From the Cabinet

The wall mounted metal sculpture, created by Radcliffe Bailey as a gateway artwork for the library’s front entrance that opens onto Atlanta’s historic Auburn Avenue. The artwork metaphorically speaks to the movement and growth of people of the African diaspora and therefore to the countless stories, documents, images, programs and histories one will find within Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History. The images are also drawn from the artist’s visual vocabulary and family history. The two tiers hold various weathered steel silhouettes including a sailing ship, a steamboat, a doorway, a picture frame, an open book, a 19th century Garveyite, a soldier, a piano, a saxophone, and African masks. The shelves are linked, like through lines, by an oar and an upward leading ladder that transitions from a railroad track into a DNA strand.