We are looking out into a semi-enclosed outdoor space where an angel rotates above a pile of bleached white statuary—bodies like bones, chaotic rubble. It is late December, 2019, and we have come to the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art to spend time with the astonishing ceramic sculpture of Viola Frey. Frey’s unapologetic clay work fills an 8,000 square foot gallery—raw, monumental, brazenly splashed with color. 

Still immersed in Frey’s bold energy, we have exited the gallery by way of a long hall. Pausing at the end before we go out into the garden, we stop by a large window and are transfixed by this strangely moving sight. The tethered angel’s outstretched arm has been described as “a gesture of blessing”. The classical garden sculptures piled below seem both arranged and haphazard as they gaze upward. The motor propelling the angel whirrs and grates. Life has stopped in place; saving grace circles above.  

Now, a year later at the end of 2020, the image of David Ireland’s 1996 installation, “Angel Go Round” has reappeared. It feels like a requiem for a year we couldn’t have imagined—an acknowledgment of accumulated loss and sorrow. It’s also shot through with Ireland’s well known joy and humor—a feeling that despite the broken places in which we may find ourselves and the almost unbearable difficulties we continue to confront, there’s an angel whose job it is to go around and come around—a creaky deus ex machina who may very well appear just when we need one.

With hope for 2021, Happy New Year.

Image: David Ireland, “Angel Go Round” di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art and a video:

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