objects like lamps or ashtrays; her poured polyurethane forms; and her elaborately constructed sculptures, which at times incorporated photographs, clothing, or car parts, all remain as wonderfully idiosyncratic and culturally resonant today as when they were first made. Well known in Poland, where her work has been highly influential since early in her career, Szapocznikow’s compelling book of work is ripe for art historical reexamination.Alina Szapocznikow: Sculpture Undone, 1955–1972 offers a comprehensive overview of this important artist’s work at a moment when international interest is blossoming. Spanning one of the most rich and complex periods of the 20th century, Szapocznikow’s oeuvre responds to many of the ideological and artistic developments of her time through artwork that is at once fragmented and transformative, sensual and reflective, playfully realized and politically charged.

Katharina Fritsch, Artist

Figurengruppe. 2006–08 (fabricated 2010–11). Bronze, copper, and stainless steel, lacquered, dimensions variable. Gift of Maja Oeri and Hans Bodenmann (Laurenz Foundation). © 2011 Katharina Fritsch

Conceived in 2006–08, the work features nine life-size sculptures of, among other figures, St. Michael, a Madonna, a giant, and a snake, all rendered in precise detail and finished in bold colors. Religious symbolism and references to mythology abound, yet any fixed meaning remains open and elusive.

Source is Museum of Modern Art.  Link here. 

Akio Takamori, Artist

Link to Barry Friedman Ltd. to see more work by this artist.  Link here.
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