The result is “re:mancipation,” an unorthodox exhibition that opened in February and runs through June 25. It combines historical interpretation, close study of objects and open-ended collaboration among artists, professors, students, community members, dancers and more.
It includes two other versions of the statue, besides the museum’s. A bronze from 1865, possibly the first one Ball made, is borrowed from the Colby College Museum of Art. A marble from 1875, from the Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis, is installed alongside casts of its components, made by 3-D scanning, that allows for a close read of its details. (Ball made many versions of the statue, with variations. They included a monument in Washington, D.C., installed in 1876, and its replica in Boston, in 1879. The Boston version was taken down in 2020 but the Washington statue remains up.)
