Drift (Tortillon orange)

Drift (Tortillon orange) is one of four sculptures Baghramian created for Scratching the Back, the 2023 Met Facade Commission. According to the artist, the assemblage of distinctly chromatic cast and powder-coated aluminum elements evokes flotsam and jetsam, just as the Museum’s threshold filters historical fragments deemed representative or exemplary. A bright orange corkscrew-like protrusion courses through the white screen that serves as both a base and a prop for the painted, stone-like elements. A distortion of the idiom "scratch the surface" that evokes the body, Scratching the Back alludes to the need to move beyond superficially constructed cultural narratives. Often evoking bodily gestures, junctures, or fragments, Baghramian’s site-responsive sculptures engage with architecture, contextualizing and shaping space. Polychromy and the innovative and subversive deployment of heterogeneous materials, as well as explorations of the dichotomy between private and public space, are hallmarks of her work.