All That is Pure, 2002, detail, onions, handmade paper, silk, steel, and pearls [Enlarge in New Window]

Fred Holland: Embodied Construct

Ever since Marcel Duchamp, the ready-made or found object has been a profound concept and a potent symbol of the art object in the history of contemporary art. Though inherently relevant as a crucial cog in the machinery of modernism, art of found objects by African American artists takes on an added significance. In much the same fashion that slavery's culture of necessity facilitated the growth of what is now recognized as Soul Food--originally made from the 'leftovers' or scraps of plantation life--found materials represent a special place in the cultural memory of African Americans as media for making art. A familiar object--a cowrie shell, a black-eyed pea, or a swath of tar--even disconnected from its original context still carries the loaded associations of its particular cultural history. For Fred Holland, the history of found materials, especially those in nature, are potent media in the construction of paintings, prints, and sculptures.

Originally from Ohio and now a resident of Harlem, for the last decade Holland has capitalized on the history of this material with witty combinations of form in unexpected ways that ritualize the mundane with rich associative power. A painted and constructed night sky, for instance, becomes an object to reminisce on the importance of the North Star and its relation to runaway slaves. Holland eagerly embraces the traditions of black folk art, drawing equally from a global range of African diasporic approaches to the very localized history of his Harlem neighborhood. "This very particular environment has been my inspiration both to embrace and to rebel against," he says in reference to the cultural space of "black America."

While Afro-Atlantic traditions are paramount to any reading of his artwork, Holland's career trajectory and creative output have been diverse and international in scope. Though he took a BFA in painting, Holland is perhaps as well known as an accomplished choreographer and dancer, who first made his mark in West Berlin. It was there in the early '80s that he began to work extensively with the dancer and choreographer Meredith Monk, whose own multidisciplinary approach encouraged the younger artist to embrace diversity in the creation of his own art.

By the '90s, Holland's initial background in the visual arts helped lead him to painting and sculpture, and he hasn't looked back. His ongoing project Embodied Construct demonstrates a culture of necessity with its embrace of mundane, found materials while invoking Duchampian twists and turns with a Dadaist's humor. Holland says, "I use discarded and organic materials and through labor-intensive processes transform them into meditations on healing, superstition, and protection. I attempt to make a personal testimony on the magic historically embedded in black folk art."

To date, Holland has worked with cast soap, sliced onions, medicinal herbs, pennies, teeth, and black-eyed peas, among other found materials. To create one recent piece, he covered a large sheet of opaque white handmade paper with rings of sliced onion and left it outside to create a solarized print of dark, interlocking circles. For another, he painted a freestanding plaster wall midnight blue and pinned thousands of black-eyed peas to its surface to evoke that star-filled sky.

While the transition to visual artist has been a necessity for his creative production, Holland sees the change of mode as just another step in the right direction of creativity. "All these concepts and materials incorporate my interests in narrative and movement. They are the same interests I have carried with me since my days as a performer."

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THIS PROJECT'S CATEGORIES: Visual > Installation | African American Themes | Religion & Spirituality | New York | 2000