A major retrospective surveying the work of sculptor Melvin Edwards is currently on view at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The exhibition, part of a carte blanche invitation extended to curator Naomi Beckwith, examines the career of an artist regarded as an influential figure in contemporary American art.
Edwards is recognized for several distinct bodies of work. These include his Lynch Fragments, a series of wall-mounted assemblages using welded industrial objects and materials that he began in 1963. His practice also encompasses large-scale abstract sculptures and site-specific installations, which frequently utilize materials such as barbed wire and chains. Developed contemporaneous to the Civil Rights Movement, his work employs these materials to investigate American cultural memory and socioeconomic history.
The exhibition frames his sculptures as “portals linking the past and present of the Black Atlantic”. His work engages with linguistics, architecture, and an anthropological reflection on ironwork that seeks to revalorize Africa’s position in the history of industrial development.
Deeply informed by poetry and jazz music, Edwards’s practice also reflects his relationships with literary figures, including collaborations with poet Jayne Cortez and his encounters with Léon-Gontran Damas and Edouard Glissant. The retrospective also gives focus to the collaborative dimension of his printed works and his involvement in establishing a printmaking workshop in Dakar in the late 1990s.
Concurrently, Edwards is included in the group exhibition ECHO DELAY REVERB: American Art, Francophone Thought, also at the Palais de Tokyo. This show explores the transatlantic circulation of forms and ideas through the works of approximately sixty artists, featuring new commissions alongside pieces dating from the 1970s to the present.
The retrospective opened on October 23 and will remain on view through February 15, 2026. The ECHO DELAY REVERB exhibition shares the same closing date. Related programming includes a conversation with Melvin Edwards and co-curator Amandine Nana on Saturday, October 25, at 5:00 PM (CET). This discussion will explore the artist’s transatlantic journey and collaborations. An artwork activation led by the artist is scheduled for 4:30 PM (CET) preceding the talk, which will be held in English in Room 37.
