#Sexypink/The Ford Foundation

[sexypinkon]

La Vaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers I Am Queen Mary (A Hybrid of Bodies, Nations, and Narratives) (2019)

Sexypink~ Having just visited the Ford Foundation show Radical Love, It would be remiss of me to not discuss the pride I felt when some of the most profoundly powerful pieces proved to be the vision of West Indian (Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaican Artists) I am Queen Mary presently stands outside of the exhibition space welcoming the viewer into the show. What strikes you right away is the chair the larger than life, elegantly seated woman is placed in.It harks back to the Huey P Neuton Black Panther photograph that stood for everything defiant and, yes, black. 

I have always found the chair to be serpent-like in shape, that adds another layer of meaning to the work for me.

To see an important and (invisible) piece of Caribbean history in New York, at the Ford Foundation in America cannot be underscored. Queen Mary sits on her throne that is placed on a plexiglass box of stone taken from The US Virgin Islands. You cannot look away at all of the hard fought symbols of oppression and triumph. Far less when the whole story is told about the making of the sculpture and the herculian effort to bring her to life.

“Radical Love” is on view at the Ford Foundation Gallery, New York, through August 17, 2019