Cross for the Unforgiven

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Mel Chin
Cross for the Unforgiven
2012

Name: Cross for the Unforgiven
Brand: Mel Chin
Rating: 5 (36 reviews)

$88,000List Price

About the Item

A Maltese cross of the Crusades, made from eight AK-47s, the international symbol of resistance to the West. From Marcia Brennan’s article in: Harithas, James and Marica Brennan, Paul Farmer, James Metcalf, Eugenie Tsai and Mel Chin. Do Not Ask Me. Houston: Station Museum of Contemporary Art, 2011. “Drawing on these themes, Mel’s sculpture Cross for the Unforgiven (2002) is composed of eight welded AK-47 assault rifles, instruments of formidable destructive power. With a capacity to fire six hundred rounds of ammunition per minute, the “AK” (or Automatic Kalashnikov) remains one of the most widely used automatic weapons in the world today, just as it stands as a symbol of international resistance to Western power. Yet for viewers who are unaccustomed to the collective display of such armament, confronting this sculpture can feel like a jarring visual and psychic assault, a tear in the field of one’s consciousness accompanied by a shudder of violence that ripples viscerally through the body. After a moment, however, the initial impact of these arresting sensations becomes counterbalanced by the pervasive sense of transcendence and symmetry that the sculpture seems to project. With the individual rifles arranged in a cruciform composition, Cross for the Unforgiven reminds the viewer that the crucifix is a highly ambivalent symbol, at once the sign of a blessing and an instrument of execution. Through its implicit sense of rotational symmetry, the sculpture suggests the possibility of a deadly turning movement, and one can almost imagine a frozen roulette wheel or spiral of death that has been temporarily locked in place. Yet the work also displays a twist on conventional Christian iconography. The AK-47s are arranged in the shape of a Celtic cross, with a halo-like circle spanning the cross’s lateral points of convergence. Yet the sculpture’s pointed arms also evoke a Maltese cross, with its corresponding associations of Christian warriors battling the Muslim Empire during the Crusades. Paradoxically, Cross for the Unforgiven instantiates a collision between these symbolic events and world views, just as it intertwines the brutal violence of ritual sacrifice with the sacred promise of redemption in a field where no absolution can be possible. Creation and destruction thus become welded together in the shared body of the sculpture, where they meet to return one another’s gaze so that one may shed light on the other.” Mel Chin was born in Houston, Texas and began making art at an early age. He is known for the broad range of approaches in his art, including works that require multi-disciplinary, collaborative teamwork and works that conjoin cross-cultural aesthetics with complex ideas. He developed Revival Field (1989-ongoing), a project that pioneered the field of "green remediation," the use of plants to remove toxic, heavy metals from the soil. Another project, Fundred Dollar Bill/Operation Paydirt, focuses on national prevention of childhood lead-poisoning. Chin is also well known for his iconic sculptures, works that often address the importance of memory and collective identity, and for inserting art into unlikely places, including destroyed homes, toxic landfills, and even popular television, investigating how art can provoke greater social awareness and responsibility. Chin’s work is exhibited extensively in the U.S. and abroad and was documented in the popular PBS program, Art 21: Art of the 21st Century. His proposal for a New World Trade Center was part of the American representation at the 2002 Venice Biennale of Architecture. Chin is the recipient of numerous national and international awards, including four honorary doctorates. A monograph of the installation, The Funk & Wag from A to Z, was published by the Menil Collection and distributed by Yale Unversity press in 2014. Furthermore, a traveling retrospective exhibition of his work, titled “Rematch”, opened at the New Orleans Museum of Art in February 2014, and is now on view at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis through December 2014. “Rematch” is scheduled to travel next to the Blaffer Museum and Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, TX. A number of works from Chin’s recent solo exhibition at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery entitled “More Greatest Hits”, presented concurrently with “Rematch”, will be on view at Miami Project art fair for Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2014. Chin has been exhibited nationally and internationally in institutions, such as: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Whitney Museum of American Art, Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Menil Collection, Smithsonian Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), The Queens Museum of Art, Bronx Museum of Arts, Asheville Arts Museum, Royal Ontario Museum, Denver Museum of Art, Portland Museum of Art, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Asheville Arts Museum, Museum of Fine Arts (Houston) and Mint Museum of Art. He has been commissioned for public projects and installations for: MoMA P.S.1, The New York Times Magazine, Central Park Arts Commission, Bryant Park, Corcoran College of Art and Design, and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Chin’s work awarded numerous honors, including: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Pollock/ Krasner Foundation Fellowship, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, Rockefeller Foundation Grant, Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, Creative Capital Grant, and an Honorary Doctorate - Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Chin’s work has been reviewed in numerous publications including Artforum, Art in America, ARTnews, Art Papers, New York Times, Times Magazine, Village Voice, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Sculpture Magazine, Scientific American, Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle American Art: A Cultural History, Arts Magazine, The Houston Chronicle, The Times Picayune. His work appears in many public collections including MoMA, Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center, High Museum of Art, The Menil Collection, New York Public Library, The Federal Reserve, Museum of Fine Art (Houston), El Paso Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art and Birmingham Museum.

Creator:
Mel Chin (1951, American)
Creation Year:
2012
Dimensions:
Height: 59 in (149.86 cm)Width: 59 in (149.86 cm)Depth: 1.5 in (3.81 cm)
Movement & Style:
Conceptual
Period:
21st Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
New Orleans, LA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU1052332372

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