“Sedrick is one of the greatest artists in the country who happens to also be from Texas. We've long wanted to do an exhibition of his, says Katie Robinson Edwards, the executive director and curator of the UMLAUF Sculpture Garden and Museum. “He's probably best known for his giant paintings, but he's been making sculpture his whole life.”
The UMLAUF is currently showing Black Bird Redemption Song, a new exhibition from artist Sedrick Huckaby that sees him showcasing his sculpture and drawing work. “You know, I really liked it because it was, it allowed me to do something pretty unique,” Huckaby says. “People mostly know me for large scale oil paintings. But in this show, it's all sculpture and drawing. And even the video work is drawing. As an artist, it allowed me to show that those aspects are just as important to me as painting and that I can be just as effective with those.”
In Black Bird Redemption Song, on display through January 25, Huckaby is using his art to address some important issues. “In the show,” he says, “we deal with redemption, we deal with incarceration, we deal with, in some senses, the whole penal system, and… we deal with people, we deal with race relations, we deal with spiritual issues. some is metaphorical, some is more literal. So, for instance, in the show, there's a sculpture of a gentleman named Craig Watkins [a former Dallas District Attorney]. And there are images on a wall behind him of all the people who were exonerated by Mr. Watkins through the work that he did as DA. it's a sculptural portrait of him, and those are like charcoal drawings of the people on folders that… sort of remind you of their case folders. But behind that, if you go further into the show, there's a whole group of birds in cages. And these birds are in cages that are too small for them. They're sort of locked into those cages, and they're different types of black birds. And finally there's a video… that deals with the situation of Fred Rouse. Fred was the only person who was listed in the city of Fort Worth as being lynched in Fort Worth. And one of the thing that lynching was about was instilling fear in people. That's what's so important about the show is that that time is connected to this time. It didn't just start up today. It comes from a long history. It's like a chain and you follow the chain links back and then you understand how we got to this place.
Edwards says Black Bird Redemption Song is a natural fit for the museum while also offering something UMLAUF visitors a unique vision. “We are a sculpture garden,” she says. “Most of our sculptures are made out of bronze or stone, so showing… sculptures that are made out of paper mâché gives viewers a completely different entree to the sculptures as well. And then also Charles Umlaf also addressed a lot of the same issues that Sedrick did, but about 80 or 50 years earlier in a different way… with Umlauf's Refugees theme.”
Huckaby says he hopes the exhibit makes people think a bit. “I'm hoping that people think more about the landscape of our culture, about justice, the justice system,” he says. “I'm just hoping that it makes people sort of more introspective about that, and through looking at this work and thinking about it, just come away with all kinds of thoughts about the history that we have come to know. I want people to think about not just incarceration, but bondage, freedom. We talk a lot about freedom, we talk a lot about those kinds of things, but I want to… allow people to think about that from perhaps a different vantage point.”
“Even though Sedrick's exhibition deals with some dark themes that some people may want to bury,” Edwards says, “there's a real positivity throughout the show that you get from Cedric constantly. He sees the exhibition as being about freedom, which I agree with.”
'Black Bird Redemption Song' is on display at the UMLAUF Sculpture Garden and Museum through January 25, with an Insights Talk featuring Fred Rouse III, the grandson of Fred Rouse, on January 12.
