© Hugh Hayden
On view
African Art
To Be Titled 2,
2020
Hugh Hayden, born 1983, Dallas, TX; active New York, NY
2020-330
To create this two-sided skillet, Hayden first made a three-dimensional scan of two works in the Museum’s collections, then cast the image in iron. The bottom features a type of antislavery medallion produced in 1789 by the Sèvres Manufactory in France (on view in the galleries of European art). The Superintendent of Royal Arts and Manufactures eventually halted the medallion’s production for fear that its export to French colonies, which exploited the labor of enslaved people, might incite revolt. France abolished slavery in 1848 but continued to colonize Africa through its control of Côte d’Ivoire, first as a French protectorate from 1842 and then under formal French colonial rule in the 1880s. Hayden’s use of a Dan mask on the interior of the skillet, also on view in this case, frames France’s subjugation of Côte d’Ivoire through the connected histories of slavery and colonialism.
More About This Object
Information
Title
To Be Titled 2
Dates
2020
Maker
Medium
Seasoned cast iron
Dimensions
51.8 × 29.5 × 7.6 cm (20 3/8 × 11 5/8 × 3 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund, by exchange
Object Number
2020-330
Place Made
North America, United States, New York, New York
Culture
Type
Hugh Hayden, the artist, New York, New York, consigned; to [CLEARING New York and Brussels, New York, New York], sold; to Princeton University Art Museum, 2020.
