Hawkins Bolden
Insight
May 19 – August 15, 2024
Mana Contemporary – Jersey City
Organized by Institute 193 in collaboration with MARCH, Mana Contemporary, and the Tinwood Foundation.
On April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered as he stood on the blue-railed balcony, addressing a gathering crowd. Meanwhile, just a few miles away in a neighborhood dubbed Bailey’s Bottom, Hawkins Bolden’s early mask-like sculptures hung silently outside his home, the family inside unburdened by this tragic news for a little while longer.
Born in 1914 to a family of African, Creole, and Native American heritage in Memphis, Tennessee, Bolden was closest to his twin brother, Monroe, with whom he shared a love of handmade radios and baseball. Though Bolden lost his sight at a young age, he continued to work with his hands, helping Monroe with electrical work and beginning to experiment with found materials. This was the beginning of a practice that would span nearly four decades and yield a complex body of work.
Bolden began his earliest sculptures in 1965, face-like structures created entirely out of found objects often sourced from the streets of his neighborhood. Folded shoe soles, drilled and modified metal, wooden scraps, and strips of textile are common elements; some of the works are bound together with wire and metal chains. Over the course of Bolden’s career, he experimented with various forms, constructing assemblages on wooden posts, two-legged structures, and shield-like tableaux. One of his signature artistic gestures was the creation of self-described scarecrows made from stuffed pairs of work pants––a genus of anthropomorphic sculptures linked by their figurative representations of the lower body.
From sight-oriented metal forms covered in eyes to the Christian imagery of wooden crosses, Bolden’s sculptures map his experiences, an extension of all he knew, loved, and feared. He lived through some of the most turbulent years of the Civil Rights Movement, a period of adamant revolution and undeniable loss. This context, combined with the uncanny naturalism of his work, suggests that perhaps Bolden channeled an understanding of violent events through his distilled forms. While some of the seemingly severed lower extremities are propped by frames and beams, the majority hang limply, unposed. The scarecrow motif evokes paradoxical themes of death and resurrection, conjuring an air of disquietude.
The works on view are further defined by the use of recycled clothing, referencing a long tradition of transforming old jeans, overalls, scraps, and rags into functional works of art. Not unlike the quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend, Bolden altered old work pants to complete his artworks. Many of the garments likely came from the artist’s own wardrobe, worn out after years spent drilling, stuffing, and assembling in his garden. These resulting works unnerve and compel with equal might, employing discarded objects and immediate imagery to reference a history of craft, culture, and self.
-Maria Owen
About Maria Owen:
Maria Owen is a writer and associate director of MARCH, a gallery and public benefit corporation located in New York City. Owen holds a BFA in History of Art from Pratt Institute and an MSC in Psychology of Art, Neuroaesthetics, and Creativity from Goldsmiths University of London. Her writing has been published by Burnaway, Institute 193, and Whitewall Magazine, among others.