"Caesar's sculptures have an ancient, unearthed aspect, like strange artifacts dislodged from history. He alternately amasses and digs, accumulates and excavates. He makes contemporary fossils in resin, sedimentary deposits, casts of excavated ditches, burial mounds and impossible tunnels. In his process and product, the archaeological crosses over into the architectural and the anatomical through real and metaphorical acts of cross-section, quarrying, and mining. Caesar works to create a visceral sense of density and out-of-control accumulation that speaks of the passage of historical time. Density and thickness offer much desired resistance and blockage—something to push on and knock your head against—but they also provide the promise of depth, something to dig really, really deep into. The image of digging is also the pursuit of knowledge."
—Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer is a writer and independent curator based in Los Angeles.
Image: Jedediah Caesar, H
elium Black. Resin, pigment, polystyrene and wood. Courtesy of the artist.
October 11, 12:30 pm
Location: Alfond Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
