Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness
80 sculptures by British-Trinidadian artist Zak Ové. Black and Blue: The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness, a mass of identical two-metre-tall figures
ArtistZak Ové
Completion date6 October 2016 (2016-10-06)
Mediumgraphite
LocationLondon (2016), Yorkshire (2017), San Francisco (2018), East Winterslow (2019), Los Angeles (2019)

Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness (sometimes titled Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Blackness) was an art installation by Zak Ové that has been installed in several major cities. It features 40 (or sometimes 80) identical statues, each weighing approximately 300 lbs.[1][2]

Ové first installed the work in the courtyard of Somerset House in London, as part of the 2016 edition of the contemporary African art fair 1:54.[3] He intended it as "a rebuke" to Ben Jonson's plays The Masque of Blackness and The Masque of Beauty, performed at Somerset House in 1605 and 1608, starring the queen consort Anne of Denmark and other performers in blackface.[4] Ové was inspired by a meter-tall wooden sculpture his father, Horace Ové, obtained in Kenya in the early 1970s, and attempted to create "a work that spoke about Africa's diaspora, what it is to be an African born away from the continent" by replicating and enlarging the figure into a group of massive graphite sculptures, "almost as a tribe out of context."[5]

The work was then installed elsewhere in England, at Yorkshire Sculpture Park from April 2017 - June 2018, doubling the number of figures to eighty. In July 2018, it traveled abroad to stand outside San Francisco City Hall in Civic Center, San Francisco, in the U.S. state of California, remaining until November 2018.[6][7] A 40-figure version was installed at the New Art Centre in East Winterslow, Wiltshire, England in June 2019.[8] From July – November 2019, it was installed in the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, interspersed with several bronzes by the 19th-century French sculptor Auguste Rodin.[9]

References

  1. ^ "San Francisco Arts Commission". www.sfartscommission.org. Retrieved 2018-10-01.
  2. ^ "The 40 Heads in Civic Center Plaza Are a Nod to Ralph Ellison - July 12, 2018 - SF Weekly". SF Weekly. 2018-07-12. Retrieved 2018-10-01.
  3. ^ "Army of black statues stands guard at African art show in London". Reuters. 2016-10-04. Retrieved 2021-09-10.
  4. ^ Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019-09-05). "Zak Ové Installing The Invisible Man in LACMA's Cantor Sculpture Garden". Vimeo. Retrieved 2021-09-10.
  5. ^ "Zak Ové: Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Blackness". Yorkshire Sculpture Park. 2017-04-08. Retrieved 2021-09-10.
  6. ^ "Zak Ové's Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness in Civic Center Plaza – Civic Center Commons". www.civiccentercommons.org. Retrieved 2018-10-01.
  7. ^ Rosato Jr., Joe (July 3, 2018). "New Sculpture Exhibit at San Francisco Civic Center Turning Heads". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  8. ^ Yeomans, Phil (2019-06-18). "Anyone for croquet?" (PDF). The Daily Telegraph. London. p. 10. Bea Fomin takes a closer look at one of 40 graphite figures in an exhibition by Zak Ové, the British-Trinidadian artist, at the New Art Centre in Roche Court, near Salisbury, Wilts. The artwork, Black and Blue: The Invisible Men and the Masque of Blackness, comprises identical 7ft-tall figures standing in the grounds of the 19th century house.
  9. ^ "The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 2019-09-05. Retrieved 2021-09-10.
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