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Sandow Birk & Elyse Pignolet
Partial installation shot of American Procession (2017), from Imaginary Monuments II at Catharine Clark Gallery, 2018
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Sandow Birk
Clearing the Brush from the Unbelief in the series "Imaginary Monuments", 2018
Ink on paper
42 x 60 inches unframed; 46 x 64 1/4 inches framed
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Sandow Birk
Hiking in to the Monument to the Age of the World in the series "Imaginary Monuments", 2018
Ink on paper
30 x 42 inches unframed; 34 1/2 x 46 3/4 inches framed
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Sandow Birk
Proposal for a Monument to Logical Fallacies in the series "Imaginary Monuments", 2018
Ink on paper
60 x 42 inches unframed; 64 1/2 x 46 1/4 inches framed
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SOLD
Sandow Birk
Proposal for a Monument to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the series "Imaginary Monuments", 2018
Acrylic and sumi ink on paper
33 1/4 x 26 1/2 inches framed
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SOLD
Sandow Birk
Proposal for a Park of Monuments to All of the Countries Bombed by the United States in the series "Imaginary Monuments", 2018
Ink on paper
30 x 42 inches unframed; 34 1/2 x 46 3/4 inches framed
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Sandow Birk
The Abandoned Monument to Income Equality in the series "Imaginary Monuments", 2018
Ink on paper
60 x 42 inches unframed; 64 1/2 x 46 1/4 inches unframed
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Sandow Birk
Proposal for a Monument to American Sanctimony (The Slaves' Petition) in the series "Imaginary Monuments", 2016
Ink on paper
60 x 42 inches unframed; 64 1/2 x 46 1/4 inches framed
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Sandow Birk
Proposal for a Monument to the Riot Act in the series "Imaginary Monuments", 2016
Ink on paper
60 x 42 inches unframed; 64 1/2 x 46 1/2 inches framed
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Sandow Birk
The Garden of Useless Platitudes and the Palace of Pretension in the series "Imaginary Monuments", 2016
Ink on paper
42 x 84 inches unframed; 47 1/2 x 89 inches framed
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Sandow Birk
Proposal for a Monument to the Declaration of Independence (and a Pavilion to Frederick Douglass), 2018
Direct gravure etching from two copper plates on two sheets of gampi paper, joined, and backed with sekishu kozo paper
Edition of 25 + 2AP
44 x 61 1/2 inches unframed
MORE about this artworkAs part of the ongoing “Imaginary Monuments” series (2007 - present), Sandow Birk has created a fourth gravure in the project: "Proposal for a Monument to the Declaration of Independence (and a Pavilion to Frederick Douglass)." This new image proposes a monument to the text of the Declaration of Independence replete with all the ironies about whose freedom it protects therein (the Pavilion to Frederick Douglass). The composition of the main structure that houses the Declaration’s text is rendered in a neoclassical style reminiscent of the Capitol and other government buildings from the period in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
Suspended from the upper portion of the cracked and worn neoclassical architecture is a heavy bar and chain holding a sign inscribed with a passage written by Thomas Jefferson decrying slavery. This text was omitted from the final draft of the Declaration of Independence. And in fact here, it remains outside of the main monument, engraved on a plaque that inauspiciously hangs overhead, casting a shadow of shackles and chains—accoutrements of the slave trade—onto the Declaration’s text.
Birk’s gravure further reminds us of the era’s paradoxical approach to issues of freedom and slavery in a second structure—the so-called pavilion—rendered across from the neoclassical monument. Enshrined on this rock-like memorial or pavilion are texts excerpted from the abolitionist, Frederick Douglass’, July 5, 1852 speech, What the Fourth of July Means to the Slave, which critiques how freedom is unequally distributed to people of color.
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Sandow Birk
Proposal for a Monument to Capital Punishment in the series "Imaginary Monuments", 2018
Ink on paper
42 x 30 inches unframed
