Some Bright Mornings - Melvin Edwards

In the organizer's words:

Under the title Some Bright Morning , the Fridericianum is presenting the first extensive solo exhibition by Melvin Edwards in a European institution. With more than 50 works, the show offers the opportunity to get to know the diverse abstract formal language of the sculptor, installation artist and draughtsman.

With a forward-looking awareness of the issues, practices and forms of modernism, Melvin Edwards established a practice in the early 1960s that is characterized by great independence and stringency. His work includes wall objects - the Lynch Fragments - barbed wire installations, freestanding sculptures and works on paper. Although the works of Edwards, who was born in Houston, Texas, in 1937, can be located in the realm of abstraction, they refer to tangible points of reference: They evoke thoughts, feelings and images associated with that historical context of the United States of America from which the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s grew. Edwards' works can thus be read as an expression of a political commitment - a protest against injustice that has lost none of its urgency to this day and which, for the artist, is also transferable to other geographical areas of the world, such as various regions of Africa or Central and South America.

Artistic beginnings and the first central series

Edwards experienced the effects and dimensions of racial segregation during his childhood and youth, which he spent in Texas and Ohio. After graduating from high school, he moved to California in 1955. There, at the University of Southern California, he began his in-depth exploration of the arts, particularly painting. At the same time, he lived out his passion for American football. As the artist himself explains, the strong physical connection to the sport played a major role in his increasing focus on sculpture over time. In 1960, he learned the techniques of welding, which from then on became central to his artistic production. After a long period of experimentation and research, he finally arrived at a sculptural formulation in 1963, which formed the essential starting point of his work. He created the first work in the extensive series that he would later give the title Lynch Fragments: a small, relief-like wall object that he welded together from various pieces of metal, flat plates, a chain and a tubular element. The pointed, blade-like triangular shapes, the rawness and heaviness of the material and the rough traces of welding give the work a powerful presence. Despite the illegibility of the object, it appeals directly to the emotions as well as to the imagination of the recipient. The intense effect emanating from the early wall relief is characteristic of all Lynch Fragments, which, with interruptions from 1967 to 1972 and from 1974 to 1977, significantly characterize Edwards' oeuvre and which are presented in the Fridericianum on the basis of thirteen selected examples. Edwards' specific use of language, through which he makes reference to historical events, places or people, can be seen as a further important characteristic of the series of works. For example, the title of Some Bright Morning (1963), the programmatic first wall object, refers to an episode from Ralph Ginzburg's 1962 publication 100 Years of Lynchings, which documents a black family's self-defense against racially motivated violence.

Further groups of works

In 1967, Edwards moved to New York, where he had already made his first contacts in previous years. For the young artist, the move gave him the opportunity to explore new creative avenues. He began to use barbed wire as a working medium, which formed the basis of another important group of works. A presentation by Edwards at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (1970) - the first solo exhibition of an African-American sculptor at this institution - marked a high point in his exploration of the material. The show comprised four expansive installations, some of which referenced the questions and forms of Minimal Art. For the work Corner for Ana (1970), for example, Edwards stretched almost forty barbed wires between two walls at right angles to each other, thereby defining a prism-shaped space within the existing architecture. Despite the visual delicacy and lightness of the setting, the installation conveyed a sense of massiveness, danger and violence. Just how clearly, or rather drastically, Edwards' barbed wire installation influences the viewer can be seen in the formulation "Look through minds mirror distance and measure time" - Jayne Cortez (1970), also shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1970, which is part of the exhibition at the Fridericianum along with two other examples of the group of works. The work, which is a voluminously curved wire formation projecting from the ceiling far into the room, invites viewers to approach it with its loose, airy form, while the sharp-edged material simultaneously forces them to keep their distance.

While Edwards' installations are characterized by a brute force and gloominess that allude to reality and are reminiscent of more recent positions from Cady Noland to Cameron Rowland, the artist's works on paper often radiate a completely different mood. The works, created since 1970, are characterized by an intense, luminous colouring, while the forms and structures that characterize them sometimes resemble garlands or ornaments. The works are based on barbed wire, chains and grids, which he transfers to the paper using spray and watercolor paint, thus using them as positive stencils. The potential for threat and violence is counteracted by the cheerful atmosphere of the painterly sheets, to which an entire room is dedicated in the Kunsthalle.

Another important part of Edwards' oeuvre are sculptures that are freely positioned in the exhibition space. These works have been created since the beginning of his artistic career and take a variety of forms and formats. They range from complex minimalist settings such as Homage to the Poet Léon-Gontran Damas (1978-1981), to colorful works such as Tan Ton Dyminns (1974) or Felton (1974), kinetic works such as Coco Vari Providence (2017) and colossal stainless steel sculptures such as Adeoli Goacoba (1988) or Poetic Juxtaposition (2019). Regardless of their form, Edwards' works, with their numerous references to geography, society and history, function equally as monuments, as critical reflections, as carriers of a message directed towards the future. This specific characteristic of his works was clearly refined in 1970, when he began to travel the African continent and even set up a studio in Dakar in 2000. His stays there nuanced his awareness of Africa and the African diaspora, established various networks and intensified his sense of socio-political responsibility, which, alongside his enthusiasm for the continuous expansion of his artistic language, is an important driving force behind his work.

The exhibition in Kassel and its context

With more than 50 works, the show at the Fridericianum marks Edwards' first extensive institutional solo exhibition in Europe. It is being realized in cooperation with the Kunsthalle Bern and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, which will each pay tribute to the artist's work in a modified form in 2025 and 2026. The presentations in Germany, Switzerland and France will build on a series of exhibitions dedicated to the artist in the recent past. Among others, Edwards was shown at Dia:Beacon (2022), at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln (Massachusetts) (2022), by the Public Art Fund in New York (2021), at the Museu Afro Brasil in São Paulo (2020), at the Museu Nacional da República in Brasilia (2020), at the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia in Salvador (2019), at the Museu da República in Rio de Janeiro (2019), the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (2018), the Columbus Museum of Art (2016), the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick (New Jersey) (2015) and the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas (2015). Independently of these presentations, the exhibition at documenta Stadt Kassel recalls Edwards' participation in the 56th Venice Biennale titled All the World's Futures (2015) and the group presentation Postwar: Art Between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945-1965 at Haus der Kunst in Munich (2016), curated by Okwui Enwezor.

The exhibition is generously supported by the Stiftung Stark für Gegenwartskunst, the Hessische Kulturstiftung and the Rudolf Augstein Stiftung.

Price information:

6 euros, concessions 4 euros Annual ticket 45 euros, concessions 15 euros Free admission on Wednesdays Children and young people up to 18 years of age Free admission Students with a culture ticket Free admission Students and trainees 2 euros Free admission for schoolchildren in classes (by prior arrangement)