Artist Hew Locke has an interesting work called Gilt on the facade of Met Museum. In a panel discussion at the Met this week he said the work, four pieces in the shape of trophies, was inspired by several artefacts in the Met’s collection. The designs re-purpose some of the cultural symbols from these works to consider how symbols are used to communicate power and write history. The Gilt works are made of fiberglass, coated in gold paint (below left).
I was interested in his investigative process: thinking about what facades are for, here facing facades (on 5th avenue), and he ends up with a trophy which is also a facade, looking solid gold from the front but only 2 dimensional, deliberately unfinished from the side.
I first came across his work in 2015 at the Kochi Biennale. This was a piece called Sea Power, about the Portuguese ships arriving on the Malabar coast in the fifteenth century (above right). More recently I saw his work Procession, shown in Tate Britain. In this video about the Tate work he talks about his use of symbols and his interest in boats which can represent containers for people getting to a new life, colonial conquest, and even the journey of life itself.
