Janine Antoni

I am fertile ground, 2019

Mixed media gilded with 24 karat gold leaf

Installed: 12 7/8 x 19 5/8 x 5/8 inches (32.7 x 49.85 x 1.59 cm)

Flat: 12 7/8 x 20 1/8 x 5/8 inches (32.7 x 51.12 x 1.59 cm)

Commissioned by The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.

© Janine Antoni; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco
Photo: Christopher Burke

“I am fertile ground” is a triptych inspired by a traditional altarpiece. Recalling matriarchal religions that revere the ground, Antoni places the earth in the central panel, historically reserved for the main deity. In these belief systems, the spirit is in the earth, not in the sky. It comes up through the feet into the body during ritual dance. Pictured in the two winged panels are feet, painted gold, placed where angels or saints typically stand in support, honoring the central deity. The attention to the feet highlights the place where a body meets the earth. The earth rises up to meet and support the weight of our physical body. To feel this meeting is to experience our own embodiment: to begin to repair our connection to the earth. We acknowledge and surrender to gravity, a force that draws us down to our eventual dissolve into earth. Finally, Antoni brings us to the last material vestige of a body: our bones. These are dragged and impressed to form the gilded frames. The gold continues inward to encircle the earth. It moves in, delicately adorning three fallen twigs, haloed in their majestic presence.

“The earth supports me. The earth holds me. The earth receives me. I am fertile ground.”

“I am fertile ground” was a part of “I am fertile ground” at Green-Wood Cemetery.