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Untitled (Wall Hanging)

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Photography by Edward C. Robison III
Untitled (Wall Hanging)
Photography by Edward C. Robison III

Untitled (Wall Hanging)

Artist (born 1937)
Date1982
MediumWelded steel
Dimensions16 in. × 11 5/16 in. × 2 5/16 in. (40.6 × 28.7 × 5.8 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2018.2
Signedverso: MEL [indistinct]
Accession number 2018.2
On View
Not on view
ProvenanceArtist; (Stephen Friedman Fine Art, London, England); purchased by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2018
Label TextAbstract sculptor Melvin Edwards began working with barbed wire as his chosen medium in 1969. Although visually compelling, barbed wire historically symbolizes brutality. To Edwards, it represents slavery and detainment. He uses this material to create “spaces of risk” by confining it to a wall or welded metal. In describing the medium, Edwards has said, “Wire, like most linear materials, has a history both as obstacle and enclosure, but barbed wire has the added capacity of painfully dynamic and aggressive resistance if contacted unintelligently.”