{"id":131828,"date":"2018-12-12T13:00:29","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T18:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=131828"},"modified":"2018-12-12T14:39:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T19:39:56","slug":"castles-as-coffins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/12\/12\/castles-as-coffins\/","title":{"rendered":"Castles as Coffins"},"content":{"rendered":"

The artist Paa Joe makes coffins. But these aren\u2019t your standard-issue pine boxes\u2014they are red snappers, Spalding basketballs, giant shoes. In the Ghanaian tradition of<\/em>\u00a0abeduu adekai (roughly translated, \u201creceptacles of proverbs\u201d),\u00a0<\/em>the dead are honored via figurative coffins that reflect the lives of those interred. A street vendor might be buried in a soda bottle, a gynecologist in a casket shaped like a uterus. In 2004, Joe veered from his typical fare and created thirteen large-scale models of the still-standing slave castles and forts on the coast of Ghana. These buildings served as processing centers for the more than six million people enslaved and sent to the Americas and the Caribbean between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Seven of Joe\u2019s sculptures are on view until February 24 at the American Folk Art Museum, in New York, for the exhibition \u201cGates of No Return<\/a>,\u201d named for the doors through which countless souls passed on their entry into forced servitude. \u201cNobody would be buried in a slave castle coffin,\u201d Joe has said, but these miniatures signify death just the same, looming as reminders of the millions of lives lost to and the histories decimated by the slave trade.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>

Paa Joe, Fort St. Anthony\u2014Axim. 1515 Portugal, 1642 Netherlands, 1872 Britain<\/i>,<\/em> 2004\u201305 and 2017, emele wood and enamel, 48 1\/2″ x 100″ x 84 1\/2″. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo \u00a9 Paa Joe.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>

View of \u201cGates of No Return,\u201d 2018, American Folk Art Museum, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\"\"<\/a>

Paa Joe, Cape Coast Castle\u2014Cape Coast. 1653 Sweden, 1665 Britain<\/i>,\u00a02004\u201305 and 2017, emele wood and enamel, 45″ x 133″ x 88″. American Folk Art Museum, gift in memory of Claude Simard. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo \u00a9 Paa Joe.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

View of\u00a0 \u201cGates of No Return,\u201d 2018, American Folk Art Museum, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Paa Joe, [Fort] Gross-Friedrichsburg\u2014Princestown. 1683 Brandenburg, 1717\u201324 Ahanta, 1724 Neths, 1872 Britain<\/i>,\u00a02004\u201305 and 2017, emele wood and enamel, 40″ x 100″ x 70″. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo \u00a9 Paa Joe.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

View of \u201cGates of No Return,\u201d 2018, American Folk Art Museum, New York.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Paa Joe\u2019s \u201cGates of No Return<\/a>\u201d is on view at the American Folk Art Museum through February 24, 2019.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paa Joe\u2019s miniature castles stand in for the millions of lives lost to the slave trade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2384],"tags":[43748,1657,13825,43746,19922,43747,303,2369,43745,18274],"class_list":["post-131828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-look","tag-american-folk-art-museum","tag-architecture","tag-building","tag-coffin","tag-coffins","tag-figurative-coffins","tag-ghana","tag-miniature","tag-paa-joe","tag-slavery"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCastles as Coffins by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"December 12, 2018 \u2013 Paa Joe\u2019s miniature castles stand in for the millions of lives lost to the slave trade.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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