Future Baby Boy 2014

Joseph Pace made this artwork, Future Baby Boy, out of a combination of media. It looks as though someone has painstakingly, lovingly, encrusted a child’s form in pearls, beads, and small metal findings. When I look at this, I imagine Pace really carefully sticking on each of these little things, one by one, maybe getting into a meditative state, thinking about what each pearl might mean to the overall effect. I can almost see him, surrounded by little pots of tiny adornments, carefully arranging them. The cross on the baby’s leg is a real statement. It's like he's saying something about the future, about innocence, about the things we value and pass on. I think of artists like Niki de Saint Phalle, who also used sculpture as a way of responding to cultural ideas. This way of working is like an ongoing conversation with other artists, a kind of material form of call and response that stretches across time. And when we look at it, we bring our own responses too. There's no one right answer, no definitive meaning, and that's what makes it so good.