Art Institute of Chicago

Sunday, Sitting on the Bank of Butterfly Meadow

Wardell Milan

2013

Attribution

Wardell Milan American, born 1977

Medium

Chromogenic print

Physical dimensions

Image/paper/mount: 101.4 × 152.3 cm (39 15/16 × 60 in.); Second mount: 106.6 × 157.4 cm (42 × 62 in.); Frame: 86 × 125.9 × 3.5 cm (33 7/8 × 49 5/8 × 1 7/16 in.)

Credit line

Comer Foundation Fund

From the museum

Part of a series exploring self-identity, this image depicts a photo-diorama made by the artist, a fantastic alternative world where history, mythology, and personal memories merge. To build his tabletop dioramas, Milan meticulously cuts out props and characters from a vast archive of family snapshots, magazine and textbook images, and other mass-produced photographs and mounts them onto board. Once he has photographed the arrangement in his studio, Milan disassembles each diorama, leaving a photograph as the final documentation. This image, which pays homage to photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Sunday on the Banks of the Marne (1938), depicts fashion models, porn stars, statues, and family members amid moss bushes and kale trees—a daydream scene that invites reflection on the relationship between social, political, and religious power and one’s sense of self.

Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0