Melvin Edwards | Festivals, Funerals, and New Life

David Winton Bell Gallery
Brown University

November 11, 2017 – February 11, 2018

Festivals, Funerals, and New Life presents new and recent works by renowned sculptor Melvin Edwards alongside rarely exhibited historical works and pieces completed with the artist’s late wife, poet and activist Jayne Cortez. Sculptures and installations composed with industrial steel, chain, and machine parts broadly reflect Edwards’s engagement with European neocolonialism, histories of race, labor, violence and African diaspora. Bringing works from the 1970s into conversation with new and recent works, the exhibition affirms a continuity of themes, concerns, and commitments throughout Edwards’s career, spanning the Civil Rights Movement and continuing through recent and ongoing social justice movements.

Technicians
Ian Budish
Naushon Hale

Graphic Design
Beth Hart, Malcolm Grear Designers

Boston Glove review

Artist conversation with Tony Ramos

More information. →

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Melvin Edwards, Coco Vari Providence , 2018
Welded Steel and barbed wire
© 2018 Melvin Edwards/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Photograph by Jesse Banks III. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York.