David Adjaye previews his Asaase III earthwork installation for COUNTERPUBLIC in St. Louis

2023-06-02T13:51:00-04:00

It’s very significant. In terms of personal meaning, I have approached it as a kind of meditation and reflection on the idea of deep time—planetary and galaxy time that is beyond the human timeline. Asaase III is, in a way, a representation of how I imagine an ideal city—a city that is in symbiosis with the Earth, acknowledging it and honoring it in a very deep way, but also absolutely transforming it and creating new features.

The new (permanent) addition to the Griot Museum of Black History is Adjaye’s second foray into rammed earth sculpture, following a 2021 installation at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. COUNTERPUBLIC curator Allison Glenn says the commission was born of her desire to connect the museum to the history of land use and the story of architecture in the community — in addition to Adjaye’s previous U.S. museum designs.

Adjaye says he was motivated to use materials as a means of invoking historical reference in light and also breaking us from our lost sense of place in universal spacetime, adding his concern that "Artifice has taken over our sense of reverence for the Earth."

The three-month COUNTERPUBLIC exhibition is on view in St. Louis until July 15th.

Adjaye announces new rammed earth commission for The Griot Museum of Black History in St. Louis

2022-11-28T12:03:00-05:00

The Griot Museum of Black History will soon be home to a public art installation from the designer of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Architect David Adjaye will design Asaase III, a monument that surrounds the museum. The structure will be built of rammed earth, a process using soil and other natural materials from the St. Louis region to make solid structures.

The rammed earth installation is the new Order of Merit appointee’s second such following his well-profiled commission for Antwaun Sargent’s Social Works show at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. Adjaye had also incorporated earthwork into his commission for the 2019 Venice Biennale and design for the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library and has referred to it beyond materiality as “another creature” that will join 30 other designs in the three-month public art installation COUNTERPUBLIC, which debuts this Spring.

“Since it’s outdoors and it's intended to be a community of public peace, we really wanted it to be reflective of that,” the museum’s founder Lois Conley said of the deeper inspiration behind the project. “Some of the soils will be coming from various areas that had relevantly large African American populations, whether they exist anymore or not. We still wanted to have some of that material.”

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David Adjaye previews his Asaase III earthwork installation for COUNTERPUBLIC in St. Louis

Adjaye announces new rammed earth commission for The Griot Museum of Black History in St. Louis