Church of the Crossroads
Artist
Renée Stout
(United States, born 1958)
Publisher
Zanatta Editions
(United States)
Date1999 - 2000
MediumNeon and wood installation
Object TypeSculptures
Credit LineKSU, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, G. E. Johnson Art Acquisition Fund
EditionZanatta Editions Impression 1/1
Object number2005.7
On View
Not on view- Church of the Crossroads has a wood frame shaped like a building with a pitched roof. Red neon lights spell out the title of the work. White neon lights outline a triangular shape topped by a cross. Within are circular outlines of eyes, nose, and mouth.
- According to the artist, the figure represents the Yoruba (Nigerian) deity Esu-Elegba: “In west Africa, Elegba is known as the Deity of ‘the crossroads.’ A crossroads can be literal and metaphorical. If two roads cross each other, when an important decision needs to be made, that intersection can be used as a place to leave offerings to petition one's ancestors and the creator for guidance. Elegba is the intermediary between humans and the creator, kind of like the way saints work. A person would leave a mound with cowrie shell eyes, plus candy, coins, rum, etc. and then make their decision hoping for the best outcome. The crossroads is seen as a place where the mortal plane meets the spiritual plane, like a portal.”
- Stout also said that in 2015, she had a premonition: “… that America was coming to a major crossroads and I was hoping that the country would collectively make the right decision. At that time I could not have known who the opponents would be in the 2016 election a year later and how the outcome of that election would change the country in unimaginable ways. Now here we are again as a country at a major crossroads: the 2020 election.”
- American popular culture often associates the idea of crossroads with blues music legend Robert Johnson (born 1911, died 1938), who wrote the song Cross Road Blues. A myth about him attributes his virtuosic guitar-playing skills to a deal he made with the devil at a crossroads. In her work Dear Robert, I’ll See You at the Crossroads (1995), Stout imagined a dialogue between the musician and her alter ego Madame Ching, a conjurer who owned a root store and made magical potions.
Part/Part