Thornton Dial
Racking and Hanging and Stacking, 1993
Found metal, rope carpet, fiber, metal wire, barbed wire, wood, bedsprings, canvas, plastic tarp, Mylar tape, barcode, Splash Zone compound, and enamel on canvas over wood
190.5 x 185.4 x 30.5 cm
75 x 73 x 12 in
75 x 73 x 12 in
Copyright the artist
Painted in the same year as his major exhibition Image of the Tiger, Racking and Hanging and Stacking, 1993, a dense and abstract composition of paint and cut tin, wire...
Painted in the same year as his major exhibition Image of the Tiger, Racking and Hanging and Stacking, 1993, a dense and abstract composition of paint and cut tin, wire and rope, is a clear example of Dial’s ability to fuse the aesthetic and materiality of the African American yard show with the patterning and radiance of the quilt. The frenetic sculptural surface presents a worksite populated by camouflaged tigers, dogs, birds, and figures all busy doing the laborious work required for the modern economy. An homage to those anonymous workers, the piece serves as a reminder that the town of Bessemer was founded to take advantage of cheap labour in the post-slavery era.
Roberta T. Griffin describes the work in more specific terms for an essay accompanying the exhibition Abstraction in the Art of Thornton Dial which took place at Kennesaw State College’s Sturgis Library Gallery in 1995. She writes:
More abstract and denser still is "Racking and Hanging and Stacking," a mixed media relief with hundreds of cut pieces of tin bent and protruding outward in every possible direction, splattered and slash-painted blood red, earth brown, black and khaki green. Over this chaotic layer representing the endless labor of the working poor, who can never "get ahead," heavy rope wrapped with wire is crisscrossed several inches out from the tin layer in a large curving pattern. Barely discernible in the center is a small tiger with a broken back. At the four corners, the artist has glued parts of a sawhorse, the wood deeply scarred from years of sawing. A white computer barcode in the lower left corner stands out from the colorful chaos.
Roberta T. Griffin describes the work in more specific terms for an essay accompanying the exhibition Abstraction in the Art of Thornton Dial which took place at Kennesaw State College’s Sturgis Library Gallery in 1995. She writes:
More abstract and denser still is "Racking and Hanging and Stacking," a mixed media relief with hundreds of cut pieces of tin bent and protruding outward in every possible direction, splattered and slash-painted blood red, earth brown, black and khaki green. Over this chaotic layer representing the endless labor of the working poor, who can never "get ahead," heavy rope wrapped with wire is crisscrossed several inches out from the tin layer in a large curving pattern. Barely discernible in the center is a small tiger with a broken back. At the four corners, the artist has glued parts of a sawhorse, the wood deeply scarred from years of sawing. A white computer barcode in the lower left corner stands out from the colorful chaos.
