Zig-zag, installation shot, Art Resources Transfer, NYC, 2003

To see enlargements, click on individual sculptures above

Zig-zag is an exhibition of my recent gestural floor-standing steel sculptures. Zig-zags occur in Malian chiwara masks and in ideograms, signifying a road that is not straight but contains many twists, turns and detours. They are another form of triangle, a form I have been working with for many years as well as an extension of the Y-stick forms. This new work is the first to be inspired by African intellectual production rather than my experience of the culture at large. These drawings in space are the first work I've done in 10 years without text but they themselves are text, glyphs, symbols, ideograms. It is ironic to lose this text at this moment in history but I like the playfulness, letting the signs speak for themselves. The movement and lightness in these sculptures counterbalances the current heaviness and instability in the world.