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Southern Wall by William A. Christenberry
Photo CreditGSA\Mary Margaret Carr
Southern Wall
Photo CreditGSA\Mary Margaret Carr

Southern Wall

Artist
Year1979
Classification sculpture
Medium weathered siding, corrugated tin, window, signs and photographs
Dimensions8' x 32' x 6"
Credits Commissioned through the Art in Architecture Program
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Location

  • William Christenberry (1936–2016) incorporated photographs and remnants of vernacular buildings in this artwork he made for the federal building in Jackson. The 32-foot-long tableau includes a salvaged window, behind which Christenberry mounted his photographs of Mississippi scenes. The artist also used corrugated tin, weathered siding from a 100-year-old barn, commercial signs for soft drinks and fertilizers, and a crazy-quilt-patterned collage of more sign fragments.

    In a 2009 interview for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Christenberry said: "I appropriated my first sign off of a country store, and that was the beginning of this love affair with the found object. Just having them, as on this wall here [in my studio], in my presence, is inspirational. For me, it was how time and the elements made each one, oftentimes, a poem—a visual poem."