Object number2020.3
Fons Americanus
Date2019
Artist
Kara Walker
(American, born 1969)
CultureAmerican
MediumBronze
Edition17/30
DimensionsOverall: 20 × 16 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 × 40.6 cm)
Credit LinePurchase, Betsy Mudge Wilson, class of 1956, Memorial Fund
On View
On viewPeriod21st c
Classification(s)
Vassar Exhibitions
Label TextIn 2019 Walker was commissioned to create Fons Americanus (Latin for “Fountain of America”) for the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London. This work is a bronze maquette of the original Tate fountain which was dismantled in 2020. Standing 42 feet tall, the monumental fountain wove together histories of the slave trade in Africa, Europe, and America, and connects these narratives to the present. The work deliberately upends the codified tradition of iconography used in colossal monuments around the Western world. Walker’s sculpture was inspired by the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace, a towering, 82-foot-tall monument that was sculpted by Thomas Brock and unveiled in 1911 in honor of the recently deceased queen. Using historical research and biting humor, Walker brings the past face to face with the present. She speaks to the complex nexus of identity, culture, and history that involves the histories of British imperialism and North American enslavement of Africans.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge.
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