Harrar Middle Passage 1973

Barbara Chase-Riboud made this sculpture, featuring stone and rope, to evoke a charged meeting of cultures. The stone, with its craggy, weathered surface, is cut into two sharp vertical forms, almost like blades. These flank a bundle of tightly bound black rope. This contrast of materials – the hard, geological permanence of the stone against the softer, more yielding textile – is central to the work’s effect. Chase-Riboud is known for combining industrial materials like bronze and aluminum with fiber, setting up powerful dialogues between the sleekness of modern production and the hand-worked quality of textiles. Here, the rope is not just a material, but a signifier of labor, constraint, and perhaps even violence, given the title’s reference to the transatlantic slave trade. The artist makes this history palpable through her material choices. Ultimately, Chase-Riboud asks us to consider how materials can carry meaning, and how the act of making can be a form of historical reckoning.