In 2017, during a residency at the American Academy in Rome as part of the Rome Prize, Sanford Biggers studied the fall of empires and the concealed narratives of Greco Roman sculpture. The American artist’s findings inform the figurative sculptures here, which include statuesque Chimeras that merge African and European masks, busts, and figures into new forms that prompt questions surrounding authenticity and historical appropriation. 

Those questions also inspire his quilt-based works, which headline his recently opened solo exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Using a patchwork process to dismantle and reassemble found antique quilts through painting, drawing, stitching, and restructuring, Biggers engages with each item’s original creators—particularly those who used them as signposts on the Underground Railroad. One of his largest such works to date, in which he reassembles and adheres multiple quilts to a 3-D plywood cube structure, debuts here.

Pictured: Orpheus (2020). Photography by Lance Brewer