Carpet Angel, 1992
- Medium
- Carpet, plastic bags, plastic bottles, vinyl carpet runner, springs, wood screws, and rope
- Dimensions
- 120 × 138 × 36 in. (304.8 × 350.52 × 91.44 cm) Other (Carpet mound footprint SRI install): 40 1/4 × 148 × 108 in. (102.24 × 375.92 × 274.32 cm) Other (New Museum carpet mound install): 43 × 163 × 100 in. (109.22 × 414.02 × 254 cm)
- Accession Number
- 2018.10
- Credit
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Gift of Jennifer McSweeney, in memory of Joan "Penny" McCall
A key figure in assemblage art since the late-1980s, Nari Ward has emphasized the poetic repurpose of found materials into dimensions rich in cultural and spiritual allusions. With its central, hovering angel figure (as if risen from or alighting upon a debris pile that spreads out on the floor below), Ward’s Carpet Angel (1992) conveys a holy form made from unholy materials: a form of the heavens constructed, literally, from what is underfoot. Fashioned from mass-produced or industrial remnants—from plastic bottles, metal springs, and innumerable bolts to stained and ratty carpet scraps—found in his Harlem neighborhood, the work not only points to prior uses, places, and times, but also suggests a spiritual sanctification or renewal of the castoff matter.