New works by Melvin Edwards
B WIRE, BEWARE, ALL WAYS ART
From 15 September — 21 October 2023
Melvin Edwards Untitled, c. 197, Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz
Melvin Edwards Untitled, c. 1974, Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz
Melvin Edwards, Variation X, Untitled, c. 1974 and 1973 – 2023, Untitled, c. 1974, installation view
Galerie Buchholz, Berlin 2023, Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz
For his second solo exhibition at Galerie Buchholz in Berlin, Melvin Edwards produced new works on site at the gallery that include barbed wire (B wire, as the artist calls it), as well as chains in metal and wood.
Edwards began to use barbed wire and chains for his sculptural installations in the late 1960s. In 1970, he showed four of these works in an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the first solo exhibition by an African-American sculptor at that institution. In the new sculptures and installations shown at Galerie Buchholz, Melvin Edwards renegotiated motifs and formal strategies from this earlier time. Alongside these pieces, the artist presents a group of works on paper from 1974 and 1982.
Melvin Edwards, B WIRE, BEWARE, ALL WAYS ART, installation view at Galerie Buchholz, Berlin 2023, Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz
Melvin Edwards Untitled, 2023, detail, Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz
Melvin Edwards Untitled, 2023 and Untitled, 2023, installation view, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin 2023, Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz
Melvin Edwards, B WIRE, BEWARE, ALL WAYS ART, installation view at Galerie Buchholz, Berlin 2023, Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz
Melvin Edwards, Untitled (Tribute to Benin), 2000, installation view
Galerie Buchholz, Berlin 2023, Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz
Melvin Edwards, Untitled (Belgian Congo), 2019 – 2023, installation view at Galerie Buchholz, Berlin 2023, Image credit: Courtesy Galerie Buchholz
Melvin Edwards (born 1937) lives and works in New York. Currently on view at Dia:Beacon is an extensive exhibition focused exclusively on Melvin Edwards’s works with barbed wire and chains.