Fred Wilson

Fred Wilson: Wanderer, 2003; painted wood and printed paper; 64 1/2 x 15 1/4 x 22 3/4 in.; museum purchase; photo courtesy of Rena Bransten Gallery.

BAM has been eager to add a work by Fred Wilson to the collection since the success of last year's exhibition Fred Wilson: Objects and Installations, 1979–2000 and Aftermath, the exhibition Wilson created while an artist in residence at UC Berkeley. The carved and painted wooden sculpture Wanderer is from the artist's critically acclaimed multimedia installation Speak of Me As I Am at the 2003 Venice Biennale. In that exhibition, Wilson investigated representations of the African Diaspora in Venice from the twelfth through seventeenth centuries. Wanderer incorporates a store-bought figurine of an African servant. These typical Venetian crafts are found adorning hotel lobbies and other public spaces, often going unnoticed. Wilson has replaced the figure's head with a globe showing the migratory travel of Africans who wandered north through the Arab nations and into Europe.

Dara Solomon
Curatorial Assistant, Collections