86 x 86 in.
Bona Fide is among a number of works that came out of Adkins’s residency in 2000 at a disused uniform manufacturing factory, formerly known as Finesilver Manufacturing Company, in San Antonio, Texas. It was first exhibited as part of the recital Wild Ashes Mute at Finesilver Gallery, in San Antonio, Texas. The work is formed from stencil boards for trouser legs, which are fanned out in a circular arrangement in the order in which Adkins encountered them at the factory, employing chance as a compositional tool to determine the variations in form, shape and colour found in the sculpture. This work highlights Adkins’s belief in the evocative possibilities of ‘materials made by other hands, for other purposes’, in his words, in this case material connected to histories of labour and industry.
Installation view, Wild Ashes Mute, 2000, Finesilver Gallery, San Antonio. Courtesy Finesilver Gallery, San Antonio.