Cady Noland

Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
Rudolf and Ute Scharpff, Stuttgart
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 2004

New York, Paula Cooper Gallery, Cady Noland, March - April 1994
Hamburg, Hamburg Kunsthalle, Family Values, American Art in the Eighties and Nineties, The Scharpff Collection at the Hamburg Kunsthalle, 1996, p. 2, illustrated in color; pp. 65 and 66, illustrated in color (installation view at Hamburg Kunsthalle); pp. 68 and 69, illustrated (installation photograph) (extended loan from 1996 - 2004)

Frieze, 1994, p. 58, illustrated
Art Monthly, no. 177, 1994, illustrated on the cover
Art Press, No. 192, 1994, p. 15, illustrated
Bomb, Summer 1994, p. 73, illustrated
Gill Perry, ed., Difference and excess in contemporary art: the visibility of women's practice, Oxford, 2004, fig. 6.3, p. 107, illustrated (installation photograph from the 1994 Paula Cooper Gallery exhibition)

This sculpture is in excellent condition. The metal gibbet and stool exhibit scattered soft abrasions and faint handling marks overall from prior installations. When the flag is draped on the gibbet, these are mostly not visible with the exception of scattered nicks and scratches on the top of the plinth. Near the top right and left holes of the gibbet, there are two knobs that are suggestive of controls for regulating the interior openings, however they are not functional as is the artist's intent. The flag is also in excellent condition with soft folds and creases as is to be expected from storage and packing.
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Named for the gallows-type structure from which the bodies of executed criminals were hung and recalling the form of Colonial stocks which secured the ankles and wrists of offenders held up to public scorn, Cady Noland's Gibbet (1993-94) implies a mockery of or challenge to American hubris.  Despite the inclusion of the American flag, the work is more prison than memorial, and the freestanding sculpture evokes feelings not of history, patriotism, or pride, but of intimidation, loneliness, and a sense of dreaded awe.  The combination of materials and the inclusion of the holes, recalls the artist's 1989 Bluewald which depicts Lee Harvey Oswald riddled with bullet holes and gagged with an American flag. Both works exemplify the artist's adept exploration of the realities of the American dream and its shortcomings.  Combining the iconic with the detritus and materials of the everyday, Noland captures the anxiety inherent to the post-Vietnam era.