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Daughters of Wounds and Relics
Daughters of Wounds and Relics

Daughters of Wounds and Relics

Primary (San Antonio, Texas, 1972–Houston, Texas, present)
NationalityAmerican, North America
Date2006
MediumHair braid made of stretched and curled audiotape recordings of the last known Union Civil War soldier’s voice and the last known Confederate Civil War widow’s voice, ribbons, homemade paper, pulp made from sweetheart letters written by soldiers who did not return
DimensionsOverall: 30 × 19 × 3 5/16 in. (76.2 × 48.3 × 8.4 cm)
Credit LineBlanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Promised gift of Jeanne and Michael Klein, 2007
Collection AreaModern and Contemporary Art
Object numberPG2007.13
On View
On view
Locations
  • exhibition  BMA, Gallery, B9
Label Text
Daughters of Wounds and Relics, as well as the sculpture, A Sadness Silence Can’t Touch, belong to a recent body of work by artist Dario Robleto that pays tribute to the families of Civil War soldiers. Placing himself in the imagined role of a wife, mother, or sister, Robleto resuscitates the tradition of mid 19th-century domestic handicrafts, which gave form to collective experiences of grief, trauma, endurance, and recovery. Robleto’s poignant gestures suggest the redemptive power of culture and creativity. Both Daughters of Wounds and Relics and A Sadness Silence Can't Touch, which the artist has compared to the A and B sides of the same recording, ask us to reflect on the often forgotten effects of war beyond the battlefield.