A sculpture of Marian Anderson dressed in blue emerges from a sea of raised hands and pink lilies. Black-and-white photos of a crowd of Black attendees frame the base. Her head is rendered as a mirrored cube with black-and-white photos of her face.

vanessa german

Of Thee We Sing (2023)

An innovative statue of Marian Anderson and her powerful 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial, held up by a sea of hands and historic images of the attendees

vanessa german conjures the history of Marian Anderson’s iconic 1939 Easter Sunday performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial through an inventive, communal sculpture. Anderson’s operatic concert took place within a racially segregated capital, and nearly a century later continues to serve as a reference point for expression, collectivity, and democracy on the National Mall. The nine-foot steel and resin sculpture includes an imaginative figural representation of Anderson held up by a sea of hands and Sandhof lilies. Anderson’s image, taken from historic photographs, is repeated around the top edge, while the notes of the spiritual “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” appear in the details of her blue dress, the color symbolic of healing. “I want to see the figure of a Black woman in sculpture at the Mall,” german notes, “something more joyful than commemoration: an intimation to take up space.”

Location: Lincoln Memorial Plaza (map)

Materials: Steel, resin, and archival photographs

Photos courtesy of Steve Weinik Photography

Photos courtesy of AJ Mitchell Photography

A Black woman smiles confidently, revealing rosy cheeks and pink lips. Her black hair curls in tight spirals around her head. She wears a black dress with a silver serpent necklace. A cityscape visible in the background.

vanessa german

Born 1976 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Asheville, North Carolina
she/her/hers

is a Black queer artist working within the healing realms of intimacy, tenderness, and human wholeness. She creates sculptures, communal rituals, love joints, immersive installations, and performances as enduring human technologies of social healing. German is the recipient of a Heinz Award for the Arts, a Don Tyson Prize, and a United States Artists grant, among many other honors. Her work is in the collections of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Carnegie Museum of Art, among others.

Credits

Studio team: Jordan Whitten

Project manager: Nico Rodriguez Melo

Fabricator: Adirondack Studios

Special thank-yous: Adirondack Studios and Marian Anderson Collection of Photographs, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Public Program

Blue Walk / Public Program of vanessa german’s Of Thee We Sing

Took place Saturday, August 19, 2023
Lincoln Memorial Plaza and around the Reflecting Pool

The Blue Walk is a ritual of redemption and grace in movement and song led by vanessa german. In a custom gown, german walked the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with live musical accompaniment. Attendees joined the procession or watched from the foot of the Lincoln Memorial steps where the ritual began and ended.