Sonya Clark, “Monumental,” 2019. Linen. 180 x 360 inches. Mel Taing photography
What we commonly call the Confederate Flag was actually the Confederate Battle Flag.
There’s another Confederate Flag, a simple white dishrag with red border. It was commandeered and waved by a Confederate soldier at the end of the Civil War. Sonya Clark sees it as a plea for truce—a long-ignored plea for truce. Had that moment actually started a genuine reconciliation, the next century-and-a-half might have been different.
We’re a nation of symbols, and flags are the most unambiguous. Waving a flag states your identity, states your purpose. In multiple galleries throughout the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Clark has labored to make the Truce Flag a more fitting symbol for America’s fractured conversation about race.
Nearly the entire museum gets dedicated to Clark’s textile arts. Filling the enormous third floor gallery, “Monumental Cloth, The Flag We Should Know,” spreads across the room.
A dishrag evokes other quotidian activities, like mopping the floor. That’s exactly what Clark does in an accompanying video, adjacent to the huge Truce Flag, where she gets to her hands and knees and cleans dirt off the floor, bucket and dishrag at her side. As she does, the words of the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence are revealed, scripted underneath.
Sonya Clark, “Reversals,” 2019. Dress, bucket, vinyl, dust, commercially-produced dishcloth. Mel Taing photography
Those same words are printed on the gallery floor nearby. The short (14 minutes) video, “Reversals,” makes excellent accompaniment in the expansive, open gallery—keep an eye on it, as you also examine two looms set up for visitor experimentation; the actual bucket, rag and housedress Clark wears in the video (modeled on a 1942 photo by Gordon Parks, “American Gothic”); and the long written list on the wall with hundreds of everyday objects that Americans can buy—toilet seats, gun holsters, piggy banks, nipple pasties—which incorporate the image of the Battle Flag, and perpetuate the conflict.
As the centerpiece, the Monumental Flag itself spreads out across the floor. The giant symbol of truce—15 feet by 30 feet—is mirrored by 100 actual-size replicas of the white towel with thin red bordering. They make up only one part of Clark’s installations.
Filling the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors, Clark’s textiles are both personal and profound. The artist, who frequently works with human hair, has also created “Heavenly Bound” and “Roots Unbound,” two smaller installations in upper floor galleries.
In “Heavenly Bound,” Clark makes a reverse-image wall hanging, with small knots of her dark hair representing stars on white background.
Woven hair speaks eloquently about human ambition, its limits and its origins. In “Roots Unbound,” Clark fabricates a long weave of dreadlocks, like an upside-down tree, hanging over a folded parachute shaped into the continental U.S.
Sonya Clark, “Roots Unbound,” 2021. Parachute, dreadlocks. 128 x 98 × 143 inches. Mel Taing photography
In these installations, and with the supporting materials nearby, Clark depicts an enslaved traveler’s perspective of the Underground Railroad. “Swan,” selections of a radio opera by composer Yvette Janine Jackson, plays continually in the background. Visitors will understand the meaning of “The Drinking Gourd,” and sense the overwhelming, forceful and often hapless ambition of those emboldened to use the stars to navigate the road north to freedom.
Sonya Clark is professor of art at Amherst College, and created these large works in collaboration with Philadelphia’s Fabric Workshop and Museum. They remain on view at the deCordova through September, 2021.
The deCordova is open seven days a week—both the inviting grounds of the sculpture park and the galleries. Advance registration for entry required. Wear a mask. Gallery visits are limited to one hour. Visit thetrustees.org/place/decordova.
Keith Powers covers music and the arts for Gannett New England, Leonore Overture and Opera News. Follow @PowersKeith; email to keithmichaelpowers@gmail.com.