Photos by: Kevin J. Miyazaki / Sculpture Milwaukee

African American artist Radcliffe Bailey is part of a new generation of artists bringing the complex and often hidden realities of contemporary America to life. Bailey believes that making things very personal he can achieve a sense of human universality. He is deeply influenced by history, by family, by his community, and his work reflects an appreciation for the alternative voices that shape how we live.

Bailey first became known for a series of mixed media medicine cabinets, begun in 2003, inspired by Kongo minkisi, or power figure, objects that convey strong, symbolic spiritual resonance. Bailey uses as his muse the artists, poets, musicians, blacksmiths and artisans who came before him, weaving together images of conquest and resistance that reflect African American life today.

Pensive depicts African American writer, historian, sociologist, editor and activist W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) in the position of Rodin’s iconic work The Thinker, originally designed in 1880 as the cornerstone for Rodin’s masterpiece The Gates of Hell. In Rodin’s version, The Thinker is 14th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, completed in 1320. Dante sits in his well-known position, contemplating the circles of hell as described in Christian theology. In his epic poem, Alighieri wrote about his own life and exile, mirroring perhaps DuBois’ own alienation. Both Du Bois and Alighieri are depicted as deeply philosophical men, pondering the harsh realities of human behavior although separated by centuries of time. 

Bailey’s work is “…is a meditation on "double consciousness," a term coined in the section titled "Of Our Spiritual Strivings" in Du Bois' seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, published 1903….[DuBois] describes a second sense of self that is seen through the eyes of others.”