Of Broomsticks and Slick Blades
Of Broomsticks and Slick Blades
2023
Media: Cast Copper (cast from 6'4" of grounding cable), plywood, fiberglass, steel, graphite enamel, 2023.
At least 33 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were left in Afghanistan in 2021. This sculpture includes a full scale re-creation of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter blade coated in industrial graphite enamel paint (dry lubricant film), sitting atop a steel hex bar tripod. On the tip of the blade sits a copper replica of an 1860 plaster cast by sculptor Leonard Wells Volk. Volk cast Abraham Lincoln’s right fist gripping a section of a broomstick that Lincoln cut and honed himself. This work juxtaposes the failed emancipatory dimension of the U.S. military’s occupation of Afghanistan and Lincoln’s contested legacy as the ‘Great Emancipator.’