Contributed by Carmen Summerfield
On a recent trip to New York City, I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the largest art museum in the United States. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, consisting of works of art from classical antiquity up to modern art. Let me describe two pieces of art with a “Recycling” theme that I am particularly impressed with…
1) “Four Hundred Years of Free Labor”, 1995. Welded found metal. By Joe Minter.
“Four Hundred Years of Free Labor” is composed of old rusted metal tools - shovels, pitchforks, pickax heads and a hoe - held together by welded pipes and bound by chains. Shown upright, the tools collectively assume a human presence. They confront the viewer like ghosts of their former users, evoking multiple and different groups of African Americans subjected to forced labor over time, from enslaved people harvesting cotton before the Civil War to chain gangs in the twentieth century.
Minters’ assembled tools stand as iconic testaments to the lives of the anonymous laborers who once wielded them. Sculptures like this one can still be found on the artist’s Birmingham property, which over the course of 30 years, he has turned into an ever-evolving art environment titled, “The African Village in America”.
2) “Yelthadaas”, from the series Coppers from the Hood, 2010. White-gold leaf, oil paint, and lacquer on steel. By Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas.
Yahgulanaas named his ongoing series “Coppers from the Hood” for the shield-like totems, or coppers, that Haida chiefs traditionally exchanged during potlaches, communal feasts that formed the basis of the pre-colonial economy on the Northwest Pacific Coast and that are still held today.
Many of the artist’s versions are painted on the hoods of Toyota Tercels, which he appreciates both for their aerodynamic shape and for their brand name: a tercel is a male hawk - a raptor related to the artist’s kinship group (the Raven moiety) and this work’s title (Yelthadaas means “white raven”).
Just as traditional coppers conveyed the wealth and importance of their bearers, automobiles are often the markers of economic status in the contemporary world.
You can make your own piece of recycled art! Display it at your home, in your yard. Or put it along the nature trail at the Recycling Center (VCRS). Or put it on display at the recycling booth during the Alaska State Fair.
Contact VCRS at (907) 745-5544 for more information.
