Radcliffe Bailey won the Gibbes Museum's 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art in 2010, and the work that secured him the honor, "Tobacco Blues," is now part of the museum's permanent collection.

Bailey will be back at the Gibbes this month. His installation called "Pensive" will be on view April 27-Sept. 16.

His mixed media works and site-specific installations examine the intersection of present and past, and grapple in a visually intriguing and often beautiful way with some uncomfortable topics. In recent years, he has enjoyed a rising profile: Bailey’s work is included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the High Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In anticipation of his Gibbes visit, The Post and Courier asked him a few questions about his art.

Q: Your installation at the Gibbes Museum is called “Pensive” and includes a sculpture of W.E.B. Du Bois that echoes Rodin’s “The Thinker.” Yet the work has a certain kinetic quality that seems to demand as much interaction as contemplation. Discuss briefly your aesthetic approach to art-making. 

A: I don’t necessarily feel like I make work that dwells in the space of conflict. It’s more about the beauty aspect for me. When dealing with a painful subject, I tend to address it in a very colorful way because I want to find a place beyond the conflict. Making my work is a spiritual practice for me. Within my work, I work out problems and solve them. I’m learning every day — as an artist and individual.

Q: The centerpiece of the show is “Storm at Sea,” which references the Middle Passage. The undulating sea is made by piling up piano keys. Why piano keys?

A: Those piano keys have a past. They’ve played all different types of music. Every time someone touched one of those keys — it had their fingerprints on it. As an African-American artist, it’s very symbolic for me personally, because I believe jazz music is one of the most significant contributions African Americans have made. Growing up, listening to jazz was always a very fragmentary experience for me, with varying sounds and time periods.

For me, the piano keys are like DNA — not just the DNA found on the keys, but as a part of my greater makeup. Sometimes, I feel like people respond to a certain sound or rift and draw similarities to different places, people and times. I knew who my parents and grandparents were, but I didn’t know anything beyond the Atlantic. As I figured out my own DNA, especially on my mother’s side, I learned my roots traced back to Sierra Leone and New Guinea, and so that is also a part of the work itself.

 

Q: Sometimes you use found objects in your work. Do you usually know what you are looking for, or do you happen upon materials?

A: Just like a lot of artists use found objects, I use found objects that have a story. For me, libraries are important. I go antiquing a lot, too, to be surrounded by objects with history and DNA on them. Each object has a feeling I try to achieve in my work by allowing different pasts to converge. As a kid, I remember going through my parents’ albums, and seeing their way of looking at the past and present through music and photographs. Presently, I believe that we live in a very fragmented world, so I just try and piece it together to make sense of it.

I was born in New Jersey and moved to Atlanta. A lot of the work that I do incorporates railroad track imagery to honor my father, who was a railroad engineer, but also to honor the African-American migration. My family was a part of the Underground Railroad, which is how we ended up in New Jersey. They were on their way to Canada and ran into a colony of Quakers in New Jersey, where they started a township. Their journey inspires a lot of the imagery and materials that run through my work.

 

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Contact Adam Parker at aparker@postandcourier.com or 843-937-5902.

Reporter

Adam Parker has covered many beats and topics for The Post and Courier, including race and history, religion, and the arts. He is the author of "Outside Agitator: The Civil Rights Struggle of Cleveland Sellers Jr.," published by Hub City Press, and "Us: A Journalist's Look at the Culture, Conflict and Creativity of the South," published by Evening Post Books.

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