The True Story of a Stone
23rd March - 31st December 2023 / Commissioned for Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America / Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia
Installation: Paintings, sculptures, and archival documents selected from PAFA’s permanent collection, handwritten text, marble replica of Pekin Drake by Charles Rudy, 1941
The True Story of a Stone is an installation that tells and extends the story of a specific stone that around 2,000 years ago was carved into a classical sculpture of a Greek goddess. This complicated and nuanced story which you can read handwritten across the gallery walls, ends in the unlikely form of a marble duck. In the gallery, works selected from PAFA’s own collection illustrate this story of geological and human time. Mounted on this building’s façade sits a new marble duck that can be seen through the central window in this room, or from the street below.
Click through the slideshow below to read the full narrative as it is written on the walls of the museum.
