The FLAG Art Foundation presents Jane Hammond: Fallen, a monumental ongoing installation consisting of over 4,000 unique handmade leaves each inscribed with the name of a American soldier killed in the war in Iraq, on the 10th floor. The exhibition will be on view through December 17, 2011.
Each leaf is unique, handmade by the artist, and inscribed by her with the name of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. This exhibition at the FLAG Art Foundation begins with 4455 leaves.
Jane Hammond, Detail of Fallen, 2004 – Ongoing. Color ink jet print, printed from digital file recto and verso, on archival paper, cut, with matt medium, Jade glue, fiberglass strand, sumi ink, and additional handwork in acrylic paint and gouache. Dimensions variable. Photograph courtesy of Jane Hammond. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Purchase, with funds from Sarah Ann and Werner Kramarsky, The Schiff Foundation, Melissa and Robert Soros, Marion C. and Charles Burson, Toby Devan Lewis Foundation, The Judith Rothschild Foundation, Nora and Guy Barron, Pam Joseph and Rob Brinker, Greg Kucera and Larry Yocum, Ted and Maryanne Ellison Simmons, and The Stanley Family Fund 2007.6 ©Jane Hammond.
As a memorial, Hammond’s Fallen is unusual in that it emphasizes the singularity of each individual by making his or her leaf unique. The light and delicate materials subvert the traditional expectations of enduring materials such as bronze and stone in favor of an expression of the fragility and ephemerality of life.
The artist has said: “There is something about leaves in the autumn, at the zenith of their coloration that is transcendent: they are both dematerializing and intensifying simultaneously. As their bodies become lighter, their color is becoming more and more radiant. I’ve tried to gather leaves just at this moment when the chroma is so strong it transcends the body of the leaf and becomes a kind of pure light. It rhymes with the idea of the spirit but in a way that is accessible and earthly. It’s more Emerson than Aquinas.”
