The Dreamer

Joe Minter, The Dreamer, ca. 2005, steel and mixed media, 74 × 44 × 20 in. (188.0 × 111.8 × 50.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William S. Arnett, 2014.72, © Joe Minter

Artwork Details

Title: The Dreamer
Artist: Joe Minter
Date: ca. 2005
Location: Smithsonian American Art Museum
/
1st Floor
/
West Wing
Dimensions: 74 × 44 × 20 in. (188.0 × 111.8 × 50.8 cm)
Copyright: © Joe Minter
Credit Line: Gift of William S. Arnett
Mediums Description: steel and mixed media
Classifications: Sculpture
Subjects: Abstract
State of being — phenomenon — dream
Object Number: 2014.72
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2014.72

Artwork Description

Joe Minter is best known as the creator of the African Village, an art environment that he began in the late 1980s in Birmingham, Alabama, that is part sculpture garden, part history museum, and part memorial. A few years later Minter began to make pieces that function independently, such as The Dreamer. “The dream catcher represents the thoughts of a human being, thoughts from a faraway time, thoughts of the ancestors,” says Minter. “Our cultural ties are to the ancestral place. Those ties cannot be broken, the ties to our own roots, to our family tree. Martin Luther King was our voice in the wilderness. He was chosen, he called to be our cry.”