Just Us features a clouded sky punctured with the words “Just Us” in a cutout-style font that reveals alternative views of more clouds. Just Us both evokes “justice” and highlights an unnamed group “us” suggesting the multifaceted and nuanced nature of the idea of “justice.” Here, the conflation of text and image questions notions of stability and consistency of meaning within language. Local artists, Wendo Brunoir, a New Orleans native and Best in Show winner of Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s annual Louisiana Contemporary presented by The Helis Foundation in 2020, and JoLean Laborde, New Orleans visual artist, worked with Biggers to execute the mural.
Sanford Biggers was raised in Los Angeles and currently lives and works in New York City. He is the recipient of numerous awards. Most recently, he was appointed the 2021-2022 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professor and Scholar in the MIT Department of Architecture. In February 2021, he received Savannah College of Art & Design’s deFINE Art Award; in 2020, he was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and appointed Board President at Sculpture Center; in 2019, he was inducted into the New York Foundation for the Arts Hall of Fame; in 2018, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. In 2017, he was presented the 2017 Rome Prize in Visual Arts.