Language permeates the work of Brenna Youngblood, and M.I.A. is part of a series of sculptures that investigate language and identity. The title of the sculpture refers not only to the acronym for soldiers unaccounted for in battle (missing in action), but also, less obviously, refers to her ‘The Mathematics of Individual Achievement’ exhibition at Honor Fraser Gallery in 2011. It furthermore refers to the Montgomery Improvement Association, a group co-organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. to guide the Montgomery bus boycott protest in 1955. The bronze sculpture’s parts have been scaled to fit a young child’s hands, prompting its formal connection to a jungle gym and highlighting the formative and foundational power of language.
This version of M.I.A. is the artist’s first sculpture in bronze. An older version, made of wood, is in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
