The Brooklyn Rail

What happens when a person collects discarded objects over the course of more than thirty years? What do these objects mean, and how do they connect to the collector’s history? Contemporary artist Nari Ward (b. 1963 in St. Andrew, Jamaica) answers these questions in his latest solo exhibition Ground Break, curated by Roberta Tenconi and Lucia Aspesi at the Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan. Ward, who left the Caribbean for Harlem with his family at the age of twelve, has crafted poignant works that pose additional questions such as: What do found items say about humanity? From identity and social justice to consumerism, what narratives do they weave—and what forgotten stories do objects like baby strollers, shoelaces, and glass bottles tell?

The New York-based artist leverages scale to bring his installations, videos, and sculptures to life, encouraging the viewer to engage in a simultaneously visual and emotional experience founded in myth, movement, and memory. The twenty-six-work exhibition features items selected for their narrative power and their connection to the places they were forgotten and ultimately found again. In Ward’s words, the show indicates a “will to be, a will to form, and a will to change,” highlighting how objects may evolve in their purpose yet persist in their materiality. The artist, who steers clear of stereotypes while incorporating elements of Jamaican culture into his output, focuses on the rhythm and routine of everyday materials. Honoring each object’s history, he has embraced a massive scale that plays on the show’s very name: interpreted literally, Ground Break represents a break from the ground—or the perforation, transformation, and suspension (or subversion) of found objects. Here, audiences engage directly with the works, walking beneath them, entering them, and investigating hidden meanings by way of collaboration, performance, and direct interactions. Examining the concept of time, the show celebrates Ward’s decades-long career, presenting a combination of historical works and new productions in a careful negotiation—a dance, if you will—between the space, the gallery’s visitors, and the artist himself.

Memory and transformation are integral to the show. Ground Break opens with Hunger Cradle (1996–2024), a large-scale installation depicting yarn, rope, and found objects including fire hoses, car parts, and a piano suspended midair in the gallery space—connected via a network of threads that, both physically and metaphorically, fuse the diverse materials to the show itself. Audiences must transverse a path beneath Hunger Cradle; only then can they access the remaining works. Yet the show wouldn’t exist without this initial installation, which was first conceived collaboratively in 1996, alongside artists Janine Antoni and Marcel Odenbach, with found objects sourced from a horse-and-buggy-era building that later became a Harlem firehouse, then housed a piano moving company, and eventually a limousine service. The act of accumulating objects, and of cradling them, emphasizes the power of protection, creating an environment for tangible materials much like a cocoon. In a similar act of preservation, each time Hunger Cradle is installed in a new venue, Ward adapts it to the space, embellishing the work with new objects sourced from the exhibition site and the surrounding area. At Pirelli HangarBicocca, adapted elements include the same bricks used in Ground Break (2024), a floor installation—and the show’s namesake—composed of over four-thousand cinder blocks and intricate copper sheets, plus darkening patina. The artist’s use of copper is no accident: the material is known for its durability and regenerative capacity, with frequent references in art history and in healing practices around the world. The installation includes a spiral motif that celebrates the cyclical nature of the cosmos, come to life through a careful process of stenciling and chemical coatings, adorned with transparent beads. Sound activations further elevate the work, applied under the direction of fellow artist Justin Randolph Thompson, with contributions from activists and musicians scheduled over the course of the exhibition. Yet every instrument the viewer might experience, and every sound, stems from Ward’s own production.

Similarly, Savior (1996) showcases such humble materials as plastic garbage bags and shopping carts, bags and cloth, wheels and mirrors, as well as chairs and clocks—piled on top of one another to create a throne. A mobile chariot of sorts, the clocks in Savior quite literally mark the passage of time, in a union of past and present, of reality and symbolism. Then there is Super Stud (1994/2024), a house built from metal studs—containing, on the inside, several pages from the catalogue of the late investment banker Robert Lehman’s art collection. Though Lehman collected widely, Ward has focused exclusively on the works displaying Christian iconography—specifically, images of the Madonna and Child. Each page includes a security tag (of the variety commonly used on products in stores), which represents the idea of wielding power through the control of knowledge, much like how Lehman exerted his power in donating his collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York by stipulating that the museum exhibit the works permanently and apart from other collections. Upon entering Super Stud, viewers engage in an immersive multicultural experience that touches on multiple senses, including the olfactory. In an homage to his native Jamaica, Ward has suspended plantains from the ceiling of the structure and embedded the floor with salt cod, a key ingredient in the national dish Ackee. Of the floor’s mosaic, the artist notes that audiences will initially take in granite and only later observe the cod fins and salt: symbols reminiscent of transatlantic journeys that relied on salt curing. The work, like others in Ward’s show, highlights the merging of two cultures: a Western one, with Christian undertones and a colonizing past, and a Caribbean one, which speaks to the legacy of local and African communities. Viewers standing inside the space—taking in the book pages, security tags, metal mesh, and Plexiglas—are invited to witness history from multiple perspectives, transcending places and times, and engaging in new narratives and hidden memories.