We Outchea: Hip-Hop Fabrications and Public Space: The Stoop: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A sculpture installation, The Stoop, from Sekou Cooke’s “We Outchea: Hip-Hop Fabrications and Public Space." The sculpture is comprised of two parts, a plywood and concrete stoop (a) and a five-sided, building-shaped concrete block (b).

The stoop consists of a concrete stoop placed over a plywood base. The base is made of layered laminate plywood, with a narrow platform or landing at the top of a set of five stairs. The concrete portion fits over the steps, from the top landing step to the ground, and has a wall on the proper left side that rests on the ground . The concrete shows a worn and chipped surface, as a well-used stoop would. On top of the plywood landing are four model building structures, one taller structure made of plywood and translucent plastic and three smaller adjacent 3D resin orange structures. The orange structures have black-and-white printed images applied on the outer surface, with the middle structure having two images on opposite walls. At the bottom edge of the plywood stoop, directly below the four -shaped structures, two pentagonal, building-shaped insets are carved into the plywood. The shape of the concrete block also reflects a building structure, with four straight sides leading to a pointed roof but it sits next to the structure, not matching either inset.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 2020
• Created by: Sekou Cooke, Jamaican American
• Type: stoops
• Medium: (a) concrete, plywood, PLA acrylic
• Medium: (b) concrete
• Dimensions: H x W x D (a, model): 43 5/16 × 30 × 100 in., 1000 lb. (110 × 76.2 × 254 cm, 453.6 kg)
• Dimensions: H x W x D (b, concrete block): 11 1/4 × 8 × 5 in. (28.6 × 20.3 × 12.7 cm)
• Place depicted: Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Architecture
• Topic: Art
• Topic: Business
• Topic: Communities
• Topic: Hip-hop (Music)
• Topic: Housing
• Topic: Urban planning
• Object number: 2023.63.1ab
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Sekou Cooke
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: © Sekou Cooke Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.