Virginia Lee Montgomery: Sword in the Sphinx

Essay by Jochen Wierich, Curator of Sculpture & Sculpture Exhibitions

Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is excited to once again be a venue for ArtPrize. After last year’s cancellation prompted by the pandemic, ArtPrize is back with a new focus on outdoor work—downtown and at satellite venues, including Meijer Gardens —and an exhibition of sculptures and videos by Virginia Lee Montgomery (VLM).

The sculpture included in the ArtPrize competition is Sword in the Sphinx, her surreal adaptation of a French 18th-century statue often found in gardens. The image and meaning of the sphinx has changed over time: The Greek sphinx typically featured a female head and torso on a lion’s body, while in Egypt the upper body was male. By the time sphinxes appeared as ornamental garden sculptures in Renaissance Italy in the 1500s, they were mostly female. In 18th-century France, the sphinx took on the features of a courtly woman reminiscent of Madame Pompadour, the French patron of the arts and chief mistress of King Louis XV. VLM’s adaptation is of the Pompadourstyle sphinx, wearing a bonnet and cape, yet her back is pierced with a steel sword. The artist here asks provocative questions about the representation of female power in art, adding another layer of meaning to a mythical figure with a complex history.

Visitors will see additional sculptures and videos by the artist inside the Welcome Center. Two short videos by the artist will be shown in our O-A-K Theater, alternating with the orientation film. The exhibition continues in our Courtyard Level, near the Peter M. Wege Library, where four of VLM’s marble sculptures are on display. These smoothly carved and polished marble forms resembling long ponytails are named after ancient deities, such as Aurora, Andromeda, and Medusa. VLM asks us to dissociate these forms from masculine phallocentric readings, shifting perspective toward what she calls “feminist metaphysics.”

ArtPrize has announced a new format for the public to get involved by giving everybody a chance to award prizes directly. For more information, visit ArtPrize.org, where details about the process will be announced in the weeks leading up ArtPrize 2021.