Kunsthalle Bern is pleased to present the first comprehensive solo exhibition in Switzerland of US-American artist Melvin Edwards (*1937). The exhibition is part of a retrospective organized in collaboration with Fridericianum in Kassel and Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

Born in Houston, Texas, Edwards began his artistic career in the early 1960s - at the height of the American civil rights movement. Since then, he has been recognised as a formative voice in contemporary African-American art and sculpture.

Edwards' work includes wall objects – his well-known Lynch Fragments – as well as free-standing sculptures and works on paper. Welding is his central creative medium: his sculptures are powerful studies in abstraction. They range from coloured objects and installations made of barbed wire to complex assemblages of agricultural and industrial materials. What characterises his works is the tension between formal reduction and material force.

In addition to his sculptures, the exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bern is also dedicated to his works on paper. Here, Edwards uses barbed wire, chains and grids as positive stencils, which he transfers to the paper using spray or watercolour paint. This results in intensely coloured compositions in which the signs of threat and violence are overlaid with a playful visual language.

Edwards deals with the history of race, labour and violence – and with the African diaspora. These themes are addressed in a varied accompanying programme that incorporates works and texts by companions and opens up new perspectives.