Lonnie Holley
The First and Last Score, 2020
Wooden shoe moulds, wood and sheet music
200 x 100 x 70 cm
78 3/4 x 39 3/8 x 27 1/2 in.
78 3/4 x 39 3/8 x 27 1/2 in.
Copyright the artist
In The First and Last Score, Lonnie Holley brings together a characteristically diverse set of objects — shoe moulds, found wooden frames, a sheet of punched card for organ music...
In The First and Last Score, Lonnie Holley brings together a characteristically diverse set of objects — shoe moulds, found wooden frames, a sheet of punched card for organ music — to bear on ideas of survival, destiny, and personal creativity. On one side of the sculpture, shoe moulds seem to race each other down a staircase, evoking the clattering sound of heels striking steps; an adjacent panel frames found sheets of organ music, designed to allow the instrument to play itself in perpetuity. In American vernacular slang, a 'score' can refer to both a successfully executed crime and a piece of sheet music. By fusing these two meanings, Holley connects histories of racialised inequality and criminalisation with his own expansive, improvisational approach to making music.
Join our mailing list
* denotes required fields
We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy (available on request). You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.

