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The Burden of The Beast
photo courtesy of The Hermitage Museum & Gardens
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It’s after hours at the Hermitage Museum and Walker Babington is
covered in paint and sweat after wrapping up his Art Fort class for
6 -10 year old children. Babington encourages the children to stretch
their imaginations while he works cutting wood to bring their
forts to life. The class is part of the programming for Burden of The Beast - his installation at The Hermitage Museum & Gardens in Norfolk, Va. running through October 12th. The structures rises about 32 ft off the ground and draw attention to climate change and AI - issues that are proving to be bigger then
humanity. Babington who is a stuntman and has worked alongside Denzel
Washington, Steven Spielberg, Pierce Brosnan and played a KKK member
is the box office smash Sinners, says his favorite part of
being an artist is creating.
“I wish all I
could do is create,” Babington says. “I love the process. A lot
of art is problem solving.”
Babington’s creative spark is his weapon of choice when confronting societal ills.
Burden of the Beast - a 32 ft bison that currently stands in the lawn
of the Hermitage Museum overlooking the property that is surrounded
by the waters of the Lafayette River on three sides. A ladder on the outside allows visitors to climb inside the sculpture and also serves as means to
safety from flood waters that destroyed New Orleans killing almost 1,400 people, and threaten to destroy Norfolk, Va – the US city only second to New
Orleans for at risk populations due to rising sea levels. On the 20th
anniversary of Hurricane Katrina the New Orleans based artist says
Burden of the Beast isn’t necessarily a warning, but represents
the spirit of moving forward.
What got left behind
The entire structure
is made out of debris and reclaimed wood from Hurricane Ida that
barreled down on New Orleans in 2021 to become the second most
destructive hurricane to make land fall in the "Crescent City," after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The body of the bison is a house similar to an old shack made to invoke familiarity or “grandma’s
house”- a source of comfort that crosses racial and ethnic lines. The piece evokes imagery of the Russian folktale Baba Yaga about an old woman who lived in
a house on chicken legs that rotates. Like the bison, an animal that
was hunted on the verge of extinction and had to find it’s way
back, the mysterious old woman is symbolic of both danger and wisdom.
Having outsmarted death, the Burden of The Beast bison is equipped
with a lamp lighting the way forward while carrying humanity into the
future.
“It’s supposed
to be an old multi-generational home that has been there for
decades, and everything that didn’t get washed away is soaked into
the floorboards and is still there,” Babington explains. “It
became sentient and stands up to make for higher ground.”
A symbol of hope in
a time of despair, Babington says the bison that appears to walk on
stilts is proof of a problem that people have ignored, or altogether
denied. The bottom of the house sits at 14ft, the height of the
waters during Hurricane Katrina and the height required for any new
builds along the low lands of the New Orleans coast.
“100 year floods
are happening more and more often,” Babington says. “When you
drive through Mobile and New Orleans it’s all on stilts. The fact
that we’re doing that is just an admission that we’ve created a
problem and it’s a real thing.”
As part of the New
Orleans creative community with a studio in the Garden District half
a block from Magazine Street, Babington says he doesn’t know anyone
who hasn’t been affected by the floods. In fact, after Hurricane Ida Babington says he learned that the resilience of the community is what has
kept the city and it’s culture alive. He follows up with “They
shouldn’t have to be so resilient.” The New Orleans' community
ability to bounce back after complete devastation has been it’s
saving grace, but Babington says resiliency is a double edged
sword.
“I feel like when
it comes to restoration efforts the powers that by are like ‘Do we
have to do this again,’” he says. “The plantations were built
on the high ground and Black folks had to take the low ground, and as
a result Black folks get the brunt of it. There’s also a trans
community that gets swept to the side …. but you get tired of that
word, you get tired of hearing ‘You’re so resilient.’ To see
the infrastructure and the roads the way they are it’s not a
compliment to say you’re so resilient.”
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Found objects and sketches by Walker Babington
photo by Patrice Worthy |
Inside a room in the museum that
could double as the attic of the old house are an ultrasonic exclusion
system, a typewriter, an old leather saddle fashioned into an
elephant head, Babington’s sketches of the installation, and
more found objects. The patina on the items suggest they were left
behind by a scientist or inventor who may have been displaced or perished in the floods. The timeline
posted on an outer wall tracing The City of Norfolk’s response to
floods caused by rising sea levels puts Babington’s work into
context bringing the coastal city to the forefront.
Rising Sea Levels
in Norfolk
The Hermitage Museum worked with several organizations dedicated to water resilience and climate change like The Institute for Coastal Adaptation Resilience, Elizabeth River
Project, RISE Resilience, and Resilient Norfolk Coastal Storm Risk
Management during the development of the exhibition. Carrie Spencer,
curator of contemporary art and education at the Hermitage Museum, says when she saw Burden of the
Beast at Burning Man, she knew it had to come to Norfolk.
“I had the
opportunity to listen to him talk about the concept of the piece
which is dealing with sea level rise in New Orleans and we have the
exact same issues in Norfolk,” Spencer says. “You don’t look at
the work and think it’s about climate change and he does a really
good job at making the issues easily digestible.”
The Hermitage Museum sits on a peninsula and the staff works with the city to mitigate the amount of land lost to erosion each year. Spencer says she’s become
knowledgeable about the topic from working at the museum and living
in the area. Spencer says she can see the effects of climate change
on her commute to work with houses on cinder blocks
and homes in Ocean View – a beach side enclave in Norfolk - that
are also required to be built above the 100 year flood mark.
“Some come and
enjoy the artwork from an academic aspect and other people just want
to see visually interesting things. Walker’s work is a happy middle
ground,” Spencer says. “It’s visually interesting and
stimulating, and accessible to everyone, but we also have the
information there to educate people about this.”
The surrealism of
the moment
Spencer describes
Babington’s work as whimsical that addresses important issues without overwhelming viewers. His style is similar to that of Tim Burton, but
Babington compares his large pieces to Lemony Snicket because of
the ominous undertones. Inspired by the late 19th
century French Symbolist Movement Babington embraces inner emotions presenting them through dreamlike forms. He titles the genre
of his work as large scale, dreamscape, symbolist folk art, conjuring up other worldly sequences much like
the juke joint scene in the film Sinners when Sammie’s music opens
portals to past and future timelines. Despite critics being confused by the sequence, Babington made an immediate connection to
how art can transcend time.
"I love that
scene, I wish I was in that scene,” the multi-hyphenate artist says
with excitement. “There’s no way that scene could’ve been done
with contemporary jazz, it had to be the blues. I think the meaning
is that when an artist is in the zone you break the three dimensional
portal."
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Zozo Bot sits in the woods
at the Hermitage Museum
photo courtesy of The Hermitage Museum |
Burden of the Beast
breaks the portal transporting visitors to a future fueled by the
surreal images of destruction caused by climate change – 100 year
floods sweeping away homes, fires in LA and tornadoes that are more
powerful than the year before. Burden of The Beast was made to feel
like a dream with walls that are 5ft from the center of the house and pitch out at
30 degrees so they curve on the inside. Even more menacing is
Zozo Bot, a giant clown that can be found just a few yards further into the woods. Resembling the Harlequin clowns in the city's numerous parades, Zozo Bot’s presence
looms over the trees as he looks through a kaleidoscope. Visitors are encouraged to lay down in the hand and look up
into the kaleidoscope to view the colors or what Babington says is a
deliberate distraction from purpose of the piece.
“Zozo Bot
represents AI and the fact that while we’re watching it and how
cool it is, it is also watching us and learning from us,” he says.
“It’s watching us be cruel to each other and in turn it is going
to be cruel to us. AI has no reason to care whether we live or die.”
Though he may be a
bearer bad news, Babington prefers to keep it light saying his work
became more fantastical and playful after he had kids. He finds a balance between the offbeat style of his work taking his role as an artist seriously. Babington reminds us that in these unprecedented times
artists are usually the harbinger of truth that society would rather
ignore saying “The energy I create with is the energy I like to make trouble with," the rebellious artist continues. "When the shit hits the fan, it’s the artists that
rise up.”
