Sanford Biggers

Sanford Biggers

Harold M. English Rome Prize
September 11, 2017–July 27, 2018
Profession
Artist, New York
Associate Professor of Visual Arts, Columbia University
Project title
Spolia
Project description

Classical works of art convey the aspirations, ideals, and desires of their time while simultaneously recording the violence, censorship, destruction, and iconoclasm of subsequent cultures through which they continually pass. In the spirit of the descendants of Rome, who slowly dismantled the original city for material to build it anew, calling these fragments “spolia,” I want to create my own fragments, in essence to concretize history into a solid material, and reconstitute it into a new vision of the figure. In tragedy, the fall of a hero figure due to a fatal flaw and the success of a mortal protagonist with good future and ingenuity intersect on their respective upward and downward narrative trajectories. What does the figure look like that emerges at this intersection? I plan on mixing 3D-scanned objects taken from sites throughout the city and captured with my mobile 3D scanner, with traditional sculptural techniques and contemporary materials.