Long Term

1980

Long Term, 1980. Melvin Edwards (American, b. 1937). Steel; 31.2 x 18 x 20.6 cm (12 5/16 x 7 1/16 x 8 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 2021.164 © Melvin Edwards / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Long Term (1980) belongs to an ongoing series, Lynch Fragments, which Melvin Edwards began in 1963. The Lynch Fragments are small-scale abstract wall reliefs that feature recognizable objects—often objects that could serve as weapons, such as chains, knives, and railroad spikes. Through Edwards’s composition and welding technique, familiar elements shed their functional associations, becoming lines and shapes in space, and yielding innovative sculptural forms. Lynch Fragments are hung at eye-level (determined by the artist’s height) to invite a direct encounter with the viewer.