Carpeaux’s Fictions of Emancipation Opens at the Met
In March 2022, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened the Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast exhibition which ran through March 2023 and was made possible by the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation.
The exhibition was organized around a main sculpture by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875), Why Born Enslaved!, which depicts an enslaved woman looking out with anguish and defiance. A staunch abolitionist, Carpeaux sought to use his talent to depict the horrors of slavery.
Until recently it was assumed that all marble busts of Why Born Enslaved! had been lost – until one resurfaced at a Christie’s auction in Paris, where, with the help of the Cantor Foundation, the sculpture eventually made its way to the Met. Accompanying Carpeaux’s legendary bust in the exhibition were thirty-five works by other artists including Josiah Wedgwood, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, Charles Cordier, Edmonia Lewis, and Louis-Simon Boizot. These works also emphasize the theme of Western colonialism and the struggle to bring an end to slavery.
Why Born Enslaved! was lauded as one of the best art exhibits of 2022 by Art News. Noted editor Alex Greenberg, “Exhibitions like this one unfix art history in intriguing, vital ways, and it’s likely that we’ll see many more shows in this vein in the years to come.”
Carpeaux’s Fictions of Emancipation
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