Emancipation:

Emancipation: The Unfinished Project of Liberation originates from an analysis of sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward’s The Freedman (1863), one of the first bronze statues of a Black person in the United States. Initially sculpted by Ward before the end of the Civil War, Adams’ figure is depicted on the cusp of liberation, having ruptured his bonds, though they are still present as a reminder of his enslavement. The show expands the investigation of how living artists envision freedom today. Seven of today’s leading Black artists —Sadie Barnette, Alfred Conteh, Maya Freelon, Hugh Hayden, Letitia Huckaby, Jeffrey Meris and Sable Elise Smith —were selected to make visible their perspectives about freedom and imprisonment, identity and personhood, and emancipation and liberation. The commissioned works are supplemented by loans of Civil War era materials and works from Newcomb Art Museum’s permanent collection to reveal the elasticity of the concept of emancipation as well as the ways in which this historic period continues to impact the United States.