About this artwork
Radcliffe Bailey took up the figure of Mami Wata—a general name for numerous mermaid goddesses popu-larized in the 19th century by Black peoples around the Atlantic Ocean—as part of a long-lived fascination with water and its powers of transformation. Bailey’s technique of collaging old photographs, cryptic letters, and allusive decorations, often with backgrounds of indigo or green, here suggests shape-shifting as a human and aesthetic ideal. In Sabine Jell-Bahlsen’s 1991 video Mammy Water, which Bailey admired, a narrator explains: “Many Mammy Water followers are prophets or mediums of the water spirits. As performing artists, they express new ideas and forms.”
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Radcliffe Bailey
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Title
- Mama Wata
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1995
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Medium
- Toned gelatin silver print with mixed media
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Dimensions
- 162.6 × 123.2 cm (64 × 48 1/2 in.)
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Credit Line
- Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation Fund
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Reference Number
- 1995.281
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
