By David J. Kent
Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
President's Lincoln's Cottage is sponsoring a new Lincoln-themed art installation, starting today (Tuesday, January 17, 2023) and running only until February 16, 2023. Be sure to get your tickets and visit this special exhibition now.
The Cottage has been a long-time friend to the Lincoln Group of DC. We've held ;meetings there; previous CEO Erin Carlson Mast has spoken to the group, and current CEO/Executive Director was our guest speaker via Zoom last April. I was honored to participate recently in their Scholar Sessions (which you can now watch on YouTube). Lincoln spent all of his summers there from 1862-1864 to get away from the pestilence and heat of swampy Washington.
The art installation is a special treat by award-winning sculptor and found-object artist Georges Adéagbo (born in 1942 in Cotonou, Benin) titled: Create to Free Yourselves: Abraham Lincoln and the History of Freeing Slaves in America. Adéagbo is a virtuoso of site-specific installation and has long been personally intrigued by President Lincoln as an icon of emancipation. This project explores Lincoln’s legacy of liberation and creativity. The objects in the exhibit—including books, newspapers, handwritten notes, and artwork created by a team of artists in Benin–have relationships with one another, with their creators, and with the space itself. This intersection of relationships becomes the fertile ground for Adéagbo’s unique messaging. The objects themselves cannot be understood outside of this web of meaning, a web that redefines the space and transforms it into a work of art. This process becomes an act of artistic self-liberation. As noted on the President Lincoln Cottage's website:
Notions of identity, African Diasporan heritage, and self-reflection are integral to Adéagbo’s work, which will contribute to a deepening and evolving understanding of place at this important cultural icon.
The exhibit is only in place for a month, so grab your tickets now and plan to visit as soon as possible. More information and tickets can be found on the Cottage's website here.
[Photo by Stephan Koehler on President Lincoln's Cottage website]
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