It’s all material to Lonnie Holley, everything. Past traumas, trash found on a creek bed, shared histories, scrap metal, the news, old padlocks. All of it can be twisted into new shapes by him.
Since the 1970s, he’s been at the forefront of a loose movement of Black American artists from the Deep South exploring the legacies of slavery and everyday injustice that shape their society. The recent work here continues his ongoing fascination with imbuing the scraps of life with meaning and narrative. The opening space is filled with rough, rusted assemblages, half-broken sculptures made of found wire, metal, stone, wood. Sometimes the wires are twisted into the shape of faces, but most are just clever visual compositions, like neat little abstract Rauschenbergs or Armans.
Read more in Time Out.