Zanzibar / Gold #2
1977
Barbara Chase-Riboud American, born 1939
United States
In Zanzibar / Gold #2 cold, hard metal contrasts with soft, flowing fiber to upend the typical balance of a sculpture: The silk appears to support the heavy bronze. The artist used lost-wax casting, a process invented thousands of years ago, to create the ribbons of bronze. This is one of six works by Chase-Riboud named after her poem “Why Did We Leave Zanzibar?,” a complex meditation on the consequences of the transatlantic slave trade and forced migration.
Polished bronze and silk