diaspora

Melvin Edwards, a sculptor best known for abstract steel works that illustrated the history and resistance of African Americans, died March 30 at his Baltimore home. He was 88.

His death was confirmed by Alexander Gray Associates, the gallery that represents him.

Edwards rose to prominence in 1963 with the first works of what would become his most notable series, “Lynch Fragments.” A collection of small, wall-mounted sculptures, he combined fragments of found and recycled steel and welded them into forms of chains, sharp tools, barbed wire and other metal objects.

The series spans several decades, drawing inspiration from racial violence during the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, his personal relationship to Africa, people in his own community and across the African diaspora.

Over the years, Edwards made more than 300 “Lynch Fragments.”

Recurring materials in his works held layered meanings. Barbed wire served as a symbol of violence and oppression, but also of agriculture, cultivation and survival.

“Melvin was somebody who looked at multiple dimensions of any situation or person,” said Alexander Gray, a gallery owner and close personal friend of Edwards. “He really looked at the world, not through any kind of binary lens, but through a personal lens that was respectful of other people’s perspective.”

Born May 4, 1937, in Houston, the eldest of four children, Edwards grew up surrounded by racial segregation. As a child, he took drawing classes and visited museums, and he also played football.

“The world that I came from was American racism, segregation. I may have been young, but I paid attention,” Edwards said in an introduction to “Lynch Fragments” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Melvin Edwards, seen here in fellow sculptor Hal Gebhardt’s class at USC sometime between 1959 and 1960, died March 30 at his home in Baltimore.

His artistic career began while studying art on a football scholarship at USC, where he met and was mentored by Hungarian painter Francis de Erdely. Edwards’ L.A. roots were critical to his identity as an artist. Here, he began experimenting with welded steel, which became his primary medium.

After moving to New York City in 1967, he became, in 1970, the first African American sculptor to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Throughout his career, Edwards remained committed to public art, creating sculptures for universities, public housing projects and museums around the world.

Those who knew him described him as overwhelmingly positive, which shaped both his work and his relationships.

“Melvin’s community of artists was remarkable because it spanned the globe. You could spin a globe, land anywhere, say the name of the country or the city, and he would know three people there, minimum,” said Gray. “He could recall a conversation he had with a person 35 years ago without any hesitation. He had an incredible constellation of people that he was surrounded by.”

Concerns over US involvement

The war has reignited a debate within the Iranian diaspora about what role the US should play in Iran’s future.

This question is more than a distant geopolitical issue for Iranians in Los Angeles.

Many residents explained that their family histories had been shaped by US involvement in the region, whether it was through US support for Iran’s fallen monarchy or through the US decision to back Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980.

Aida Ashouri, a human rights lawyer who is running to be Los Angeles city attorney, was among those publicly condemning the latest US campaign in Iran at the city hall protest on February 28.

“This is a US imperialist war, and we have to make that clear,” she said. “Call a spade a spade. This war is not to liberate the women of Iran or the people of Iran.”

Ashouri was born during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Her hometown, Isfahan, was also bombed in June last year during the US and Israel’s 12-day war with Iran.

For Ashouri, it was telling that the US and Israel once again launched the first strike in the current conflict. For many legal experts, that made the conflict an unprovoked war of aggression, in violation of international law.

“A war implies two sides are actively engaged, but Iran has done nothing to be involved,” Ashouri said.

“This is a unilateral military invasion, an aggression of the United States and Israel. They are the ones with the power to end it by stopping the bombing.”

She and other protesters drew parallels between the current Iran war and the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, launched in 2003 and 2001, respectively.

“I lived through the shadow of the war on terror, all the propaganda talking points,” said Shany Ebadi, an Iranian American antiwar organiser with the ANSWER Coalition. “What the Trump administration is saying reminds me a lot of the Iraq war.”

As someone who follows the news closely, Ebadi remembers feeling alarm when the first strikes were launched in February.

“When I got the breaking news notification of the initial attack, my whole body felt paralysed. I felt anger and frustration,” she said.

She and Ashouri both said they fear the military operation in Iran could spark a regional war that might further destabilise not just Iran, but the entire Middle East.

“I fear that war will repeat the disasters seen in Palestine, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan,” Ashouri said, listing countries targeted in the US’s “war on terror” over the past two and a half decades.

The question of whether bombs can pave the way to freedom in Iran is a simple one for Ashouri and her fellow antiwar activists. The answer, they say, is simply no.