BARBARA CHASE-RIBOUD: THE JOSEPHINES
Hauser & Wirth Monaco is pleased to present a tribute by the renowned sculptor and poet Barbara Chase-Riboud to the legendary Josephine Baker (1905 – 1975), whose transatlantic life mirrors her own.
March 6 – June 14, 2025
‘The Josephines’ centers on two bronze sculptures from 2022 that pay homage to the legendary performer, civil rights activist and World War II secret agent Josephine Baker. Monumental in impact, these sculptures are from Chase-Riboud’s ongoing La Musica series, which explores music, movement and stillness through bold juxtapositions of materials and forms. Rising two meters tall, each of the patinated bronze sculptures stand upon their own stage-like platform and combines hard folds of metal and sumptuous textiles. With thick coils of silk spilling down to the floor from their apices, these abstract sculptures nevertheless conjure inevitable associations with the famously sinuous limbs of their namesake.
Chase-Riboud has described Baker as ‘the epitome of movement, of jazz,’ adding that ‘The reason why I wanted to do Josephine was because it’s a leap into space.’ Reinforcing this, the artist has also associated Baker with futurism, an art movement which prioritised a focus on dynamism. Reinventing the idea of figurative statuary as monument, the artist instead proposes the sculptural embodiment of energy and movement. The resulting works, dedicated to rhythm and light, exude a commanding presence and offer a sensory journey through form, poetry and beauty.
Surrounding these forms, Chase-Riboud presents a special selection of delicate all-white works on paper. Achieved through a technique the artist has developed and perfected over the past five decades, these amalgams of sculptural relief and drawing are made by piercing silk thread through Arches paper. Evoking both the cursive lines of handwriting and figurative structure of hieroglyphics, they are formally and conceptually linked to Chase-Riboud’s automatic writings and poems.
Chase-Riboud and Baker met only once, in 1975, backstage moments before her last performance at the Bobino in Paris. Chase-Riboud had been invited by her friends who opened the show, dancers Carmen Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder, who then brought her backstage to meet Baker. She recalls Baker’s transformation from a Press Release Barbara Chase-Riboud.