Continuing the dialogue of the implicit power inherent in monuments and national buildings, Wangechi Mutu has created four statues displayed as inaugural commissions to adorn the Metropolitan Art Gallery’s facade in New York. The Seated 1,11,111, 1V reimagines the caryatid, sculpted female figures, which are traditionally weight bearing, Mutu’s statues cast in bronze, question the role of woman as load bearer to present four regal seated, powerful figures, against the backdrop of the Metropolitan museum. 

Front Image: Wangechi Mutu, The Seated I, 2019, for the Facade Commission: Wangechi Mutu, The NewOnes, will free Us, 2019. Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels. Image courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: Bruce Schwarz.

See the video of Wangechi talking about her work: