Learning Specialist, Carolina Malagamba: Something that I think of when I see this work is that it looks like it’s in motion, like it just about to move. Let’s hear from the artist.
Artist, John Outterbridge: Broken Dance is a ballerina on an old World War II ammunition box with one leg missing.
Carolina Malagamba: John Outterbridge is well-known for making assemblage art. That’s a three-dimensional art form using found objects. But the discarded objects that Outterbridge used were objects that he picked up off the streets of his neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles.
John Outterbridge: My process opened me up to using materials that I wouldn’t normally use. I started to combine things like metal, wood, rag—human hair was woven at times. When I have to go into a junkyard and wrestle with material, or when I have to go through the garbage to get something that I want, it makes me know that I’m capable of doing anything that I need to do.
Carolina Malagamba: The inspiration for this piece came from watching his daughter play with dolls. Outterbridge liked to think about dolls and their power of helping us reflect on ourselves, but also the world around us.
John Outterbridge: I started to understand that not until recent times was the doll looked upon as a toy. It was something that was, in most cases, the personification of a culture.
Carolina Malagamba: Choose one of the materials of this piece, and think about what life this material lived before it was part of Outterbridge’s artwork. Where did it come from? Who owned it? What was it used for?