This exhibition closed on September 4, 2023.

Create to Free Yourselves:
Georges Adéagbo
Special Installation
July 29 - September 4, 2023

CHESTERWOOD PRESENTS award winning sculptor and
found-object artist Georges Adéagbo

JUNE 1, 2023 - Award-winning sculptor and found-object artist Georges Adéagbo (born in 1942 in Cotonou, Benin) is a virtuoso of site-specific installation, brings his transformational art to Chesterwood through a special exhibition titled: Create to Free Yourselves: Abraham Lincoln and the History of Freeing Slaves in America. The exhibition opens with an Artist’s Talk moderated by Karen Milbourne, Curator, Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, on Saturday, July 29 at 4:30pm, followed by a reception and live music by HEARD world jazz ensemble. Tickets are $25 (free for Chesterwood members and children.) The exhibition was inspired by a fellowship at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, and developed for and sponsored by President Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington DC where it was displayed from January to February 2023. It will be on view at Chesterwood from July 29 - September 4, 2023.

Adéagbo has long been personally intrigued by President Lincoln as an icon of emancipation, and this project explores Lincoln’s legacy of liberation and creativity. After he installed Create to Free Yourselves at President Lincoln’s Cottage, Adéagbo was invited to Chesterwood to view the 6' model of the seated Abraham Lincoln and the many Lincoln related objects that Daniel Chester French owned such as Lincoln's life-mask and hand casts. Back in Benin, Adéagbo worked with local artists to create new items for the exhibition based on his visit and on photos from Chesterwood's archives.

The objects in the exhibit—including books, newspapers, handwritten notes, and artwork created by a team of artists in Benin–have relationships with one another, with their creators, and with the space itself. This intersection of relationships becomes the fertile ground for Adéagbo’s unique messaging. The objects themselves cannot be understood outside of this web of meaning, a web that redefines the space and transforms it into a work of art.  This process becomes an act of artistic self-liberation. 

Adéagbo’s works can be found in important collections such as the Centre Pompidou-Paris, Museum Ludwig Cologne, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, Toyota City Museum, The Nasjonal Museum Oslo, KIASMA Helsinki, Moderna Museum Stockholm and the Contemporary Art Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany.

This exhibition is a production of Stephan Köhler, Chairman Kulturforum Sud-Nord. Special thanks go to Michael Mason, Executive Director, President Lincoln’s Cottage; Karen Milbourne, Curator, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

A third iteration of this exhibition opens at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in November 2024. All the objects have been accessioned into its permanent collection.