Melvin Edwards' Lynch Fragments: Negritude and the Battle for Civil Rights in America

Abstract

Found objects become powerful metaphors for cultural identification in Melvin Edwards' Lynch Fragments sculptures. Hammers, spades, and chains are assembled, welded into formally elegant totems; identification is drawn from the shackles and tools of oppression. Beyond the masterful organic forms and the formal configurations, there is in the Lynch Fragments a catharsis and a condemnation that simultaneously acknowledges oppression of African American identity and implicates white America's collective amnesia.