Independent
Melvin Edwards
American, born 1937
2004
A compact welded-steel wall sculpture in which Melvin Edwards fuses salvaged metal bits into a jagged, clenched form that channels physical force and the memory of struggle.
You first see a dense knot of bolts, rods, discs, and sliced plates thrusting outward like a serried hand or talon, its rough welds, dark rusted patina, and flashes of exposed metal making the piece feel both brutal and taut with tension.
Working in the language of his Lynch Fragments, Edwards uses industrial steel to translate histories of racial violence and resilience into a new, politically charged vocabulary for postwar welded-assembly sculpture.
Medium
Steel
Dimensions
14 × 6 × 8 3/4" (35.6 × 15.2 × 22.2 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of the Estate of Kynaston McShine
Accession
701.2019
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
