Melvin Edwards: Brighter Days
The exhibition offers a focused look at Edwards’ accomplishments in large-scale sculpture and public art through five sculptures from 1970 to 1996, and a sixth commissioned in 2020 for Brighter Days. These six works elaborate on his examination of race, labor, and the African Diaspora, and feature his signature use of abstract, representational icons like chains. To the artist, the chain possesses numerous meanings, ranging from its function as a “welded rope” for pulling, its use for bondage and constraints, and its more metaphorical association to linkage and connectivity. By fragmenting and breaking the links, Edwards creates nuanced interpretations of the chain, including its allusions to slavery and violence, as well as liberation and connection. All at once, Brighter Days encourages mindfulness of the past, while inspiring resiliency, overcoming, and connection.
Lincoln, MA
06/01/22 - 05/08/2023
Originally organized by the New York-based nonprofit Public Art Fund for City Hall Park in 2021