Martin Puryear: Liberty/Libertà

Production | Exhibition Grant

Drawing on iconography developed over his distinguished career, Martin Puryear’s exhibition in Biennale Arte 2019 in Venice brought new and recent sculpture including a monumental treatment of the outdoor forecourt to the U.S. Pavilion. Through a fiercely independent visual language, the artist’s work shined light on some of the most significant themes of our time. Puryear has long reckoned with personal and collective matters in society, culture, and politics that often provoke national and international debate. Sources in material culture include the Phrygian cap worn as a symbol of liberty during the French Revolution,  a Civil War forage cap donned in the American Civil War, and a West African textile fashioned into a headcover. Wagons or carts have been equally powerful objects for Puryear, propelling him to think about freedom, mobility, and the potential of emancipation. Martin Puryear: Liberty / Libertà featured sculpture that ranged in material and scale. As with all his work, these sculptures emerged from Puryear’s engagement with African, Native American, Scandinavian, Shaker, and Japanese craft traditions. Madison Square Park Conservancy Deputy Director and Martin Friedman Senior Curator Brooke Kamin Rapaport, who is the Commissioner for the 2019 U.S. Pavilion, observed that Puryear’s work channels our shared history while leaving room for interpretation: “Through abstract sculpture, an artist can convey profound meaning derived from historical and contemporary social, cultural and political experience.”