Sanford Biggers’ “BAM (for Terence)” is named after Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man shot by a police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2016.
Sanford Biggers constantly looks for creative ways to spark challenging conversations through his painting, sculpture, video and live performances. Sanford, who is black, says art plays a vital role in promoting those conversations, especially when topics become volatile and uncomfortable to discuss.
“The current U.S. identity is in flux,” Biggers says, “and art is one of the few forms of communication that allow for alternative, challenging and nuanced messages to be transmitted.”
One of the most controversial topics — racial violence — became the creative genesis for BAM, the Los Angeles-born artist’s sculpture series that runs June 28- Sept. 22 at the Chazen Museum of Art. Now working out of his Harlem studio, Biggers had long collected wooden African statuary from flea markets and gift shops worldwide when a chance news report in 2014 provided the impetus for using the collection in his own art.
“One morning while in Berlin, Germany, I saw a news report on the [police] killing of Michael Brown [in Ferguson, Missouri] and the idea for BAM took hold,” he says. Biggers decided to use his statues to illustrate the growing crisis of police violence against members of the black community.
The artist selected the statues and covered them in a heavy coating of brown wax. Then he and a camera operator took the waxed figures to a shooting range and fired live ammunition to brutally “sculpt” the statues to represent black community members shot by police officers.
“I used the brown wax to obscure the specific features of each of the figures, to erase their identities so they could be more easily disregarded,” Biggers says. “The wooden sculptures were transmogrified with bullets and subsequently cast in bronze.”
Although Biggers declined to fire any weapons himself, the camera operator alternated between handguns, pistols and shotguns to create the desired destructive effects. Biggers started naming the finished figures after black victims of police violence, but has yet to dedicate one to Tony Robinson, the 19-year-old unarmed biracial man who was shot seven times by Madison police officer Matt Kenny on March 6, 2015.
“The sad fact is that there are so many victims of police violence that to dedicate a work to each individual would become an unending endeavor,” Biggers says.
Biggers' 2017 video installation, "Infinite Tabernacle."
The Chazen exhibit also includes a video installation and part of the artist’s Codex series, a group of pre-19th century quilts created by anonymous craftspeople. Biggers says the quilts share the same general “language” of the BAM series.
“There are many associative connections between the two series, but I prefer the viewers to discover those associations for themselves,” he says.
A self-professed student of both history and public discourse, Biggers hopes viewers also will take away a greater understanding of the need for more dialogue on this important subject.
“Though my own practice changes form frequently, the agenda is consistent, and that is to read between the lines and see beneath the surface of what is physically in front of you,” says Biggers. “There are myriad conceptual, historical, material and process-based narratives in each work. I want viewers to slow down, consider these elements, and share their thoughts with others.”
