Sanford Biggers (American, born 1970). <em>QC #3</em>, 2013. Textiles and fabric treated acrylic paint on archival paper, sheet: 60 × 60 in. (152.4 × 152.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist, 2013.11. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Courtesy of the artists gallery, CUR.2013.11_gallery_photo.jpg)

Sanford Biggers (American, born 1970). QC #3, 2013. Textiles and fabric treated acrylic paint on archival paper, sheet: 60 × 60 in. (152.4 × 152.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist, 2013.11. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Courtesy of the artists gallery, CUR.2013.11_gallery_photo.jpg)

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What do the red lines symbolize?

Great question! This work by Sanford Biggers is meant to reference a quilt like those used on the Underground Railroad, and suggest a similar navigation by the stars. The form is meant to evoke star charts, as well as clouds of cotton, which also appear in Biggers' work.

Many of his quilts in this series also include dance notation and imagery from Edo Period Japan. All of these associations open up possible readings of the piece. How were you interpreting the red lines?

Blood (esp. the dripping)

I can definitely see how it looks like blood, and Biggers is certainly engaging with a history of violence. That didn't even occur to me, thank you for pointing it out!

He also often brings spray painting into these quilt works, which encourages the dripping.

I like the juxtaposition of the different layers (of history and material).

As do I. That is a common quality in Biggers' work. He describes it as a desire for a "both/and" rather than an "either/or" reading.

That's great thanks a lot!

QC #3

Sanford Biggers

Contemporary Art

Sanford Biggers’s quilt series recalls the supposed use of quilts sewn in specific patterns as signposts for slaves escaping along the Underground Railroad. He employs a complex system of imagery, including star maps, dance notations, and a Buddhist lotus composed of a slave-ship diagram, alluding also to Harriet Tubman’s famous reading of the constellations to find routes north.

Quilting represents an important artistic heritage for African American communities, including the peerless Gee’s Bend quilt-makers from rural Alabama, who in successive generations have worked continuously for nearly a hundred years.

Biggers’s monumental Blossom (2007)—a tree fused with a piano that plays the protest song “Strange Fruit” (see illustration below)—is now on view in the Rubin Pavilion as part of this exhibition.

ARTIST Sanford Biggers, American, born 1970

MEDIUM Textiles and fabric treated acrylic paint on archival paper

DATES 2013

DIMENSIONS sheet: 60 × 60 in. (152.4 × 152.4 cm) frame: 60 1/4 × 60 1/4 × 2 1/2 in. (153 × 153 × 6.4 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS Contemporary Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 2013.11

CREDIT LINE Gift of the artist

EXHIBITIONS

The Legacy of Lynching: Confronting Racial Terror in America

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view

CAPTION Sanford Biggers (American, born 1970). QC #3, 2013. Textiles and fabric treated acrylic paint on archival paper, sheet: 60 × 60 in. (152.4 × 152.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist, 2013.11. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Courtesy of the artists gallery, CUR.2013.11_gallery_photo.jpg)

IMAGE overall, CUR.2013.11_gallery_photo.jpg. Courtesy of the artists gallery, 2013

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