MARSHALL FREDERICKS ONLINE EXHIBITIONS
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  • HOME
  • BLOG
  • Resources
  • Create
    • Botanical Ornament
    • Coloring Pages
    • Draw and Share
    • From Drawing to Wire Sculpture
    • Paper Mache
    • Sculpt And Share
    • Soap Carving
  • S.T.E.A.M.
    • Outdoor Sculpture
    • The Science of Metal Casting
    • Sculpture Garden Plant Life
  • Virtual Exhibitions
    • Richmond Barthé
    • Vitality and Continuity
    • Rose Chiu: Heart Intoxicated by Watercolor >
      • Rose Chiu Curriculum Vitae
    • RBJSE2023
    • Off Kilter
    • Exposure
    • Monuments
    • Mosaic
    • Carl Fredericks
    • Harold Neal
    • Tradition Interrupted
    • Notes From the Quarantimes
    • Luis Garza Photographs
    • RBJSE 2021
    • Michigan Modern
    • Form Foundations
    • Hip Hop Icons
    • Mark Beltchenko: SOS
    • Explorations in Wood
  • Virtual Field Trip
  • Virtual Tour
  • Great Lakes Bay Read
  • 2024 Saints & Sinners
  • Art in Community
    • Community Calendar
    • MAC
  • Fundraiser Exhibition
  MARSHALL FREDERICKS ONLINE EXHIBITIONS
Picture
Picture

The Exhibition

Imagined West
“The West is no longer the west of picturesque and stirring events. Romance and adventure have been beaten down in the rush of civilization.” —Frederic Remington, 1907
 
As in the quote above, these sculptures tell fictional stories of an American West that was an untouched, romantic, or “uncivilized” frontier—ripe for adventuring. That wasn’t true.
 
Made in the 1900s, their vivid details transported viewers back in time from bustling cities to the mountains and plains of an imagined “Wild West.” Images of rugged cowboys taming nature and defeated Native Americans reflect the racist attitudes of their makers and promoted the false belief that Indigenous extinction was an inevitability.
 
What invented stories do monumental sculptures continue to tell today? 
James Earle Fraser "The End of the Trail" 1918 Tired. Exhausted. Defeated. What other words come to mind as you look at this sculpture? The artist claims it was based on a Native American man he saw in the Dakota Territory in the 1880s. But Indigenous artists depicting their own experience in the same period show subjects with strength and resilience, resisting genocidal intrusion into their ancestral homelands. Think about how this sculpture, seen by millions, shaped attitudes toward Indigenous people in the United States.
Frederic Remington, American, (1861 - 1909) "The Rattlesnake" c. 1903

​Classical Visions
“No work in sculpture, however well wrought out physically, results in excellence, unless it rests upon, and is sustained by the dignity of a moral or intellectual intention.” —Erastus Dow Palmer, 1856
 
What did the sculptors in this section intend? By evoking styles from ancient Greece and Rome, they hoped to connect those cultures’ legacies—of democracy, patriotic devotion, and military prowess—to America’s future.
 
In the mid-1800s, the United States was young—about 70 years old. Industrialization, territorial expansion, and the Civil War were shaping the nation. Against a backdrop of tumultuous change, these works conveyed timelessness, permanence, and stability.
 
What Greek and Roman influence do you still see today in public sculpture, government buildings, and pop culture? Think about columns, marble, togas, and mythological figures like Hercules.
Hiram Powers, (1805 – 1873) "Proserpine" 1848-49
Erastus Dow Palme "Stillman Witt" 1883

​Modern Form
“What I wanted was to look for beauty in the everyday world, to catch the joy and swing of modern American life.” —Bessie Potter Vonnoh, 1925
 
In the early 1900s, American sculptors working in a variety of styles wanted to break with past conventions and create art that reflected modern life.
 
The sculptures in this section reflect changes in:
  • Voice — women sculptors become more prominent.
  • Style — simplified forms and smoother surfaces move the needle toward abstraction.
  • Subject — everyday people receive heroic treatment in bronze.
 
Which individual from your everyday life would you choose to celebrate in sculpture?
Max Kalish "Steel into the Skies" 1932
Bessie Potter Vonnoh "A Modern Madonna" 1904
Harriet W. Frishmuth, American, (1880 - 1980) "Joy of the Waters" 1920 Imagine your feet were suddenly splashed by a jet of cold water. That’s how Harriet Frishmuth inspired her model to strike this pose. When first made, Frishmuth was one of just a few prominent American woman sculptors, and her subject was a woman who displayed an exuberant sense of freedom in body and emotion. This new sense of freedom, for Frishmuth as a professional sculptor and her unrestrained subject, reflected emerging feminist ideas around women’s independence.
Paul Manship "Dancer and Gazelles" 1916 Paul Manship drew from ancient South Asian and archaic Greek art to create this sculpture—considered cutting edge in its time. Although Dancer and Gazelles is a three-dimensional figurative sculpture, lines define it. The line of the dancer’s silhouette, the crescent shapes that form her eyes, and the details of her hair and clothes create stylized textures and smooth surfaces that epitomized the look and feel of modern life.

New Monuments
“In the 19th century you could go to a school where they’d teach horse anatomy and . . . you’d know how to make a monument by the time you got out. Art school in my day was more about exploring ideas or developing a personality in your work.” —Richard Hunt, 2015
 
In the late 1900s, artists reconsidered the relevance of traditional sculpture with its elevated human subjects and expensive materials like marble and bronze.
 
Some rejected figurative subjects altogether for abstract forms that expressed an idea or emotion. Some elevated everyday objects to the status of art. Others responded with the innovative use of new or atypical materials such as plastic, steel, and found objects.
 
Altogether, they sought to create a conversation around the social role and function of monumental sculpture and to conceive new possibilities for what monuments could be.
 
Which sculpture in this section most challenges your ideas about what a monument is? 
Deborah Butterfield, American, (May 7, 1949 -) "Black Jack" 1999 Unlike the other horses in this exhibition, this one doesn’t have a rider. Butterfield has a deep emotional connection to horses and saw them as worth exploring without human mounts. Here, Black Jack stands gently and calmly on its own. Butterfield explains that “this countered the historic iconic statues commemorating war, featuring generals sitting atop big stallions. These statues have been the metaphor for male domination and power. Now we see them toppling down.”
Jackie Ferrara "C,C/A,V" 1975 Ferrara produced these plywood pyramids in various sizes. This is from a 1979 installation at Castle Clinton National Monument in New York City.
Alexander Calder "The X and Its Tails" 1967 The sculpture above was made in preparation for the large-scale version at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Michael Dunbar "Allegheny Drift" 1995
Richard Hunt "Standard" 1995 A close look at Standard reveals cut lines, hammer marks, and welds that show Richard Hunt’s expressive process of bending and combining metal directly with a torch and hammer. Scholars compare the resulting cylindrical form on a raised platform with ribbon-like flourishes at the top to other monumental forms: a column with a decorative capital, a torch with flame, or even a dancing figure with arms outstretched. What do you see?
Claes Oldenburg "Alphabet / Good Humor" This might look like it belongs in front of a fast-food restaurant rather than in a museum, and that could be the point. Oldenburg wanted to “locate art in the experience of life” and after seeing the Good Humor Bar on ice-cream trucks, he transformed the popular image into his subject. He added the strange, plush letters that make up the bar while maintaining familiar details like a missing bite and melted droplet. The Good Humor bar is an icon that Claes Oldenburg has repeated dozens of times in different scales and materials, including this proposal for a “colossal monument” on Park Avenue in New York.
Claes Oldenburg "Alphabet / Good Humor" 
Slide to compare the drawing to the final sculpture.

How Should We Remember?
 
“For me, the whole thing about modern art is, you can invent your own game and all the rules.” —Melvin Edwards, 2014
 
An intimate box of art objects can be both a memorial and activism. A monument dedicated to a sports icon can transform into a call for equal rights.
 
The works in this section stretch the capacity of monuments to commemorate people, events, and ideas. No longer just figurative representations funded and controlled by the person who commissioned them, these objects represent complicated life legacies, entire communities, and even create space for memories to be made.
 
Can you think of a time a monument took on a new meaning once it became public?
ACT UP Art Box, 1993–94 Maple, birch, aluminum, and chrome with mixed media 1. Louise Bourgeois American, 1911–2010 2. Kiki Smith American, born 1954 3. Ross Bleckner American, born 1949 4. Mike Kelley American, 1954–2012 5. Lorna Simpson American, born 1960 6. Simon Leung American, born 1964 7. Nancy Spero American, 1926–2009
Marshall M. Fredericks "Study for Henry Ford" 1975 Some might approach the full-scale memorial and remember Ford’s antisemitism. In 1920, Ford began publishing a weekly series called “The International Jew: The World’s Problem” on the front page of his newspaper (the Dearborn Independent). The series promoted dangerous lies about Jewish world domination that reflected Ford’s own antisemitism and contributed to its spread in the US and abroad. A Layered Legacy Some might approach the full-scale memorial and remember Ford’s environmental impact. In 1917, Ford purchased 2,000 acres of wetlands near the River Rouge in Dearborn, Michigan, and built the Rouge Plant. Manufacturing and waste disposal there polluted the environment and destroyed the natural wetlands. Recent steps by Ford Motor Company to restore the ecosystem at the Rouge are underway.
Marshall M. Fredericks "Study for Cleveland War Memorial" ca. 1945 This is the finished version of the memorial. After presenting the Sketch Model to a committee for approval, the artist had to make significant changes to his initial design. He reused the sketch model for later projects.
Melvin Edwards "The Way of Steel" between 1994 and 1997
Tyree Guyton "Rosa Parks", Heidelberg Fragment 1986 The Rosa Parks fragment was once part of an outdoor installation like this at the Heidelberg Project, an outdoor art environment still active today in Detroit.