摩纳哥｜Barbara Chase-Riboud：约瑟芬群像

在长达七十年的职业生涯中，Chase-Riboud 创作了一系列革命性的作品，其特点在于创新、技术精湛以及勇敢地面对跨文化历史。

1939 年出生于美国宾夕法尼亚州费城，Chase-Riboud 目前在巴黎和罗马两地居住。年少时，她便在费城艺术博物馆和塞缪尔·S·弗利舍艺术纪念堂学习艺术课程。高中毕业后，Chase-Riboud 在 Temple 大学泰勒艺术学院学习，接受了绘画、素描和雕塑的训练。

1957 年，Chase-Riboud 获得了罗马美国学院的约翰·海·惠特尼奖学金。她第一次接触到铸造厂，这位艺术家开始发展一种新的古代失蜡铸造铜的技术变体，使用可以弯曲、折叠或堆叠的可塑蜡片来铸造后来成为她美学标志的金属丝带。在此期间，Chase-Riboud 用植物和动物材料塑造人物形象，在罗马的一个当地铸造厂将其铸造成大型青铜作品，她至今仍在那里铸造自己的雕塑。早期的重要作品之一是《亚当和夏娃》（1958 年），该作品描绘了在拱形树下交织的人物形象——这是她实验方法的精彩范例，形式上与贾科梅蒂的质感人物形象相呼应。正是在罗马期间，Chase-Riboud 首次前往埃及和希腊，与古代形式和方法的相遇给她的想象力留下了不可磨灭的印记。1958 年，Chase-Riboud 的作品被纳入意大利斯波莱托首届两年一度的世界艺术节。
同年晚些时候，Chase-Riboud 返回美国，在耶鲁大学设计与建筑学院完成 MFA 学位，师从约瑟夫·阿尔伯斯、菲利普·约翰逊、保罗·兰德和阿尔文·艾森曼。作为首位获得耶鲁大学 MFA 学位的美国黑人女性，Chase-Riboud 随后前往伦敦，之后在 1961 年定居巴黎。

在巴黎，Chase-Riboud 建立了成功的雕塑事业，结识了包括贾科梅蒂、詹姆斯·鲍德温、亚历山大·卡尔德、萨尔瓦多·达利、马克斯·恩斯特、多罗特娅·坦宁、雷内·马格利特、莉莉·米勒以及亨利·卡蒂埃-布列松和其门生、摄影记者查斯-里布德在内的一批艺术家和文化名人，并最终与后者结为夫妇。1965 年，与里布德一同旅行时，成为首批访问新中国的美国女性。次年，她代表美国参加了在塞内加尔达喀尔举行的首届世界黑人艺术节。这些国际旅行和展示对艺术家对雕塑和材料的态度产生了持久影响，激励她超越传统的西方艺术史表现模式。

从 20 世纪 60 年代中期开始，Chase-Riboud 开始创作越来越抽象的雕塑，这些雕塑由流动的金属形态组成。转折点出现在她首次将纤维加入这些雕塑中时，她引入了一种独特的视觉语言，摆脱了她所谓的“底座的专制”。Chase-Riboud 开始用瀑布般的丝绸或结绳覆盖雕塑的底座，营造出这些纺织物支撑金属的错觉，违背了重力。关于这一突破，Chase-Riboud 曾说：“在早期的作品中，我用青铜以流动、液态的方式，而羊毛则是静态的。因此，这种权力从青铜转移到丝绸或羊毛上是一种悖论性的转移。”这种对等级制度的巧妙颠倒——是对根深蒂固的权力结构的颠覆——在艺术家纪念马尔科姆·X 的有力纪念碑中得到了体现。这些纪念碑始于 1969 年，即这位著名的美国穆斯林牧师和人权活动家被刺杀后四年，这组 20 件雕塑采用了艺术家标志性的黑色、红色和金色，灵感来源于Chase-Riboud 在东方和柬埔寨旅行时遇到的墓碑。

尽管 Chase-Riboud 居住在法国，但她对 1960 年代的美国民权运动深感投入，这种承诺贯穿于她的视觉艺术和文学作品之中，并一直回响在她的作品中直到今天。

20 世纪 70 年代是Chase-Riboud 文学生涯中的诸多里程碑时刻，反映了她对跨文化历史的承诺和独特见解。1974 年，她出版了一本诗集《Memphis and Beijing》，由托尼·莫里森编辑。1979 年，在托尼·莫里森和好友杰奎琳·肯尼迪·奥纳西斯的鼓励下，Chase-Riboud 发表了她的第一部小说《萨莉·海明斯》，该小说基于她受自由黑人女性萨莉·海明斯启发而创作的一首诗，萨莉·海明斯是托马斯·杰斐逊的情妇。1979 年，《萨莉·海明斯》获得了美国女性最佳小说奖——珍妮特·海丁格·卡夫卡奖（Janet Hedinger Kafka Prize）。Chase-Riboud 在 20 世纪 70 年代继续探索离散历史和奴隶制叙事，她的雕塑作品也反映了她的文学探索，例如她的大型赞比岛系列作品，该系列作品以坦桑尼亚海岸外的岛屿命名。赞比岛雕塑作品呼应了 Chase-Riboud 于 1969-70 年创作的诗作《我们为什么离开赞比岛？》以及她陪同美国国务院组织的展览访问非洲时的印象。

Chase-Riboud 的旅行和对不同文化的不懈沉浸塑造了她整个 20 世纪 70 年代和 80 年代的视野。在这个时期的标志性雕塑系列中，Chase-Riboud 以青铜作品纪念了克莉奥佩特拉，通过想象中的物体传达女性性与革命力量的主题，如这位受尊敬的埃及女王的床铺上覆盖着精细编织的青铜方块。20 世纪 90 年代末，Chase-Riboud 开始创作《纪念碑素描》系列，一系列墨水和炭笔绘制的想象中的纪念碑，纪念文学和历史人物——不仅有克莉奥佩特拉，还有萨德侯爵、纳尔逊·曼德拉、沙巴女王和安娜·阿赫玛托娃。
Chase-Riboud 在其职业生涯中获得了众多公共委托。这些委托中的第一个是在 1967 年，艺术家为此在马里兰州罗克维尔的 Wheaton Plaza 购物中心创作了一座名为“Meta Mondrian”的喷泉。其他重要的公共雕塑作品中包括 Chase-Riboud 于 1998 年创作的“非洲崛起”，这是美国总务管理局委托的作品，用于纪念在曼哈顿下城发现的非洲墓地。

自 1990 年以来，Chase-Riboud 创作了一系列名为《La Musica》的作品。这些雕塑通过材料和雕塑形式的大胆对比，体现了音乐和运动——以及它们的对立面——静止。她最新的《La Musica》系列作品致力于美国出生的法国歌手、舞者和活动家约瑟芬·贝克。贝克是第一位在 2021 年被纳入法国国家英雄墓地——潘泰翁的黑人女性，这一事件激发了Chase-Riboud开始为她创作三座大型纪念碑中的第一座。在《La Musica Josephine Red/Black》（2021）中，一个锐角的延长青铜臂让人想起约瑟芬那著名的优雅肢体，而一条红色绳索悬在地面上，邀请观众预感这位表演者著名的动作、能量和活力。在为这件作品撰写的《追求未来主义雕塑宣言》（A Manifesto for Sculpture in Pursuit of Futurism，2021）中，Chase-Riboud 以此作为未来主义艺术的宣言：“让我们抛弃这些残骸陈旧的几何形体，清理出一片舞台，让狂野的摇摆狂欢得以上演。雕塑绝不能停滞不前。”

Over the course of her seven-decade career, Chase-Riboud has created a revolutionary body of work which is defined equally by its inventiveness, technical prowess and fearless engagement with transcultural histories.
Born in Philadelphia PA in 1939, Chase-Riboud currently resides between Paris and Rome. At a young age, she began taking art classes at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial. After graduating high school, Chase-Riboud studied at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, where she received training in painting, drawing and sculpture.

In 1957, Chase-Riboud was awarded a John Hay Whitney Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. Introduced to a foundry for the first time, the artist would begin developing a new variation on the ancient lost-wax technique of casting bronze by using sheets of pliable wax that she could bend, fold or bunch in order to cast the ribbons of metal that would later become a signature of her aesthetic. During this period, Chase-Riboud would mold figures from vegetal and animal matter to be cast into large-scale bronzes at a local foundry in Rome, where she still casts her sculptures today. Among important early works is ‘Adam and Eve’ (1958), which depicts intertwining figures under an arching tree—a bravura example of her experimental methods that resonate formally with the textured figures of Alberto Giacometti. It was during her time in Rome that Chase-Riboud would first travel to Egypt and Greece, where encounters with ancient forms and approaches would leave an indelible mark upon her imagination. In 1958, Chase-Riboud’s work was included in the first annual Festival of the Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy.

Later that year, Chase-Riboud returned to the United States to complete an MFA at Yale University School of Design and Architecture, where she studied with Josef Albers, Philip Johnson, Paul Rand and Alvin Eisenman. The first Black American woman to receive an MFA degree from Yale, Chase-Riboud left for London and, subsequently, Paris, where she settled in 1961.

In Paris, Chase-Riboud established a successful sculpting career, meeting fellow artists and cultural figures such as Alberto Giacometti, James Baldwin, Alexander Calder, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, Man Ray, Lee Miller, and Henri Cartier-Bresson and his protégé, the photojournalist Marc Eugène Riboud, whom she married. On a trip with Riboud in 1965, Chase-Riboud became the first American woman to visit the People’s Republic of China since the country’s political revolution. The following year, she represented the United States in The First World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal. These international sojourns and presentations would exert a lasting influence upon the artist’s attitudes toward both sculpture and materials, inspiring her to move beyond conventional Western art historical modes of representation.

From the mid-1960s, Chase-Riboud began to create increasingly abstract sculptures comprising fluid metal forms. A turning point came when she first added fiber to these sculptures, introducing a visual language uniquely her own and escaping what she dubbed ‘the tyranny of the base.’ Chase-Riboud began covering the bases of her sculptures with cascades of silk or knotted wool, rendering the illusion that these textiles supported the metal, defying gravity. Of this breakthrough, Chase-Riboud has said, ‘In the early pieces, I had used bronze in a fluid, liquid way, while the wool was static. So, there was this paradoxical transfer of power from the bronze to the silk or wool.’ This ingenious reversal of hierarchies—a metaphor for upending entrenched power structures—is exemplified by the artist’s powerful steles memorializing Malcolm X. Begun in 1969, four years after the assassination of the famed American Muslim minister and human rights activist, this group of 20 sculptures in the artist’s signature colors of black, red and gold was inspired by funerary steles Chase-Riboud encountered during her travels in China and Cambodia.

Though living in France, Chase-Riboud was deeply engaged with the American civil rights movement of the 1960s, a commitment felt throughout her work in both visual art and literature, and resonant in her oeuvre through the present day.

The 1970s saw numerous landmark moments in Chase-Riboud’s literary career, reflecting this commitment and her unique insight into transcultural histories. In 1974, she published a collection of poems titled ‘From Memphis & Peking,’ edited by Toni Morrison. In 1979, encouraged by Morrison and by her friend Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Chase-Riboud released her first novel, based on a poem she had written inspired by Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who was the mistress of Thomas Jefferson. In 1979, ‘Sally Hemings’ won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best novel by an American woman. Chase-Riboud would likewise continue exploring diasporic histories and narratives of enslavement in her sculptures during the 1970s, often creating works that reflected her literary explorations, as in her monumental Zanzibar series named for the island off the coast of Tanzania. The Zanzibar sculptures echo Chase-Riboud’s poem ‘Why Did We Leave Zanzibar?’ (1969-70) and her impressions while touring Africa to accompany an exhibition of her work organized by the US State Department.

Chase-Riboud’s travels and tireless immersions in different cultures continued to shape her vision throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In a seminal sculpture series of this period, Chase-Riboud memorialized Cleopatra with bronze works mining themes of female sexuality and revolutionary power, conveyed by the artist through such imagined objects as the revered Egyptian queen’s bed draped in an armor of intricately woven bronze squares. In the late 1990s, Chase-Riboud began The Monument Drawings, a series of ink and charcoal drawings of imagined monuments honoring literary and historic figures—not only Cleopatra, but also Marquis de Sade, Nelson Mandela, the Queen of Sheba and Anna Akhmatova.

Chase-Riboud has received numerous public commissions over the course of her career. The first of these came in 1967, for which the artist created a fountain titled ‘Meta Mondrian’ for the now-demolished Wheaton Plaza Shopping Center in Rockville MD. Among other major public sculptures is Chase-Riboud’s 1998 work ‘Africa Rising,’ a commission from the US General Services Administration to commemorate an African burial ground discovered in Lower Manhattan.

Since 1990, Chase-Riboud has unfurled a body of work titled La Musica. These sculptures embody music and movement—and their complement, stillness—through daring juxtapositions of materials and sculptural forms. Her newest works from the La Musica series are devoted to the American-born, French singer, dancer and activist Josephine Baker. Baker was the first Black woman to be inducted into the Panthéon—the French national tomb of heroes—in 2021, an event that inspired the first of three monuments Chase-Riboud has made in homage to her. In ‘La Musica Josephine Red/Black’ (2021), an angular arm of elongated bronze evokes the famously elegant limbs of Baker, while a red cord hovers above the ground, inviting the viewer to anticipate the kind of movement, energy and dynamism for which the performer was famous. In a manifesto written for this work and titled ‘A Manifesto for Sculpture in Pursuit of Futurism’ (2021), Chase-Riboud makes a proclamation for the art of the future: ‘Let us jettison the stale geometry of these remnants and clear terrain to host a raucous, swinging romp. Sculpture must not sit still.’