media release: A partially-clothed freedman kneels before an impeccably dressed Abraham Lincoln, who “heroically” breaks the chains of slavery with one outstretched hand while clasping the Emancipation Proclamation in the other. The scene is depicted in Thomas Ball’s 1873 Emancipation Group, a marble sculpture that serves as a study of Emancipation Memorial, Ball’s bronze monument erected in Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Park. Ball’s sculpture at the Chazen Museum of Art could easily stand on a tabletop and occupies little physical space in the gallery. However, the political, cultural and emotional significance of the work stretches far beyond its physical size.
re:mancipation, a multi-year project led by the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, visual artist Sanford Biggers and the MASK Consortium, dissects the history of the sculpture;…
