Melvin Edwards
1937–
Melvin Edwards’s sculptures develop from a sustained exploration of welded steel, a material he began to use as a student at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1967 Edwards moved to New York, where he exhibited with other African American artists such as Sam Gilliam and William T. Williams. Drawing on the lineage of assemblage and making forceful use of raw materials, Edwards’s sculptures incorporate found objects such as chains, barbed wire, and sharp pieces of tools that make implicit reference to violence—as in his best-known series of works, Lynch Fragments, which he began making in 1963 during the time of the civil rights movement.
In his one-person exhibition at the Whitney in 1970, Edwards presented a group of sculptural installations that used barbed wire and chains as sculptural elements and also as a way of drawing in three dimensions and defining spatial volumes, using strategies of installation that some critics have related to Minimalist and Postminimalist art. Edwards’s work inflected these prevailing artistic languages with political content, drawing on barbed wire’s history as both an “obstacle and enclosure.” He utilized barbed wire for Avenue B Wire Vari #1, spraying paint over the wire, which, when removed, left behind ghostly forms of overlapping striations. Edwards then deepened certain areas with pen. The result is an abstract image that also recalls imagery of imprisonment, violence, and the urban landscape—part of a moment in the late 1960s and 1970s marked by experimentation with materials, abstraction, and the political meanings of art.
Introduction
Melvin "Mel" Edwards (born May 4, 1937) is an American artist, teacher, and abstract steel-metal sculptor. Additionally he has worked in drawing and printmaking. His artwork has political content often referencing African-American history, as well as the exploration of themes within slavery. Visually his works are characterized by the use of straight-edged triangular and rectilinear forms in metal. He lives between Upstate New York and in Plainfield, New Jersey.
He has had more than a dozen one-person show exhibits and been in over four dozen group shows. Edwards has had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey.
Wikidata identifier
Q3305305
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Accessed November 12, 2024.
Introduction
Melvin Edwards is an African-American sculptor who was born in Houston, Texas. His work consists mainly of metal outdoor sculpture. He was educated at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Country of birth
United States
Roles
Artist, educator, painter, sculptor, teacher
ULAN identifier
500108626
Names
Melvin Edwards, Mel Edwards, Melvin E. Edwards
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed November 12, 2024.
