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Danh Vo
We the People (detail), 2011-2013

Artwork Info

Artwork title
We the People (detail)
Artist name
Danh Vo
Date created
2011-2013
Classification
sculpture
Medium
copper
Dimensions
80 in. × 98 in. × 68 in. (203.2 cm × 248.92 cm × 172.72 cm)
Date acquired
2014
Credit
Collection SFMOMA
Purchase, by exchange, through a fractional gift of Shirley Ross Davis
Copyright
© Danh Vo
Permanent URL
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/2014.123
Artwork status
Not on view at this time.

Audio Stories

Vo on his fragmented symbol of liberty

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transcripts

NARRATOR: You’re looking at a replica of a fragment of the Statue of Liberty. It’s made from thin sheets of hammered copper, in the exact dimensions of the original. It’s one of 250 pieces that artist Danh Vo created and scattered around the world. He calls the project We the People. 

 

SFX: Very large bell tolling with a grave, slow sound throughout. 

  

DANH VO: We the People was not about going to the past. I mean, since it’s one of the most important icons for western liberty, I think it deals very much about the present, and our future. 

 

Of course I see political issues around such a sculpture. I see economical questions. I see formal questions. 

 

I think it was like putting up a gigantic mirror that people could look at, you know? And if it would be successful, the project, it would be that people would renegotiate what they would think of freedom.

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This undulating copper form is a full-scale replica of a section of the Statue of Liberty, hammered to the same thickness as the original sculpture, equal to that of two pennies. Vo divided up this iconic image of freedom, producing more than 250 individual elements. His goal was not to erect the statue as a whole but to leave it in fragments dispersed across the world. Taking its title from the preamble of the United States Constitution, this fragile form reflects the abstract nature of the concept that it represents. For Vo its meaning lies in having people “renegotiate what they think of freedom.”

Gallery text, 2016

Other Works by Danh Vo

See other works by Danh Vo

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