SIDE X SIDE
Art and activism have been intimately engaged throughout contemporary art history, reiterating the notion that the personal is political. In 2007, Art:21’s Season 4 addressed activist strategies (in particular, the politics of war) in “Protest,” which included Jenny Holzer, Alfredo Jaar, An-My Lê, and Nancy Spero. A new investigation of art and activism (in this case, the AIDS crisis) can currently be seen in SIDE X SIDE, an exhibition curated by Dean Daderko for Visual AIDS on view through August 3, 2008 at La MaMa La Galleria in the East Village.
With works from the 1980s to the present by Scott Burton, Kate Huh, Nicholas Moufarrege, Martin Wong, and Carrie Yamaoka, Daderko’s project is rooted in the history of the 1980s in New York City where more than 10,000 people were diagnosed with AIDS in 1986. Between 1986 and 1991 there were numerous exhibitions, conferences, and artworks about AIDS in New York, while activist groups such as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and Visual AIDS worked to educate the public and insist on medical research and treatment. Art21 artist Oliver Herring (Season 3) has also made works related to AIDS, in particular A Flower for Ethyl Eichelberger (1991) a tribute to the performance artist who committed suicide in 1990 after discovering that he had AIDS.
One of the most noted exhibitions about the politics of AIDS was Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing (a 1989 review of the show can be found in the New York Times on-line) organized by artist Nan Goldin at Artists Space in 1989. The show highlighted a group of artists living in the lower east side of Manhattan who were directly affected by AIDS. Daderko’s project is a sobering reminder of this history as well as a tribute to those who have been lost to this vicious disease. Further details and upcoming events related to SIDE X SIDE can be found on the Visual AIDS website.
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle | Casta Paintings
EXCLUSIVE: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle at home in Chicago, with photographs of the installation The Garden of Delights (1998) at the XXIV Sao Paulo Bienal.
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s technologically sophisticated works use natural forms such as clouds, icebergs, and DNA as metaphors for understanding social issues such as immigration, gun violence, and human cloning. The artist’s strategy of representing nature through information leads to an investigation of the underlying forces that shape the planet as well as points of human interaction and interference with the environment.
SEE: More images, videos, and news for Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle.
LEARN: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle is featured in the Season 4 (2007) episode Ecology of the Art:21–Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS.
DISCUSS: What do you think about this video? Leave a comment!
PHOTO | Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, (Left) Doug, Joe and Genevieve from (Right) The Garden of Delights, 1998. Courtesy the artist and Max Protetch, New York.
VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Mark Falstad. Sound: Heidi Hesse. Editor: Steven Wechsler. Artwork courtesy: Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Thanks: Max Protetch Gallery.
Let’s See It Again!
I had a great experience recently sitting with my son, Paul, and doing a little preparation for this column. Since he’s an inquisitive, very verbal, curly-haired three year old, I thought he might enjoy checking out the Laurie Simmons segment with me, since so many students had positive reactions to her work when we included her in our preview screenings this year. I didn’t expect the reaction I got, though.
Whether it was the puppets coming to life on screen or the dancing camera and clock, he kept asking me to back up and show him again.
So we watched Laurie Simmons’ segment four times together.
Each time, Paul would zoom in and ask questions such as, “She is an artist??? But she is a dancer!” or “How many people help her make pictures, Dad?”
Laurie Simmons makes an important point in her Art:21 segment by stating that she’s an artist that uses photography and the camera as a tool, just as other artists use brushes as a tool. Simmons, along with so many of the Art21 artists, especially in Season 4, remind us that a singular style or way of making art is becoming harder and harder to find in contemporary art practice. While Robert Ryman, our featured artist in last week’s column, certainly falls into the signature style category, many artists like Simmons have a range of interests and abilities.
As I viewed her segment a fifth time (Paul had left the room to find a way to dress up as a dancing house) I thought about the interdisciplinary connections with Social Studies, Drama, and Language Arts that a segment like this can provide. If you have used Laurie Simmons in your classroom, or plan to use her segment next year, please share how. I will check in during the week and share some ways I plan to incorporate her work in 2008-2009….
For now, I am going to try constructing a house costume for Paul that’s loose enough for him to dance….
Nancy Spero Retrospective at MACBA
Appropriately enough, Nancy Spero’s Dissidances opens on Independence Day at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). Long an active voice in contemporary political and feminist art, the exhibition includes early work from her studies at the Art Institute of Chicago to recent presentation at the 2007 Venice Biennale.
It is the first major retrospective of Spero’s (Season 4) career held both in Europe and the United States. The title of the exhibition, taken from the text by Hélène Cixous for the catalogue, suggests a “potential reading which subsumes two basic aspects of the artist’s work: its critical, non-conformist nature in terms of the politico-artistic situation she has lived through during her career and the importance of movement and of the body as vehicles for articulating her discourse. Organized chronologically, the exhibition presents her work as a unitary project in which past and present become blurred, as in the ancient fables and narratives that have been an inspiration to her.”
The traveling exhibition runs through September 24th at MACBA, then to Madrid and Seville.
Happy July 4th!
Kerry James Marshall | Being an Artist
EXCLUSIVE: Kerry James Marshall discusses three recent paintings, all Untitled (2008), during the installation of his exhibition Black Romantic at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. The exhibition is on view through July 3, 2008.
Kerry James Marshall’s work is based on a broad range of art-historical references, from Renaissance painting to folk art. A striking aspect of his paintings is the emphatically black skin tone of his figures, a development the artist says emerged from an investigation into the invisibility of blacks in America and the unnecessarily negative connotations associated with darkness.
Kerry James Marshall is featured in the Season 1 (2001) episode Identity of the Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS.
ART21: You’ve said before that when you were young you knew you wanted to be an artist with a capital “A.” Do you see your recent portraits of painters as being related to a mythic or romantic conception of what being an artist is and is supposed to mean?
MARSHALL: Well…it’s the idea of the artist. And it’s the idea of the artist and what the artist looks like or what the artist represents. You could say that those paintings are a kind of mythic image of the painter. But part of what that work is also attempting to do is to address some of the challenges that this whole notion of Black Arts faces.
Seeing More…
Teaching students is one thing but having the opportunity, like we do in the summer, to teach and share perspectives with colleagues, friends, family, even strangers, can be an equally fulfilling experience. So if you have the chance, especially if you have the chance with someone who is a lover of representational painting, share the Robert Ryman segment from Season 4 with them.
Robert Ryman teaches viewers young and old to slow down and take in what seems extremely simple on the surface. It can teach those who look into his work to see the nuances that physically bring the viewer closer without even realizing it.
Even more important, Robert Ryman’s work will challenge those looking for something to label. What’s it a picture of? Well… white. It’s a picture of white over white over gray.
While there are many, many artists that ask the viewer to realize that the paint is in fact the subject, Robert Ryman does it with white. Everything is stripped down to brush stroke, the act of painting, the marks made by the brush.
What kinds of challenges do we face as teachers when we share works like these? Why share artists like Robert Ryman with our students? While it certainly can get students involved in a dialogue about what constitutes a painting, what else can his work teach?
Kerry James Marshall | “Black Romantic”
EXCLUSIVE: Kerry James Marshall discusses two recent paintings, both Untitled (2008), during the installation of his exhibition Black Romantic at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. The exhibition is on view through July 3, 2008.
Kerry James Marshall’s work is based on a broad range of art-historical references, from Renaissance painting to folk art. A striking aspect of his paintings is the emphatically black skin tone of his figures, a development the artist says emerged from an investigation into the invisibility of blacks in America and the unnecessarily negative connotations associated with darkness.
Kerry James Marshall is featured in the Season 1 (2001) episode Identity of the Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS.
ART21: Can you say a little about the title of the exhibition?
MARSHALL: The title of the show is Kerry James Marshall: Black Romantic. There are a lot of implications to that title. One of the reasons I used that title was because it relates to an exhibition that was done at The Studio Museum in Harlem a few years ago called Black Romantic (2002). That show was largely about how there’s certain groups of black artists who do a kind of work that is called Black Art.
I’ve always been interested in this place where popular art or vernacular works cross over and move from the popular realm into the mainstream, critical institutional realm. Certain genres of painting are more privileged and less privileged, and this idea of the Black Romantic, with it’s positive imagery of black figures, has a kind of sentimentality that is seen by many artists as being deficient.
For me, it is more important to resolve whatever those deficiencies are and to bring that work, on its own terms, into a space where it can be dealt with differently. Distancing yourself from it — I think that solves nothing. Continue reading »
1968 | 2008
This is not the first time that Summer Olympics Games are embroiled in environmental and political controversies. In 1968, Mexico City, with its high altitude containing 30% less oxygen than at sea level, proved to be a controversial choice. The lack of air led to terrible results for some, while others were able to achieve world records. Forty years later Beijing is faced with massive air pollution as it completes the preparations for the Olympics. The world renowned Ethiopian runner Haile Gebrselassie has opted out of running in the marathon noting “the pollution in China” as a threat to his health. It remains to be seen how the environmental pollution in China will affect the athletes and the Games’ results.China is also plagued with its outrageous treatment of Tibet, resulting in massive protests around the world. Protest was also seen in Mexico City during the medal ceremonies when the two Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos “performed their Power to the People” salute. Peter Norman, the Australian silver medalist, wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge showing his support for Smith and Carlos.
Another athlete to cancel an Olympic Games participation was Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest chess players of all time, who passed away earlier this year. He had plans to play for the United States at the 1968 Chess Olympiad in Lugano, Switzerland and backed out when he saw the playing hall with its bad lighting.
As athletes were breaking records in 1968, artists were busy reshaping culture. Nancy Spero(Season 4) was working on her War Series (1966-70). Bruce Nauman (Season 1) produced his first video titled Pinch Neck. Romare Bearden, in addition to being involved in founding The Studio Museum in Harlem, also established Cinque Gallery with the help of Norman Lewis and Ernest Crichlow. Cinque provided support for younger minority artists.
1968 marked the passing of Marcel Duchamp and the coinage of “15 minutes of fame” when Andy Warhol stated “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Frank Zappa released his first solo album Lumpy Gravy and performed King Kong with the Mothers of Invention at BBC Studio in London. Chou Wen-chung, who had studied with Edgard Varese, completed Nocturnal (1961-1968), an unfinished piece by Varese.
In his 1968 Nobel Lecture, Yasunari Kawabata explained, “The excitement of beauty calls forth strong fellow feelings, yearnings for companionship, and the word ‘comrade’ can be taken to mean ‘human being.’ The snow, the moon, the blossoms, words expressive of the seasons as they move one into another, include in the Japanese tradition the beauty of mountains and rivers and grasses and trees, of all the myriad manifestations of nature, of human feelings as well.”
How will 2008 be reminisced forty years from now? What will be the low and high points in our cultural and social achievements? Will 2008 be a critical year marking a pivotal change in the way we treat the environment and each other?
China Haze. Credit. Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE
Mark Dion in Philly and New York
The curtains go up tonight at Bartram’s Garden on Mark Dion’s Travels of William Bartram – Reconsidered. The exhibition compiles artifacts, drawings, and assorted natural and unnatural objects collected and created by Dion (Season 4) as he spent seven months retracing the original trail of the 18th-century American naturalists John and his son William Bartram.
Examining the history and culture of that period using the Bartram travel journals, drawings, and maps, Dion followed their journey all the way to Northern Florida, having set off last mid-November in Philadelphia at the explorers’ historic home. Like his predecessors, the artist culled, collected, painted, wrote, drew, and subsequently sent the ‘new artifacts’ back to Bartram’s Garden, where they will be installed in cabinets.
The entire journey was document in real time and archived online HERE. The exhibition at Bertrand’s Garden will be on display until December 6th.
Ever the busy gentleman, a show curated by Dion and J. Morgan Pruett titled Mildred’s Lane opened earlier this week at Alexander Gray Associates in New York. Mildred’s Lane is the name given to Puett and Dion’s 96-acre farm in the Upper Delaware River Valley in rural Pennsylvania. Over the last ten years, Mildred’s Lane has presented workshops, readings, performances, screenings, temporary exhibitions and architectural installations. Central to the project is a connection between research, working, making, and living with art in a rural environment replete with agricultural history and natural beauty.
Mildred’s Lane extends the rich history of artist colonies and retreats and, as Puett and Dion describe it, the core of the project practice and educational philosophy is “an attempt to collectively create new modes of being in the world—this idea incorporates questions of our relation to the environment, systems of labor, forms of dwelling, all of which compose an ethics of comportment.” This summer, Mildred’s Lane will offer a summer residency and curriculum for students at the Art Institute of Chicago.
The exhibition at Alexander Gray Associates runs through September 6th and includes works by numerous artists, including Jorge Colombo, Moyra Davey, Hope Ginsberg, John Haskell, Allison Smith, and Season 3’s Josiah McElheny. Learn more about the history and eccentricities of Mildred’s Lane from this recent Art:21 blog entry.
The Puppet Show in Santa Monica
Taking Alfred Jarry’s 1896 Ubu Roi as its historic point of departure, The Puppet Show at the Santa Monica Museum of Art includes work by 28 artists, including Art:21 alumni Louise Bourgeois and Kara Walker (both Season 2), Bruce Nauman (Season 1), Mike Kelley (Season 3), and Laurie Simmons (Season 4).
Originally conceived as a puppet show, Ubu Roi is the story of a despotic king who, among other oddities, strode the stage barking the French scatological word “merdre.” The play is a scathing indictment of grotesque government and source for many an allegory and “puppet transgression,” buttons that many of the artists in The Puppet Show similarly activate. As the press release states, puppets are everywhere. “They show up on stage, on television, in film, and even online, where assuming a fake identity to garner public opinion is called ’sock-puppeting.’”
The exhibition runs through August 9th and explores the imagery of puppets in sculpture, film, video, time-based media, animation, and 2D work. In addition, a collection of historic puppets, marionettes, and ventriloquist dummies housed in a backstage, “subconscious” area of the exhibition called “Puppet Storage” will also be on display.
