How many bras does it take to make a 5-foot ball? Well, 18,085, of course! Artist Emily Duffy spent three years building this 1,800 pound sphere of undergarments contributed from women all over the U.S. and the world. The sculpture is intended to challenge our assumptions about women's bodies -- that they are "solid and strong like the sculpture, not wispy and frail" like the material of which bras are made. Hidden in the central core is a capsule containing items relating to breasts and bras. The BraBall is her recognition that "a sphere is an elemental shape, one of the building blocks of art as well as life" as well as a reflection of many other Round things -- a globe, an egg, an ovary, a seedpod, a cell, and of course a breast.

American Visionary Art Museum
Baltimore, MD

04.07.17