Mound Magician
Artist
Radcliffe Bailey
(American, 1968 - 2023)
Date1997
MediumPaint, canvas, paper, wood, cardboard, cloth, Plexiglas, baseballs, feathers, and other media on plywood
DimensionsOverall: 115 × 168 × 26 inches (292.1 × 426.72 × 66.04 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: gift of the Unus Foundation and Marc and Elizabeth Wilson in honor of John J. "Buck" O'Neil
Object number2005.18.A-C
On View
On viewGallery Location
- L5
Collections
DescriptionA large, fan-shaped panel that includes many real objects such as baseballs and wheelbarrow handles. Combined with this are photographs of baseball players, colorful passages of paint, and handwritten names like "Sierra Leone" and "Birmingham". At the center of the work is the number "25" and the words "Mound Magician".Gallery LabelAt the center of the fan-shaped baseball diamond that Mound Magician represents, and marking the pitcher's mound, the number "25" is emblazoned on a star. The number belongs to Satchel Paige, the pitcher who led the Kansas City Monarchs to five Negro League pennants, joined the major leagues and was the first player from the Negro League to be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Mound Magician is rich with symbolism: photographs of Negro League baseball, references to African countries and southern American cities, footprints running the bases, stamped patterns associated with Bailey's grandfather's wrought iron workshop, baseballs and vèvè, or Voodoo symbols. This assemblage also includes medicine bundles inspired by traditional African power objects believed to affect the outcome of specific events.
Mound Magician is rich with symbolism: photographs of Negro League baseball, references to African countries and southern American cities, footprints running the bases, stamped patterns associated with Bailey's grandfather's wrought iron workshop, baseballs and vèvè, or Voodoo symbols. This assemblage also includes medicine bundles inspired by traditional African power objects believed to affect the outcome of specific events.
Unus
Foundation, Birmingham, AL;, by 2005;
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.
David Moos, Radcliffe Bailey The Magic City (Birmingham: Birmingham Museum of Art, 2001), 77, (repro.).
“US museum acquisitions 2005,” The Art Newspaper. No. 168 (April 2006).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (Kansas City:
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 115, 235, (repro.).
Copyright© Radcliffe Bailey
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