Life&Travel
Retrospective of Joyce Scott works explores ‘Harriet Tubman and Other Truths’
|
HAMILTON, N.J. he seems about to take flight, this 10-foot-tall woman with the bronze patina. She gazes fiercely ahead, cradling a rifle in one arm.
Perched amid a landscape of elegant plants and, in place of grass, a carpet of quilts, the outdoor sculpture exudes confidence, determination and hope. So much so that you don’t notice right away another female figure, this one almost skeletal, hanging in a distant tree — as if lynched.
The visual and emotional impact of that juxtaposition is just one highlight of “Joyce J. Scott: Harriet Tubman and Other Truths,” an expansive retrospective of work by the inimitable Baltimore artist at Grounds for Sculpture, an inviting 42-acre oasis dotted with nearly 300 sculptural pieces by established and emerging artists.
The acreage now holds two larger-thanlife pieces commissioned for this exhibit that depict Tubman. One of them is designed to disintegrate into the elements by the time the exhibit closes April 1.
“They told me I could do whatever I wanted,” says Scott, a 2016 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship (the so-called genius grant). “And I said, are you sure? They seemed very excited about the boundaries of sculpture that could be pushed. And whatever I requested — some will say ‘demanded’ [Scott breaks into a grin] — it happened.”
Scott, who will be honored next weekend (with Librarian of Congress Carla D. Hayden) at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum,
S