Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness

Last updated • 1 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness
Zak Ove Black and Blue The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness (33948293621).jpg
80 sculptures by British-Trinidadian artist Zak Ové. Black and Blue: The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness, a mass of identical two-metre-tall figures
Artist Zak Ové
Completion date6 October 2016 (2016-10-06)
Medium graphite
LocationLondon (2016), Yorkshire (2017), San Francisco (2018), East Winterslow (2019), Los Angeles (2019)

Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness (sometimes titled Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Blackness) was an art installation by Zak Ové that has been installed in several major cities. It features 40 (or sometimes 80) identical statues, each weighing approximately 300 lbs. [1] [2]

Ové first installed the work in the courtyard of Somerset House in London, as part of the 2016 edition of the contemporary African art fair 1:54. [3] He intended it as "a rebuke" to Ben Jonson's plays The Masque of Blackness and The Masque of Beauty , performed at Somerset House in 1605 and 1608, starring the queen consort Anne of Denmark and other performers in blackface. [4] Ové was inspired by a meter-tall wooden sculpture his father, Horace Ové, obtained in Kenya in the early 1970s, and attempted to create "a work that spoke about Africa's diaspora, what it is to be an African born away from the continent" by replicating and enlarging the figure into a group of massive graphite sculptures, "almost as a tribe out of context." [5]

The work was then installed elsewhere in England, at Yorkshire Sculpture Park from April 2017 - June 2018, doubling the number of figures to eighty. In July 2018, it traveled abroad to stand outside San Francisco City Hall in Civic Center, San Francisco, in the U.S. state of California, remaining until November 2018. [6] [7] A 40-figure version was installed at the New Art Centre in East Winterslow, Wiltshire, England in June 2019. [8] From July – November 2019, it was installed in the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, interspersed with several bronzes by the 19th-century French sculptor Auguste Rodin. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duane Hanson</span> American sculptor

Duane Hanson was an American artist and sculptor born in Minnesota. He spent most of his career in South Florida. He was known for his life-sized realistic sculptures of people. He cast the works based on human models in various materials, including polyester resin, fiberglass, Bondo, and bronze. Hanson's works are in the permanent collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and The Smithsonian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Los Angeles Music Center</span> Performing arts center in Los Angeles, California

The Music Center is one of the largest performing arts centers in the United States. Located in downtown Los Angeles, The Music Center is composed of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Roy and Edna Disney / CalArts Theatre, and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

<i>The Burghers of Calais</i> Sculpture by Auguste Rodin

The Burghers of Calais is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in twelve original castings and numerous copies. It commemorates an event during the Hundred Years' War, when Calais, a French port on the English Channel, surrendered to the English after an eleven-month siege. The city commissioned Rodin to create the sculpture in 1884 and the work was completed in 1889.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Otterness</span> American sculptor (born 1952)

Tom Otterness is an American sculptor best known as one of America's most prolific public artists. Otterness's works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums around the world, notably in New York City's Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City and Life Underground in the 14th Street – Eighth Avenue New York Subway station. He contributed a balloon to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. In 1994 he was elected as a member of the National Academy Museum.

Aristides Burton Demetrios was an American sculptor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Millard Sheets</span> 20th century American artist (1907–1989)

Millard Owen Sheets was an American artist, teacher, and architectural designer. He was one of the earliest of the California Scene Painting artists and helped define the art movement. Many of his large-scale building-mounted mosaics from the mid-20th century are still extant in Southern California. His paintings are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, the National Gallery in Washington D.C.; and the Los Angeles County Museum.

The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy in San Francisco, California. The commission oversees Civic Design Review, Community Investments, Public Art, SFAC Galleries, The Civic Art Collection, and the Art Vendor Program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ned Kahn</span>

Ned Kahn is an environmental artist and sculptor, known in particular for museum exhibits. One of which is the Exploratorium in San Francisco. His work usually intends to make an invisible aspect of nature, visible.

Kerry James Marshall is an American artist and professor, known for his paintings of Black figures. He previously taught painting at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2017, Marshall was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. He was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, and moved in childhood to South Central Los Angeles. He has spent much of his career in Chicago, Illinois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Lobdell</span> American painter

Frank Lobdell was an American painter, often associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement and Bay Area Abstract Expressionism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mildred Howard</span> African-American artist

Mildred Howard is an African-American artist known primarily for her sculptural installation and mixed-media assemblages. Her work has been shown at galleries in Boston, Los Angeles and New York, internationally at venues in Berlin, Cairo, London, Paris, and Venice, and at institutions including the Oakland Museum of California, the de Young Museum, SFMOMA, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Museum of the African Diaspora. Howard's work is held in the permanent collections of numerous institutions, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Oakland Museum of California, and the Ulrich Museum of Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pioneer Monument (San Francisco)</span> Monument in San Francisco, California, U.S.

The Pioneer Monument is a granite monument supporting bronze figures and reliefs created by Frank Happersberger and financed by the estate of James Lick. It is located on Fulton Street between Hyde and Larkin Streets in the Civic Center, of San Francisco, California, next to the San Francisco Public Library. It was dedicated on November 29, 1894. A highly controversial component, Early Days, was removed in 2018.

Three Heads Six Arms is a sculpture by Chinese artist Zhang Huan. The work, composed of copper and steel, is 27 feet (8.2 m) tall and weighs 15 short tons (14 t). From May 2010 to February 2011, the sculpture was installed at the Joseph L. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza in San Francisco's Civic Center, before moving to Hong Kong later that year from May to July. A slightly modified version was exhibited in Florence in 2013.

Christopher Felver is an American photographer and filmmaker who has published several books of photos of public figures, especially those in the arts, most notably those associated with beat literature. He has made numerous films, including a documentary on Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder, released in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zak Ové</span> British-Trinidad visual artist (born 1966)

Zak Ové is a British-Trinidad visual artist who works between sculpture, film and photography, living in London, UK, and Trinidad. His themes reflect "his documentation of and anthropological interest in diasporic and African history, specifically that which is explored through Trinidadian carnival." In work that is "filtered through his own personal and cultural upbringing, with a black Trinidadian father and white Irish mother", he has exhibited widely in Europe, the United States and Africa, participating in international museum shows in London, Dakar, Paris, Dubai, Prague, Berlin, Johannesburg, Bamako and New York City. His father is the filmmaker Horace Ové and his sister is the actress Indra Ové.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Civic Center Plaza</span> Plaza in San Francisco, United States

Civic Center Plaza, also known as Joseph Alioto Piazza, is the 4.53-acre (1.83 ha) plaza immediately east of San Francisco City Hall in Civic Center, San Francisco, in the U.S. state of California. Civic Center Plaza occupies two blocks bounded by McAllister, Larkin, Grove, and Carlton B. Goodlett, divided into a north block and south block by the former alignment of Fulton Street. The block north of Fulton is built over a three-story parking garage ; the block south of Fulton lies over a former exhibition space, Brooks Hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Plaza (San Francisco)</span> Plaza in San Franciscos Civic Center

United Nations Plaza is a 2.6-acre (1.1 ha) plaza located on the former alignments of Fulton and Leavenworth Streets—in the block bounded by Market, Hyde, McAllister, and 7th Street—in the Civic Center of San Francisco, California. It is located 14 mi (0.40 km) east of City Hall and is connected to it by the Fulton Mall and Civic Center Plaza. Public transit access is provided by the BART and Muni Metro stops at the Civic Center/UN Plaza station, which has a station entrance within the plaza itself.

lauren woods is an American artist who works with film, video, performance, and installation art that challenges the systems of oppression and power as they relate to race. She was raised in Dallas, Texas. She is a visiting lecturer at Southern Methodist University.

Libby Black is an American contemporary artist working primarily in drawing, painting, and sculpture. Black lives and works in Berkeley California.

Adrienne Louise Fuzee was an American artist, curator, gallerist, editor, poet, and activist, based in California.

References

  1. "San Francisco Arts Commission". www.sfartscommission.org. Retrieved 2018-10-01.
  2. "The 40 Heads in Civic Center Plaza Are a Nod to Ralph Ellison - July 12, 2018 - SF Weekly". SF Weekly. 2018-07-12. Retrieved 2018-10-01.
  3. "Army of black statues stands guard at African art show in London". Reuters. 2016-10-04. Retrieved 2021-09-10.
  4. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019-09-05). "Zak Ové Installing The Invisible Man in LACMA's Cantor Sculpture Garden". Vimeo. Retrieved 2021-09-10.
  5. "Zak Ové: Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Blackness". Yorkshire Sculpture Park. 2017-04-08. Retrieved 2021-09-10.
  6. "Zak Ové's Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness in Civic Center Plaza – Civic Center Commons". www.civiccentercommons.org. Retrieved 2018-10-01.
  7. Rosato Jr., Joe (July 3, 2018). "New Sculpture Exhibit at San Francisco Civic Center Turning Heads". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  8. Yeomans, Phil (2019-06-18). "Anyone for croquet?" (PDF). The Daily Telegraph. London. p. 10. Bea Fomin takes a closer look at one of 40 graphite figures in an exhibition by Zak Ové, the British-Trinidadian artist, at the New Art Centre in Roche Court, near Salisbury, Wilts. The artwork, Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Blackness, comprises identical 7ft-tall figures standing in the grounds of the 19th century house.
  9. "The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 2019-09-05. Retrieved 2021-09-10.