One Another, 2017

Maxwell Carraher

on view through March 2019 

Laurel Park, 1343 N. Laurel Avenue

The Art Work, One Another, is a bronze sculpture that stands approximately 10 feet tall and 5 feet wide. It depicts a desperately hopeful man at the lower part of the sculpture looking up with an aching expression reaching high above his head grasping the wrist of another man with all of his strength. The higher man reaching down with one hand grasps the wrist of the lower man and appears to be pulling with all of his might. While the upper man pulls the lower man up, he looks higher reaching outward with his free arm. What he is reaching for is not stated in the work and is left for the viewer to determine.

Visibly there is an extraordinarily strong and unbreakable bond between the two men. The design of the piece implies a particular statement about the shared destiny of man, both the weak and the powerful. Neither can be free without the other, so a common respect must be maintained and held for each other. Although obviously the higher figure is pulling the lower figure and quite possibly saving him; the lower figure is also the support of the upper figure and without him the upper figure would fall.

The message within the Art Work connects to the City of West Hollywood and LGBT community’s tireless mission to gain equality. The Art Work addresses a very large social issue and that is the false idea that mankind can be divided into groups some having more human value than others. Ideas to the contrary allow for prejudice, murder and all manner of atrocities. The Art Work goes further in its statement by making it clear in order for any one man to make it out he must bring along his fellows no matter how impossible it may seem.

Maxwell Carraher is a West Hollywood resident and this is his first public art exhibition.

click here for photos from the Artist Reception, April 29, 2018

Follow us on social media and use the hashtag #wehoarts

Facebook: www.facebook.com/WeHoArts

Twitter: www.twitter.com/wehoarts

Instagram: www.instagram.com/wehoarts

For questions, contact Rebecca Ehemann, Public Art Coordinator at (323) 848-6846 or rehemann@weho.org. For people who are deaf or hard of hearing, please call, TTY: (323) 848-6496. To learn more information about the City of West Hollywood and its arts programs visit www.weho.org/arts.