iArt Institute of ChicagoGrant Park / Loop
Abigail Lucien: Blood of the Earth
An immersive installation of new sculptural objects in which the Haitian American artist explores how iron connects us to histories, the material world, and each other.
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In the middle of Gallery 283 stands a furnace Abigail Lucien built for this show and named Manman Ogun, after the Yoruba god of iron, who travelled with the diaspora to Haiti and Brazil. Many of the objects around it came out of that furnace.
You walk into a room set up as a working smithy, bellows and all, though two of the tools could never do the job. A big cone mandrel, used to bend iron into rings, is made of salt, which Lucien ties to blood and to the Atlantic crossing. The anvil is cast in cocoa butter. In a Chicago January, that makes it the most useful object in the building. Around them, iron lattices borrow from the ornate gates and grilles on Caribbean buildings, and a heavy iron heart called A Lover's Sulk rests on the floor.
It is a single gallery on the second floor, included with museum admission. Thursdays run to 8pm, and it closes on 25 January 2027.
Look for
Manman Ogun, the furnace
Look at the centre of the room for the furnace Lucien built and named after Ogun, god of iron; many of the objects around it were made in it.
The salt mandrel
A large cone-shaped mandrel, the smith's tool for bending metal into curves and rings, made here of salt to call up blood and the Atlantic crossing.
The cocoa butter anvil
An anvil, normally the hardest thing in a smithy, cast instead in cocoa butter, a soft material Lucien chose because it changes.
To Unravel a Wrought
A dark steel lattice modelled on the ornate gates and grilles of Caribbean buildings, with delicate leaves twining through it.
Spirit Lays Their Hand
Inside an iron lattice, a dog or wolf and a small rabbit cavort between two stalks of ornate tropical plants.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Rainy Days
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Image credits
9
- Abigail Lucien: Blood of the EarthCourtesy of Art Institute of Chicago
- Flyway City: Architecture for a Flourishing EcosystemPhoto by Steve Hall, courtesy of Studio Gang.
- Chicago's Living HabitatPhoto by Madison Smith
- Currents: 60 Years of the Chicago Architecture CenterCourtesy of Chicago Architecture Center
- Art Institute of ChicagoDiego Delso, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Chicago Architecture CenterAlanscottwalker / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museum of Contemporary PhotographyAjay Suresh via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Shedd AquariumDiego Delso, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Field MuseumPaul Sableman via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0