Lugar natal

Kingman’s interest in indigenism was rooted in his concern for the proletariat. He made revolutionary works about class as well as race and nationalism, revolutionary subjects favored by his contemporaries. He agitated against art for art’s sake, believing in the greater importance of social and political activism. For Kingman, the working class constituted the foundation of the community. In Lugar natal, the village—suggestively, the artist’s birthplace—is cradled by a pair of rough, bony hands, emblems of indigenous labor. Their texture and monumentality emphasize the physicality of work and, no less, betray Kingman’s nostalgia and affection for his country.

Text credit: Produced in collaboration with the University of Maryland Department of Art History & Archaeology and by Morgan Fitrell