Written by John Lounsbury
Michael Rolando Richards was one of America’s most talented young sculptors at the end of the 20th century. One of his recurring themes was a commemoration of the Tuskegee Airmen of the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II.
He served as his own model for several of his sculpures, including the proud figure with body pieced by WW II era aircraft which this editor never fails to visit and contemplate on every visit to the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. The title is “Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian”, completed in 1999. The tar baby reference is obvious. For those not familiar with the other name, St. Sebastian was an early Christian martyr and the patron saint of soldiers and athletes because of his physical endurance. St. Sebastian was killed for protecting captured Christians he was supposed to imprison. St. Sebastian was executed by being shot full of arrows.
Tar Baby vs. St. Sebatian at the North Carolina Museum of Art (front view). Photo by Lynne Lounsbury.
Tar Baby vs. St. Sebatian at the North Carolina Museum of Art (side view). Photo by Lynne Lounsbury.
The sculpture represents the persistent positive attitude of the black airmen in the face of the social injustice they faced (slings and arrows of outrageous fortune – Hamlet: Act III, Scene 1) .
The sculpture is hauntingly prescient. Richards had just moved into a studio on the 92nd floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center under a fellowship from the Lower Manhattan Arts Council earlier in 2001 before September 11. He was one of the 2,606 who died on that day. But the most eerie connection of his sculpture to his death on 9/11 is that the 92nd floor was one of the impact floors for the north tower (impact floors 92 – 96) – the plane literally flew into his body.
Photographic Evidence of the Twin Towers’ Fires. by 9-11 Research. (Annotation by Econintersect.)
Another well known Michael Richards sculpture, in the Franconia. Minnesota Sculpture Park, is titled: “Are You Down?”
Michael Richards, Are You Down?, Franconia Sculpture Park, 2000. New York Arts Exchange.
In this sculpture three Tuskegee airmen sit in symbolic tar pools following their parachute descent from a downed airplane.
We can contemplate the relationship to Richards who had no parachute. But yes he is down, somewhere no longer on this planet. But with his gut wrenching sculpture left for the world to contemplate he is definitely not out.
