An Art Historical Impression

Historical Documentation vs. Artistic Interpretation: The Seminole Paintings of Eugene Savage

2012-02-21T17:54:00.005-08:00

The oil and watercolors illustrating Seminole culture, completed by painter, Eugene Francis Savage (1883-1978) during the 1930s through the 1950s are as mystifying as they are beautiful. One is unsure as to whether his compositions represent historical records or depict fantastical and surrealistic imagery. Savage, who is best known for his mural work of the same time period, is also remembered for these paintings of the Seminole Native Americans of Florida. Born in Covington, Indiana, Savage studied at the Corcoran Gallery and the Art Institute of Chicago before finding himself at the American Academy in Rome, Italy. Though he became well-versed in the classical styles of the Old World, Savage eventually identified more with the modern and the avant-garde as evidenced by the dreamscapes of his Seminole paintings and drawings.

Artist, Eugene Francis Savage in 1915. Cummer Museum of Arts and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL.

The cultural movement of Surrealism, begun in the early 1920s, developed from the Dada ideologies of World War I. The Dadaists believed that the Great War manifested from excessively rational thought and values. For the Dadaists and subsequent Surrealists, truth and the ordinary are essential in art but should be realized through a full range of the imagination. Also factoring into the Surrealist ideology was the groundbreaking work on psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud which was taking root in the cultural fabric of society at this time. The meanings behind dreams and the unconscious are crucial subjects in Surrealist art and are often portrayed through fantastical imagery, ironic usage of color, and strange emotions emanating from the composition.
Receiving a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Yale, Savage would have been familiar with the Surrealist movement. On a vacation to Florida in 1935, Savage apparently became fascinated with the Seminole people, who since the Seminole Wars of the 1840s were living practically secluded from Anglo-American culture in the swampy, remote Everglades. Yet they were not so isolated that the Seminoles were devoid of influence from other cultures. According to scholar Dorothy Downs, "two centuries of exchanges between the antecedents of the Miccosukee and Seminole and Scottish and English settlers in Georgia and Alabama lie behind the more recent textile tradition." The textiles to which Downs refers are the colorful, patchwork clothing worn by the Seminole and the Miccosukee, a production process which was completed with the use of sewing machines. It was during the early 1930s, the same time that Savage was hiring guides to introduce him to the Seminole people, that tourists were being drawn to the Native Americans' exhibition villages, providing welcome opportunities for economic development as visitors watched the women working at their machines, creating the geometric patterned clothing in a quilting technique.

Florence I. Randall. Seminole Women at Musa Isle Indian Village, Florida, 1930. Photograph.

However, to reiterate Downs' notion, this patchwork tradition was relatively recent. In 1955 scholar, Hilda Davis discusses how earlier depictions of Seminole garments were a contrast to this bright, machine-made patchwork. A painting done by George Catlin in 1838 of Chief Osceola depicts a dress of calico while others encountering the Seminole at this time describe similar clothing made of gingham and calico.

George Catlin. Chief Osceola, 1838. Lithograph, 28 3/4" x 19 5/8". University of Georgia Libraries.

Yet, the clothing that Florida tourists of the 1930s were viewing was much different than these earlier descriptions. And Savage, as his many paintings and drawings of Seminole figures wearing patchwork clothing attest, was inspired by the vivid color and geometric designs. Perhaps it was the trance-like, repeating patterns that impressed Savage to depict the Seminole through Surrealist techniques. Or maybe it was Savage's own vision of a people whom he thought of as mysterious and hypnagogic which brought about his dreamscape rendering of the Seminole. In either case, in 1935 he began these gloriously vivid masterpieces while retaining in them a sense of illusion and numinous energy.

South Moon Under of 1936 depicts a serene and bucolic image of a Seminole woman under the moonlight. She stands, floating atop a lake, beneath the whispering Spanish moss in her flat, dug-out canoe of cypress. Her bowing head contemplates her hands as the brilliant colors of her garments and vehicle seem to melt thickly around her by way of water's reflection. A dull, yellow orb, which is actually the moon, appears to rise from beneath the surface of the water, lending a queer sense of inversion to the scene.

Eugene Savage. South Moon Under, 1936. Oil on board, 20"x 20". Cummer Museum of Arts and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL.

Paintings such as these by Savage have been described by some to be recording the Seminole experience. For example, South Moon Under supposedly records the traditional garb of a culture and its melancholic attitudes as the group's land was encroached upon by Anglo-American civilization. It should be noted that at this time in Florida history, the River of Grass and other bodies of water were being drained to create the Everglades National Park.
Also important to understand is how the dominant Anglo-American culture viewed Native American cultures during Savage's time. By 1930, the West had finally been tamed and Native populations had, for the most part, been moved onto Federally designated reservations. Some Seminole people had avoided this forced, mass migration during the mid-nineteenth century by retreating deep into the Everglades. In a further attempt to assimilate Native American people into Anglo-American culture, the Bureau of Indian Affairs operated boarding schools well into the twentieth-century, forcing Native American children to adopt Anglo-American cultural and social norms. The General Allotment Act of 1887, which was continued until 1934, individualized tribal lands by authorizing allotments held in individual tenure. Thus, the U.S. government's Native American problem was no longer being approached through feelings of fear and righteousness like during the Wild West era, but perhaps through feelings of guilt and responsibility.
According to scholar W. Jackson Rushing this time period around the end of the Depression and before America was drawn into World War II is critical with regard to how the dominant, American culture perceived Native Americans. To Rushing, this moment contributed to a mentality where Native Americans, their art, and culture were viewed as exclusively American; devoid of any European ties. This stance allowed Anglo-Americans to affix a label of unparalleled patriotism to Native Americans and their ways of life.
After an exploration of the attitudes toward Native Americans by the dominant Anglo-American culture and the ideologies of the Surrealist movement of the early twentieth-century, one can question if Eugene Savage was truly recording a culture and its experiences. He was viewing the Seminole through an idyllic lens, romanticizing their existence as being the last of its kind. Savage and his peers held the same viewpoint as those on the Western frontiers seventy-years prior, exemplified by the mad rush by anthropologists and museum professionals to collect "traditional" artifacts before the disappearance of the Native populations. One can view Savage's works as operating in much the same way. Like the academic community almost a half-century earlier, Savage acted to preserve and collect a culture's traditions before the supposed extinction of its people. However, this raises the question as to what traditional customs are and how are they defined as such.
If Savage was recording the experience of a culture, he was excluding multitudes of information. For example, Savage's paintings present the patchwork clothing as if it is a traditional art form, persevering through many generations, not a new innovation that was only approximately fifty-years old. By implying that the Seminole were a culturally-isolated group that was losing its land to encroachment, Savage's audience is being misinformed. This purview is flawed as indicated by the melange of cultures which contributed to the Seminole patchwork technique and their fairly recent move into the Everglades from present-day Georgia and Alabama.
As historical documents of a culture, Savage's drawings and paintings of the Seminole people lack credence. His records were completed through a biased lens and void of a Native voice or an in-depth cultural understanding. However, it is unlikely that Savage intended these illustrations as historically accurate depictions. In their own right, these images are works of art and stand alone outside of any meaning or interpretation. Exhibitions of these works should reflect this difference between record and interpretation, and audiences should be made aware how Native cultures have been seen through many skewed perspectives and biases over their long history of encounters with Anglo-American and other cultures. The public must realize that these cultures are still being studied by way of re-evaluated methodologies and new approaches to this very day and that the romantic and idyllic notions of the past must be noted and overcome in order to obtain any true understanding of Native American cultures.

Sources

Berlo, Janet Catherine and Ruth B. Phillips. Native North American Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Blackard, David M. Review of Art of the Florida Seminole and Miccosukee Indians, by Dorothy Downs. The Florida Historical Quarterly 74, no. 3 (Winter, 1996): 334-339. Accessed February 19, 2012. doi: 30148852.

Boyd, Alexander. Seminole Dreams of Florida Past: Paintings by Eugene Savage (1883-1978). http://www.hamiltonauctiongalleries.com/Eugene-Savage.htm

Davis, Hilda. "The History of Seminole Clothing and Its Multi-Colored Designs." American Anthropologist, New Series 57, No. 5 (Oct., 1955): 974-98. Accessed February 19, 2012. doi: 666031.

Kersey, Harry A. Jr. "Educating the Seminole of Florida, 1879-1970." The Florida Historical Quarterly 49, no. 1 (July, 1970): 16-35. Accessed February 19, 2012. doi: 30145818.

Patton, Charlie. "Cummer's Collection of Eugene Savage's Seminole Paintings Makes Its Public Debut." The Florida Times, October 7, 2011. http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/arts/2011-10-07/story/cummers-collection-eugene-savages-seminole-paintings-makes-its

Rushing, W. Jackson. "Marketing the Affinity of the Primitive and the Modern: Rene D'Harnoncourt and 'Indian Art of the United States.'" In The Early Years of Native American Art History: The Politics of Scholarship and Collecting, edited by Janet C. Berlo, chapter 7. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992.

Ciborium of St. Peter’s: The Prevailing Form of the Columnae Vitineae

2012-02-20T14:57:00.000-08:00

Abstract

The Baldacchino by Bernini at St. Peter's-current day.

Standing in St. Peter’s Basilica is as awe inspiring today as it was one-thousand years ago. The present-day bronze baldacchino erected in 1633 is reminiscent of the structure built over St. Peter’s tomb in the fourth-century. More specifically, the twisted vine column, or the columnae vitineae, form was present in the earlier version and persisted in the latter structure. The form, therefore, has existed within St. Peter’s Basilica for nearly fourteen-hundred years. This essay addresses why this form has prevailed and what exactly lends to its transcendental quality. In exploring the columns in St. Peter’s it is apparent that deeply embedded within the history of the twisted vine column form exists the idea of spolia. Whether it is the original placement of the ancient columns in St. Peter’s, the re-usage of the form during the Renaissance, the existence of the form in other structures after St. Peter’s, or later representations in print, the concept of spolia can explain its continuity. The ideas of spolia in re and spolia in se discussed by scholar Dale Kinney, aid in the explanation of the columnae vitineae form’s reuse. Through an application of these concepts, it is evident that religious connotations, evocation of ancient authority, and symbolism of military and cultural prowess provoked the replication of the form. These significant connections created an iconographic symbol and lent to the form’s transcendental quality. The use of Kinney’s theory of spolia to the columnae vitineae form illustrates how the concept is not limited to a place, time, or material and can be applied to numerous circumstances.

One of the ancient Solomonic columns brought to St. Peter's by Constantine the Great.

Sources

Brenk, Beat. “Spolia from Constantine to Charlemagne: Aesthetics versus Ideology.”

Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41, Studies on Art and Archeology in Honor of Ernst Kitzinger on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday (1987): 103-109. http://www.jstor.com.

Kinney, Dale. “Roman Architectural Spolia.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical

Society 145, no. 2 (June, 2001): 138-161. http://www.jstor.com.

Kinney, Dale. “Spolia. Damnatio” and “Renovatio Memoriae.” Memoirs of the American

Academy in Rome 42 (1997): 117-148. http://www.jstor.com.

Kinney, Dale. "Spolia." In St. Peter's in the Vatican, edited by William Tronzo, 16-47.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Ward-Perkins, J.B. “The Shrine of St. Peter and Its Twelve Spiral Columns.” The Journal of
Roman Studies 42, Parts 1 and 2 (1952): 21-31. http://www.jstor.com.

Critical Book Review: Painting the Dark Side: Art and the Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America

2011-12-14T15:46:00.000-08:00

In her 2004 book Painting the Dark Side: Art and the Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America, Sarah Burns looks away from the optimistic painting of the time and instead focuses on the darker underside. Burns states that most scholarship on nineteenth-century American painting depicts the more positive outlook of a progressing and modernizing nation.

Much focus has been given to the grand, sunlit landscapes of the Hudson River School. However, contained within this popular movement was a shadowy underside. Burns seems to suggest the intrinsic existence of a dark, gothic trend beneath the prominent light and airy paintings more attributable to this time period. She plans to illuminate this previously overlooked gothic side and its underlying social and cultural connotations. Her usage of the term gothic refers to “the art of haunting… [and] as a container for a constellation of themes and moods: horror, fear, mystery, strangeness, fantasy, perversion, monstrosity, insanity.”[1] Borrowing from art historian Arnold Hauser and his idea that art helps society to deal with chaos, Burns aims to suggest how the gothic theme gave particular artists an avenue through which to cope with darker aspects of culture and psyche.[2] In considering this theory, Burns forms correlations between eccentric artists who have rarely, if ever, been discussed in context with one another as one unified group. She insists that these men are connected not by consistent gothic conventions but by the fear and anxiety permeating nineteenth-century American society.

Burns weaves intricate tales of eight “oddball” artists and their individual motivations for concentrating on the gothic theme in their paintings. It is surprising how enthralling these tales are as they unfold and take shape. Burns’ confident and flowing storytelling successfully draws the reader into the dark side of nineteenth-century painting. One way in which Burns engrosses the reader is through convincing and carefully amassed evidence. The self-assured way in which Burns uses historical information to base her analysis and relate each artist to his time in place compels the reader to set aside critical observances and go along with her story. For example, she discusses the biography of William Rimmer and the ongoing drama of his family’s history:

The meanings of Flight and Pursuit are tightly bound into the story of Rimmer’s life (1816-79), itself a gothic tale. His father, Thomas (1785-1852), believed himself the Dauphin—only surviving son of Louis XVI and heir to the French throne… [After his parents’ executions] the discredited ‘Dauphin,’ fear[ed] that supporters of Louis XVIII [brother of Louis XVI, who had been placed on the throne after Napoleon’s defeat] might seek him out and murder him to further secure his uncle’s right to the throne,… [He] immigrated to North America and eventually settled in the Boston area.[3]

Burns then suggests that the intense feeling of being pursued evident in Flight and Pursuit relates to Rimmer’s childhood and his father’s incessant claims of being hunted. Her commanding tone is neither overbearing nor confrontational but refreshing and enjoyable.

Burns structures her book in eight chapters each, of which discusses an individual artist. She does not focus on the artist’s entire body of work, a surely impossible feat within the context of her goal, but instead centers the chapter on one or two of the artist’s most important and relevant works. Burns acknowledges that this narrative “does not weave itself into a seamless whole, nor does the book function as a systematic, all-inclusive survey of the gothic in nineteenth-century art.”[4] She includes only a limited amount of works simply because her aim is to suggest that the gothic provided a language for dealing with the darker issues of life.

On a larger spectrum, the chapters are arranged into three main sections based upon the different gothic themes inherent in the artists’ works. Herself using the gothic premise, Burns gives each chapter a title which is reminiscent of the style of Edgar Allen Poe and which alludes to its respective artist’s darker issues. Firstly, Burns explores the darkness pervading the pristine nature landscape and its opposite, the expanding urban landscape in “Gloom and Doom” on Thomas Cole and “The Underground Man” on David Gilmour Blythe. The next section addresses racial issues, most notably slavery, with “The Shrouded Past” on Washington Allston, “The Deepest Dark” on John Quidor, and “The Shadow’s Curse” on William Rimmer. Finally, Burns discusses more personal issues and psyches with “Mental Monsters” on Elihu Vedder, “Corrosive Sight” on Thomas Eakins, and “Dirty Pictures” on Albert Pinkham Ryder. Burns connects these artists through their collective anxieties. She notes how issues of slavery, industrialism, urbanism, and women’s suffrage created repressed but palpable fears for these modern men. In a society full of social anxieties such as these, it was difficult to determine one’s place and function. Her story illuminates how these artists struggled to identify themselves in a rapidly changing America.

In studying these artists and their gothic themes, Burns uses a combination of methods to complete her analysis. Much of her text is dedicated to biographies of the artists. For example, significant to her decoding of Allston’s Belshazzar’s Feast is the fact that Allston was never able to disconnect himself from his Southern slaveholding roots, which, she argues, permeate his work. According to Burns, the gothic strain provides more than just an avenue for personal expression. She believes that on the gothic picture plane, the personal and the political interweave in compound ways. The social, political and economic fears felt by the artists, and consequently evident in their works, were also anxieties shared by much of middle class white society in nineteenth-century America. Thus, Burns not only uses biography to show the artistic process of these particular men, but she also employs a social art historical method to uncover the connectedness of their gothic works to a broader, cultural spectrum. Referring to the Allston example, Burns determines that his “fear and guilt were also the fear and guilt of a white society—North and South—stained, haunted, and torn by the curse of slavery.”[5] This hybrid process of biographical and social methods allows Burns to uncover masquerading layers and gothic meanings in the paintings of her case studies.

To illustrate how concretely the gothic theme was ingrained into nineteenth-century American society, Burns highlights the correlation between the artists’ gothic paintings and the gothic pattern existing in literature. She references the publications of Hawthorne, Melville, Charles Brockden Brown, and especially those of Edgar Allan Poe. In addition to using these texts as evidence of the gothic trend in the whole of American society, Burns discusses how the literature of Poe and others may have influenced the paintings of her chosen artists. Throughout her analysis of each artist, Burns inevitably returns to Poe for comparison. She explains the importance of Poe to her theory’s goal: “Like all the painters in this book, Poe struggled in the unrestrained capitalist economy of urbanizing, industrializing America and, like most of them, fell victim to it.”[6] Despite Poe’s belonging to a discipline other than painting, Burns finds his existence to be similar to her chosen artists and therefore, believes his works to be influenced by the same collective fears. Like Allston, Quidor, and Rimmer, Poe explored themes of slavery and racial tension. As a displaced Southern aristocrat Poe resembles Cole, an ex-patriot Briton who struggled with class identification. Burns compares the lifestyle similarities of Poe and Blythe, both spiraling downward and out-of-control drunkards. Finally, like Ryder Poe addressed the gothic existence in modern subjectivity such as the tortured mind and guilty conscience.[7] Aside from literary comparisons, Burns also draws parallels between the paintings and other popular imagery of the time. She often uses political cartoons to demonstrate the pervasiveness of gothic themes in nineteenth-century society. Burns gathers works of other period artists to suggest the proliferation and influence of certain ideas and to utilize as tools of comparison and contrast to those paintings in her case studies. Other forms of evidence Burns uses are letters, diaries, and poems of the artists themselves or of contemporaries. These private sources reveal how the collective fears of the day were felt on a more personal level and thus, able to directly influence the artists’ paintings.

Using her hybrid methodological approach, Burns first analyzes the gothic spaces of nature and ruins in Thomas Cole’s paintings. She notes how “Cole’s landscapes are doubly haunted, by history and by the shadows of his own doubt and despair…Often plummeting into his own bottomless abyss, he viewed the world as desolation, as the end rather than the beginning of time.”[8] Lake with Dead Trees (Catskill) of 1825, like many of Cole’s landscapes, is full of iconographic metaphors of death, decay and doom. Burns suggests that Cole felt inevitable doom arising out of the construction of the American nation. The idea of democracy and progress signified decline and disaster for Cole. Despite its idealistic principles, democracy allowed for the occurrence of murders and crimes which Cole read about daily. Cole’s focus on the vices and danger of society fed into his fear of the ruin of Western civilization. Also perpetuating a feeling of ruin was the financial burden created by his family which lent to his anxiety of dissolution. The idea of dissolution is visible in Cole’s later work Italian Coast Scene with Ruined Tower of 1838 which depicts a decrepit and deeply fissured tower. Burns suggests that the tendency of Cole’s later works toward ruinous architecture echoes his struggle with self-identification. Cole saw himself as a gentleman and related to the mentality of his upper class patrons. However, his financial state forced him more into the role of lowly artisan.

In the next section Burns studies the artist Washington Allston and his unfinished painting Belshazzar’s Feast of 1817/1843 which he worked on for most of his life. Burns describes Allston as a former slaveholder hailing from Southern plantation wealth. Living most of his life in the North and distancing himself from his family did not sever his mental connection to his roots, Burns theorizes. The subject matter of Belshazzar’s Feast centers on luxury and decadence, captives in bondage, fear and guilt, warnings of doom, slaughter and pillage; all of which are issues paralleled in the slavery driven Southern economy of the nineteenth-century. Burns suggests that Allston carried guilt and shame because of his association with his Southern past. These feelings manifested in a repressed fear that his abolition-supporting friends would uncover his embarrassing past. She also believes that Allston felt guilty for his inability to complete Belshazzar’s Feast despite years of financial contributions from patrons. Burns alludes to the self-defeating nature of Allston’s guilt when she proposes that its burden inhibited him from completing his masterpiece.

The third and final section of Burn’s book centers on the gothic tendencies in relation to personal pathologies of the remaining artists. In Elihu Vedder’s The Lair of the Sea Serpent of 1864 Burns traces a sublimation of a fear of female power. “Vedder’s pictorial discourse of female monstrosity collected strands of social unease and interlaces them with his own.”[9] Not only were the destabilization of power and thus the marginalization of men societal anxieties of the day but also the cause of personal resentment and hostility for Vedder. Burns also turns to Vedder’s The Death of Medusa of 1875 as the iconographic result of the terror this power struggle instigated. Both paintings invoke the dangerous and transgressive power thought to be possessed by women who disrupted the male sphere and authority. To Vedder the feminine evoked feelings of danger, chaos, doubt, and death both on a personal level and cultural. Vedder’s mystical and gothic themes allowed him to escape naturalism and its association with the feminine; his veils of fantasy successfully hiding his anxiety.

Painting the Dark Side accomplishes its attempt to illustrate how the gothic allowed certain nineteenth-century artists to deal with darker social and private forces. Nonetheless, in trying to decode each painting’s hidden messages, Burns contradicts herself by acknowledging the enigmatic properties of each painting. The struggle to prove images’ meanings while at the same time recognizing the limitation of such an approach demonstrate the drawbacks of using an iconographic method of analysis.

However, Burns does not solely rely on the iconography of the paintings. She combines this with the artists’ biographies and the overarching social history of the time period. Burns recognizes that these approaches are not without flaws and lays out their limitations in her introduction. She realizes that biography provides unreliable evidence as the various retellings of a story can distort the truth. Therefore, often times she must speculate the veritable elements of an account. Burns does not intend to forgo a biographical route altogether even though she understands the problems of the method. She calls attention to the recent trend in the art history discipline of using social history to uncover art’s meaning. Of the social historical approach Burns states that “taken to an extreme…it can reduce art to the function of a machine for meaning, predictably decodable (or predictably ambiguous).”[10] So although Burns identifies the limitations of both a biographical and social historical approach to art analysis, she uses to her advantage elements of both in Painting the Dark Side.

It is interesting to note here that Burns also employs another method of analysis although she does not comment on her usage of it in her narrative. As she examines some of the evidence in her case studies her prose occasionally tends toward psychoanalytic undertones. For example, she discusses the significance of a feminine or mother figure in both Vedder and Eakins’ psyches and respective works. However, Burns never fully utilizes psychoanalytic terminology or addresses Freud himself, for that matter, but she invokes the method’s properties, nonetheless. The fact that the thoughts and behaviors possessed by the artists, as well as the nineteenth-century population at large, warranted the development of psychoanalysis lends to the efficiency of using this method in nineteenth-century art analysis and thus, the necessity of its presence in this book. Perhaps the need to point out the usage of this method is unnecessary as its elements of analysis are so ingrained in the dialect of modern art historians. Regardless of her acknowledgment or lack thereof of methods at work, this fusion of methodology allows Burns to accomplish that which she has set out to in a pleasurable and entertaining read.

For the larger art history discipline, Burns’ achievement of a successful hybrid approach serves as an exemplary model. A field abundant with methods and discourses discrediting these methods, the ever-evolving art history discipline can be confusing and seemingly at a standstill. Despite the recent trend of art historians to use only a social history approach, Burns claims that she was again and again drawn to the private lives of the artists of her case studies. Rather than ascribing to a singular model, Burns proves that the best methods are those determined by the art works themselves.

[1] Sarah Burns, Painting the Dark Side: Art and the Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), xix.

[2] Arnold Hauser, “The Philosophy of Art History,” in Art History and Its Methods: A Critical Anthology, ed. Eric Fernie (New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 1995), 201.

[3] Burns, Painting the Dark Side, 129.

[4] Ibid., xx.

[5] Burns, Painting the Dark Side, xx.

[6] Ibid., xxii.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., 18.

[9] Ibid., 185.

[10] Ibid., xxiii.

Review of "Liza Lou: Let the Light In" at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, GA

2011-12-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

Liza Lou: Let the Light In
SCAD Museum of Art
October 29, 2011- January, 22, 2012

Liza Lou’s Let the Light In: Mass Multiplicity within Post-Minimalistic Art

Another artist conceptualizing the ready-made, one might think, approaching the coiled rope sculpture by Liza Lou at the SCAD Museum of Art exhibition Let the Light In. However, almost immediately after that thought is formed, it becomes evident that this is no ordinary rope, if it is actually a rope at all. Upon further inspection, thousands, no millions, of tiny white, glass beads are delineated by the eye and the labor executed to make this piece incites a feeling of awe.

Liza Lou. Continuous Mile (white), 2006–08. Glass beads, cotton .75” x .75” x 63,360”.

Lou’s Continuous Mile (white) of 2006-08 is only one of some two-dozen works that are coated in endless, light-reflecting beads and are to be exhibited at SCAD Museum of Art from October 29^th, 2011-January 22^nd, 2012. Liza Lou, (b. 1969), an American artist based in both L.A. and South Africa, creates sculptures and reliefs that reference quotidian objects such as book pages, cotton cloth and fencing that when layered or made into multiples and then cloaked in brilliant glass beads evoke themes of containment, labor and repetition.[1] The themes used by Lou allude to Pop Art and Neo-Expressionism but are grounded in Minimalist ideology.

Artist, Liza Lou in her Durban studio.

The subtly stunning works echo the radical explorations of Eva Hesse and her post-minimal, process-driven peers of the late '60s. They nod to seriality but fully embrace deviation, striking a sharp balance between geometric clarity and human-driven disorder.[2]

Referred to as the “queen of beads,” “obsessive,” and a “second-hand jeweler,” doubts about Lou’s process and craft-like works were laid to rest when the artist was awarded the genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation in 2002 after completing her nationally recognized sculptures.[3] The pieces in the SCAD Museum of Art exhibition come after Lou’s major works “Kitchen” of 1994 and the follow-up “Backyard” of 1999; the first of which she spent five years covering every aspect of a normal kitchen with her medium of choice: Czech glass beads.

Liza Lou, Kitchen, 1991-94. Beads pasted on papier maché and wood, 12’ x 14’ x 9’.

Liza Lou, Backyard, 1995-99. Mixed media beaded sculpture, base 22’ x 24’.

Although she remains committed to her medium in the works collected for Let the Light In, Lou’s process and themes have changed in these later sculptures and reliefs. Her earlier works were completed by her own hand, carefully arranging and gluing millions of beads with a pair of tweezers; a process which left her suffering from tendonitis. For these works completed between 2006 and 2008 Lou’s Durban studio provided a much less solitary and faster-producing atmosphere than her mid-nineties L.A. apartment, and she was aided by a group of Zulu assistants, tweezers in hand, whose families have worked with beads for generations. While Lou does not borrow from the tradition of African beadwork, this new body of work reflects her travels, meditating upon process, the impossibility of perfection, and what Lou terms “the culpability of craft.”[4] Whereas her earlier works evoke a sense of glittering psychedelia, were extreme in nearly every way as optical extravaganzas born of wry humor, social intelligence and an inordinate application of manual labor, these new pieces contain more serious messages relating to geopolitical tensions of the current world and ideas of confinement and protection.

Let the Light In not only showcases one Continuous Mile, but two; one white and one black, carefully positioned on opposite sides of the room, lending a construction-site identity to the tall-ceiling room. However, when the bright track lighting catches one of the beads coating the ropes, the space is suddenly transformed into a sparkling wonderland, a brainchild of Willie Wonka himself. Just as suddenly, the social concerns manifesting within the artist’s works become readily apparent and the irony behind these bedazzled objects rings clear. Continuous Mile, a coiled and stacked rope measuring a mile in length, is woven entirely out of glossy black, or bone-white beads and is exquisitely hand-wrought.

Liza Lou. Continuous Mile (black), 2006–08 (detail). Glass beads, cotton. .75” x .75” x 63,360”.

These sculptures are symbolic references to confinement and exclusion and were relevant to the environment in which the artist was working at the time. Lou says that she “was initially responding to the images of torture and abuse happening in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. But as an American living and working in South Africa with all of the associations with danger, race issues and post-apartheid…[she] felt like [she] was working on a project in exactly the right place and time.”[5]

Liza Lou. Barricade, 2008. 24 karat gold-plated beads and steel88” x 108” x 3”.

Nearby the rope coils stands Barricade (2007-08), a gate-like structure that Lou has encased in 24-karat-gold beads, but provides neither protection nor safety. With its wide bars and imposing seven-foot height, Barricade acts as a confining structure, although its protection capabilities are hindered by its lack of a solid support base. Other shiny works like Book of Days (2007-08) and Roll (2007-08), a glass bead coated 365 page book and a roll of cotton cloth respectively, speak to the labor-intensive and repetitious techniques of the artistic process by using unexpected and alluring surfaces to invite viewer investigation.

Liza Lou. Book of Days, Paper and glass beads.

Also exuding ideas of labor and repetition is Gather (one million), a monumental, shimmering sculpture 150-square feet in size. This golden field made from nine million beads in varying shades of gold which were threaded onto cut wire to make one million blades of grass. Both the positioning and the strings of elongated beads connote spiky coral reefs or freshly cut golden wheat stalks.

Liza Lou. Gather (one million). Glass beads and hemp twine, 12’ x 12’.

According to the catalogue of L & M, a Los Angeles gallery which exhibited Lou’s works in Spring 2011:

[Gather’s] painterly freedom evokes the seasonal regeneration of landscape and the abundance of harvest, but a closer examination reveals a more minimalist methodology. Lou systematically counted, weighed, blended and divided the blades into equal wheat-like sheaves. She then tied each bundle with hemp twine, labeled and numbered each one and then following a geometric grid, simply stood them upon the floor.[6]

The exhaustive nature of this process is only observable to those viewers who bend down to the floor to attain an eye-level vision of the sculpture. Perhaps the artist is acknowledging that hard work is not always rewarded despite the efforts of a laborer.

Across the room and hanging behind the two Continuous Mile sculptures are unique panels belonging to Lou’s series of reliefs. Each is created with glass beads standing on their ends and recall prayer rugs of the Caucasus region, groupings of microscopic organisms, topographical maps, or ruinous Lego cities. Offensive/Defensive (2008) is a collection of vibrantly colored patterns, evenly distributed except for the overlaying black design which appears to creep across the surface like a rapidly spreading stain or eager bacteria. Find, Fix, Finish (2007-08) creates peaks and valleys of careful geometric shapes with thousands of ebony colored beads of varying lengths, positioned on their ends. The mesmeric patterning of shapes in these reliefs recall elaborate Eastern detailing and comment on the spiritual and political tensions of the present day.

Liza Lou. Offensive/Defensive, 2008 (detail). Glass beads on aluminum panel, 72 1/16” x 36” x 1 3/8”.

This body of new works departs from Lou’s early hysterical overflow and is more modernist while using a minimalist approach. The geometry and repetition in her recent works can be categorized as minimalist and in accordance with Robert Morris’ definitions of this methodology. In “Notes on Sculpture 1-3,” of 1966, Morris, an influential artist and theorist, attempted to define a conceptual framework and formal elements for himself and one that would embrace the practices of his contemporaries. These essays paid great attention to the idea of the gestalt - "parts... bound together in such a way that they create a maximum resistance to perceptual separation."[7]

Like Morris lays out in his theory of Minimalism, Lou’s works possess a wholeness of shape that allows one to apprehend that shape and move on to perceptually engage the phenomena of experiencing that shape. According to Morris, “Characteristic of a gestalt is that once it is established, all the information about it, qua gestalt, is exhausted…One is then both free of the shape and bound to it.”[8] Using mass quantities of Czech glass beads, Lou’s works are Minimalist in approach and play with the viewer’s psyche by way of gestalt theory. Seeing the forms created by the numerous beads, one questions what is beneath; a solid shape, more beads? A focus on one bead does not separate the bead from the overall shape as presented by Lou for the gestalt has already formed in the mind of the viewer. Thus, a struggle erupts within the viewer to observe the beads as a summation of many or as a unified whole.

Understanding Lou’s work in this way, it is discernable as to why her glitzy work is not simply beauty for beauty’s sake but more deeply phenomenological and topical than her early critics would have liked to believe. Although the dazzling materiality of these artworks makes it possible for them to stand on their own, beneath their outward brilliance they connect to the audience in many ways: psychologically, socially, politically, and spiritually. Multiplicity and mass quantities of beads work within minimalist ideology in Lou’s art to create a shimmering oxymoron. In this respect, Let the Light In leaves viewers wondering how Liza Lou’s next body of work will incorporate beads or if perhaps, the artist is beaded-out.

[1] Let the Light In Catalogue, SCADMOA, http://www.scadmoa.org/art/exhibitions/let-the-light-in

[2] Leah Ollman, LA Times Art Review, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/04/art-review-liza-lou-at-l-m.html

[3] http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/the-glittering-world-of-liza-lou.html

[4] http://www.lmgallery.com/exhibitions/liza-lou_1/?view=pressrelease

[5] http://www.whitecube.com/artists/lou/texts/53/

[6] http://www.lmgallery.com/artists/liza-lou/

[7]Robert Morris, “Notes on Sculpture, Part 1,” Artforum, February, 1966, 42-44.

[8] Ibid.

Review of Alter Ego: A Decade of Work by Anthony Goicolea at the Telfair Museum's Jepson Center, Savannah

2011-11-09T16:17:00.000-08:00

The Uncanny and the Homosexualized Male Gaze in Works by Anthony Goicolea

An uneasy feeling pervades the rooms housing more than thirty works by Anthony Goicolea, (b.1971). Comprised of a mid-career survey of the Cuban-American artist, the rooms give the impression of closets or private chambers which upon entering, one is immediately aware of the imposing feeling of witnessing the unveiling of a stranger’s secrets. Alter Ego: A Decade of Work by Anthony Goicolea is the title of the exhibition at the Telfair Museum’s Jepson Center in Savannah, Georgia on display from September 2, 2011 through January 8, 2012.

Artist Anthony Goicolea

The exhibit was organized with the aid of the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh from which several of the works of art are borrowed. Many of Goicolea’s works reveal adolescent boys acting within the awkwardness of puberty. However, upon further investigation it becomes evident that these staged figures are not adolescent boys at all; in fact, they are adult-Goicolea himself masquerading with the assistance of costumes, wigs, and make-up. Using sophisticated computer tools, Goicolea is able to create multiples of himself interacting with the other Goicolea’s in an interplay often evoking a discomfort in the viewer. Goicolea’s images are compellingly cinematic and exude a certain power, illustrating his mastery of mis-en-scène techniques.[1]

It is the uncanniness of the images which most incites feelings of uneasiness from the viewer. The uncanny is a term developed by psychoanalysis pioneer, Sigmund Freud in his essay The Uncanny (1919). Because the uncanny is familiar, yet strange, it often creates cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject due to the paradoxical nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time. This cognitive dissonance often leads to an outright rejection of the object, as one would rather reject than rationalize.[2] In the case of Goicolea’s work, the viewer is compelled to look more closely despite the feeling of unease caused by the uncanny subject matter.

Goicolea’s work comes after that of Cindy Sherman (b. 1954), a self-portrait photographer who also used masquerade to create alter-egos of herself in staged scenes. Sherman’s later works, which are contemporary with Goicolea’s early works, are uncanny because of the realness of her masquerade; her posture, make-up, and attire all lead the viewer to wonder why this image is relevant as it appears to be capturing an everyday figure, (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Cindy Sherman. Untitled (MP355), 2000. Photograph, 36”x 24”.

Figure 2. Cindy Sherman as herself in 2000.

However, upon further review Sherman’s irony and critique is evident, especially when one compares her photographs to those of the artist as herself, (see Figure 2). Reflecting on Freud’s definition of uncanny, the strangeness yet familiarity of the images leaves viewers feeling somewhat repulsed but intrigued by Sherman’s works.

Goicolea’s images are uncanny in a different way than those of Sherman. In Poolpushers of 2001, Goicolea utilizes uncanny effects that, according to Freud, result from instances of "repetition of the same thing."[3] The scene depicts a group of teenage boys in swim caps and briefs around an indoor swimming pool, (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Anthony Goicolea, Poolpushers, 2001. Chromogenic print, 71” x 100”.

In the background the boys are sitting cross-legged, fidgeting, and waiting for those in the foreground to finish their task. Four boys in the foreground use hand-held pool skimmers to push and clear away the bodies of drowned teenaged swimmers. Aside from the flippantness of this morose task, this image is repulsive because of the multiplicity of Goicolea’s face and body. The viewer soon recognizes this multiplicity and subsequently realizes that the downward floating bodies in the pool must be Goicoleas as well and are being pushed around by the live Goicoleas. The same uncanniness is evident in Class Picture, 1999, (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Anthony Goicolea, Class Picture, 1999. Chromogenic print, 40" x 42".

Here, twelve Goicoleas sit on the front steps to their school, they are all dressed in typical school uniforms and all have the same blond, boyish haircut. Karen Irvine, Associate Curator of Goicolea’s 2002 show at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography, finds that his work deals not only with the awkwardness of puberty but also with the experimental phases of adolescence in which teenagers grapple with identifying themselves as sexual beings.

In Goicolea’s world of clones, when boys love each other, they love themselves, and as they chart their newfound sexuality, they experiment. They wear make-up, touch tongues, urinate, spit, lick, and hold hands, testing the limits of gender identification and displaying an obsession with bodily functions and fluids.[4]

Irvine touches on another psychoanalytic element in Goicolea’s work, one that was derived from the Lacanian school of thought by scholar, Laura Mulvey. Mulvey studied the influence of the male gaze in film, especially in that of Hichcock. She believed that the lingering camera shots on the curves of female actors were playing to the male gaze and thus, women were reacting, knowing the male gaze was upon them. Mulvey maintains that “as the spectator [of a film] identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look onto that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look.”[5] Sherman commented on the power of eroticism and critiqued the male gaze in her early Film Stills. In Film Still #14 Sherman portrays a Hichcock-like actress, poised and suggestively displaying her curves although seemingly frightened by something behind the camera lens, (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. Cindy Sherman. Film Still #14, 1978. Photograph, 10"x 8".

Mulvey emphasizes the body as object within a heterosexual context when she states, “Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium.”[6] The subjects in Goicolea’s photographs function within this idea when they simultaneously elicit the male gaze and respond to it.

Mulvey’s theory can be transformed to represent the homosexualized male gaze, an element contained within many of Goicolea’s works. Author, Jennifer Dalton points out that in his photographs “[Goicolea] exploits his own body as a possible turn-on to others.”[7] Like Sherman, Goicolea positions himself as a sexual object and photographically captures the recipient responding to the homosexualized male gaze.

Looking again at Goicolea’s Poolpushers it is evident that the teenaged boys convey a homoeroticism in their positioning and activities. Some stand with hips thrust forward, others have open mouths with their heads tilted back, suggestively pulling at the poles of the pool skimmers. In Class Picture the same homoeroticism is present. Here Goicolea plays with the boyish, innocence prized in gay culture. Two boys hungrily eat popsicles, stuffing their mouths with phallic objects, drooling and alluding to fallacio. Other boys stare suggestively at the viewer perhaps referencing the secret signals used by gay men to let their sexual preferences be known and to elicit sex.

The fine art photography of Anthony Goicolea borrows much from that of Cindy Sherman. Both artists have a satirical tone emanating from their works as they critique the trends of popular culture. With the aid of psychoanalytic terminology it can be established that both comment on the uncanny and the male gaze in their carefully arranged, fabricated photographs. However, Goicolea uses the uncanny differently than Sherman. He relies on the multiplicity of his own image to lend a confusion and repulsion to his work whereas Sherman uses a single image of herself to represent eerily realistic portrayals of women. Goicolea also departs from Sherman in his construction of the male gaze. Sherman’s male gaze in her early works was originating from the second wave of feminism and critiqued the lifestyle of the 1950s women, enforced by phallocentric ideology. Goicolea, on the other hand, is working in an age when gay rights have been established and the multitudes of sexual identities are no longer hidden but somewhat accepted. He uses the male gaze in a homosexualized sense as opposed to Sherman’s heterosexualized. Thus, Goicolea has propelled forward from where Sherman left off, bringing a new critique to the male gaze. In doing so, he has brought a current relevance to this idea. Art, like Goicolea’s, that comments on modern issues, uses new technology, and is historically and artistically grounded is worth viewing and as such can be justly categorized as high art along with the revolutionary works of Sherman. A visit into the rooms of the Jepson Center may incite feelings of unease or pedophilia, however, an exploration of Goicolea’s alter egos leaves viewers feeling aware, informed, and eager to see where innovative artists will take self-portrait photography next.

Works Cited

Dalton, Jennifer. “Look at Me: Self-Portrait Photography after Cindy Sherman.” A

Journal of Performance and Art 22, no. 3 (2000): 47-56. Accessed October 29, 2011. doi: 3247840.

Franklin, P.B. A. Goicolea. "Boyology". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies

(2001).

Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. New York: Penguin Books, Ltd., 2003.

Irvine, Karen. “Anthony Goicolea.”

http://mocp.org/exhibitions/2002/06/anthony_goicole.php

Leighten, Patricia. “Critical Attitudes toward Overtly Manipulated Photography in the

20^th Century.” Art Journal 37, no. 4 (1978): 313-321. Accessed October 29, 2011. doi: 776042.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16, no.3 (1975): 6-18.

Rucas, Derek. P. "The Male Gaze, Homosexualization, and James Bond Films." Film

Articles and Critiques 26 (Feb. 2003). Accessed November 1, 2011. <http://www.angelfire.com/film/articles/bond.htm>.

[1] Jennifer Dalton, “Look at Me: Self-portrait Photography after Cindy Sherman,” A

Journal of Performance and Art 22, no. 3 (2000): 50, Accessed October 29, 2011. doi: 3247840.

[2] Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (New York: Penguin Books, Ltd., 2003), 102.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Karen Irvine, “Anthony Goicolea,” http://mocp.org/exhibitions/2002/06/anthony_goicole.php.

[5] Laura Mulvey, ““Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16, no.3 (1975): 6-18.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Dalton, “Look at Me,” 53.

New Media, New Art: New Perspectives

2011-11-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

In “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Recombination,” (2010), philosopher Joe de Mul examines the present-day relevance of Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” (1936).

Jos de Mul

de Mul’s goal is to analyze the way the computer interface constitutes and structures aesthetic experience. He believes that in the current age of digital recombination, the database is the work of art and that through this transformation of model, the exhibition value of the artwork is being replaced by manipulation value.

Walter Benjamin

First, de Mul discusses Benjamin’s terminology, cult value and exhibition value. In his 1936 essay, Benjamin determines that cult value, which has survived in art for art’s sake, is being replaced by exhibition value. Mechanical reproductions, like photographs, function as copies or simulacra that no longer contain an aura or authenticity of presence in time and space. Auratic art possesses a cult value as its meaning is associated with its unique location in time and space. Along with the loss of aura, according to Benjamin, artworks lose their cult value. The shift to technologies of mechanical reproduction changes the availability of art and allows these images to be viewed by the masses. This, the exhibition value has emerged as more significant than cult value.

de Mul departs from Benjamin here to theorize that in a new age of digital recombination, artworks’ exhibition value is giving way to manipulation value. The databases of today’s technology allows for searches, organization, and reformatting, all types of manipulation which was not easily possible in Benjamin’s mechanical age. Because the number of recombinations of a database is almost infinite, de Mul argues that the work of art in the age of digital recombination brings about a return of the aura. He claims that the authenticity no longer resides in the history of a work but in its virtuality.

The thesis proposed by de Mul is plausible. Perhaps the aura of art does exist in these new media but is just not located where it has traditionally been found. Technology is changing and so is art, it cannot be denied. Along with art’s evolution so too must art history and ways of looking at art progress. In “Precepts for Digital Artwork,” author Sean Cubitt suggests that art is not what we see when we look at an object. Technology now requires that we acknowledge that art is the process of creation, a notion discussed by Marshall McLuhan in “The Medium is the Message,” (1964). To use Cubitt’s terminology, we can no longer see anything by looking at a processor. The work, and thus the value of art, is in the process, not the interface. Cubitt’s digital artwork theory corroborates Jean Beaudrillard’s thought that humans are constructing a reality of simulacra and, hence, losing a sense of true, physical reality. It certainly seems to be accurate, as we watch our lives move from our homes into the cyber realms of the internet. If art and the human experience are changing in such a drastic manner as de Mul and Cubitt suggest then it is essential that art history and ways of critiquing, thinking about, and looking at art transform as well. Otherwise our methods of comprehending art will be outmoded, and we will be unable to understand that which surrounds us.

Works Cited

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation: The Body in Theory: Histories of Cultural

Materialism. Translated by Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press, 1995.

Benjamin, Walter, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” In

Illuminations: Reflections and Essays. Edited by Hannah Arendt. Translated by Harry Zohn, 217-252. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.

Cubitt, Sean. “Precepts for Digital Artwork.” In Fluid Screens, Expanded Cinema, edited

by Janine Marchessault and Susan Lord, 304-319. Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, 2007.

de Mul, Jos. “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Recombination.” In Digital

Material: Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology, edited by Marianne van den Boomen et al., 95-106. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010.

McLuhan, Marshall. “The Medium is the Message.” In Understanding Media: The

Extensions of Man, edited by Marshall McLuhan, 7-21. London: Routledge, 2001.

Critical Review of Crow’s The Rise of the Sixties

2011-10-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

The mid-nineties was an optimal time to reflect upon the 1960s, a moment crucial to late-twenty-first-century culture and identity. The Reagan administration (1981-1989) was over and a prominent leftist mentality in the American public allowed for viewing of the 1960s culture not as villainous, but as a period of radical, necessary change. With the torrid details of Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and other painful events receding, the 1990s American was ready to reminisce about other processes at work in the 1960s and how they have shaped the contemporary individual. Author Pamela Lee writes in Chronophobia (2004) that “the 1960s are endless. We still live within them.”[1] It is understandable, then, that in 1996, art historian Thomas Crow undertook an enormous feat in summarizing the art of the 1960s with The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Age of Dissent. His text succinctly traces political and social workings of the 1960s and relates them to art movements across an international plane, illustrating how an art historical approach is necessary in analyzing the complex works created during this moment of dissent.

Crow uses a narrative method which begins with works by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg which he follows back to the beat culture of San Francisco by comparisons to Burgess Collins, Bruce Conner, and others. He jumps to the East Coast by describing the Happenings of Allan Kaprow in New York and then further east to discuss Situationists in Europe such as Jorn, DeBord, and Rumney. At this point, Crow returns state-side to look at American Pop art, like that of Warhol and Segal, and executes comparisons to European Pop. Throughout this exploration of various artists in different regions Crow traverses many art movements: Pop, New Realism, CoBrA, Fluxus, Situationism, Op Art, color-field painting, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Performance, Postminimalism, Arte Povera, and Earth Art. Despite the breadth and complexities of these concepts, Crow is clear and efficient when approaching them. For example he easily explains the links between American Pop and New Realism, Capitalism and Socialism, and expressionism and abstractionism by investigating Gerhard Richter, Arman, Polke, and Twombly. Comparisons such as these demonstrate how ideas navigated countries and concepts manifested in different ways. Crow’s analysis of Pop and New Realism allows readers to understand how two seemingly separate movements with outward visual disparities recalled a single concept: both commented on mass production and consumer culture. Aiding in the intelligibility of often confusing concepts and social connections, Crow includes a timeline at the end of the text. This chart lays out the Politics, Scientific and sports events, Visual Arts, and Other cultural events of each year from 1954 through 1969. Not all of the points on the timeline are discussed by Crow. However, the inclusion of such information allows the reader to formulate a general character of the 1960s, a tool which heavily reflects Crow’s socially focused analysis.

Thomas Crow

Critics and institutions are central to Crow’s narrative, and he shows how they acted to connect artists and movements to a larger social sphere. He often returns to critics Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried to elucidate how and why an artist or work was received or rejected at the time. Crow discusses the “recovery” of Barnett Newman by Greenberg as a reacceptance to the emerging canonical framework of the 1960s. Greenberg “recovered” Newman’s art, which had been part of the initial rise of abstract painting during the 1940s, because Greenberg was faced with an “absence of new expressive discoveries within a formal vocabulary.”[2] In this sense Crow describes how respected critics of the time influenced the production of art and the directions in which art proceeded.

Lending to the idea of a socially constructed moment of dissidence are the multitude of media used during the time. Crow’s examination of 1960s visual art includes painting, sculpture, happenings, performance, conceptual, photographs, and many more. His evidence connects this media maelstrom to the cultivation of dissent. Crow’s wording in the title of the text, Rise of the Sixties alludes to a continuation forward which cannot be retraced but will eventually decline. This approach quells the idea that the resistance to traditional norms in the 1960s was not something that internationally erupted spontaneously and disconnectedly. By using a social art historical method, Crow illuminates the many social and political factors beneath this moment of dissent and, in doing so, demonstrates that in order to fully understand the artwork of the 1960s a social art historical approach is necessary. His tone is remit with clear philosophical, analytical, literal, and critical notes. Crow’s erudition of the topic is felt by his versatile view points and easily convinces the reader of his thesis. Although this narrative addresses complex issues, Crow’s prose allows for easy navigation through the material.

Because Crow’s text does not include every piece of artwork from the 1960s moment, the approach used is problematic in two ways. Firstly, his process effectively highlights some artists while neglecting others. This is reasonable, as an all-encompassing analysis is nearly impossible. However, Crow’s selection of artworks is the product of his own biases and mental processes. Although a truly impartial analysis is unattainable, Crow’s voice remains objective throughout the text. It is evident, however, that his choice of artworks for analysis were chosen for their participation in his theory of dissidence. Secondly, Crow uses current art historical ideas as a selective process to analyze the artworks of a time three decades past. Retrospection does not always provide clarity, but often only complicates an analysis. Transposing contemporary concepts onto the past may not be beneficial, but here Crow succeeds. Perhaps this is because, as proposed by Pamela Lee, the mentality of today is not so different from that of the 1960s, thus Crow is able to transcend time to give an accurate and contemporary account. This hindsight is not negative in every respect, though. Crow effectively shines light on relatively obscure artists, such as Betye Saar, who were not recognized by contemporary critics and joins them to the underlying correlation of dissent.

The advantages of using a social art historical method to understanding the art of the 1960s outweigh the weaknesses. Crow’s argument that this approach is crucial to a total comprehension of the artwork is evidenced by the political, social and cultural changes taking place in this moment and their connections to the artists and movements of the time. By relating these artworks to a network of dissent, Crow succeeds in elucidating otherwise perplexing art and allowing for viewers of such art to extract meaning.

Works Cited

Crow, Thomas. The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Lee, Pamela M. Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004.

[1] Pamela M. Lee, Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004), 259.

[2] Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 60.

The Phallus as Part-Object in Postmodern Art

2011-10-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

In her essay, “Posing the Phallus,” Mignon Nixon, a scholar who studies sexuality and aggression in art since 1945, focusing in particular on questions of feminism and gender politics, addresses the phallus as part-object in postmodern art. Her intention is to uncover the reasons why the phallus was posed “so often and so insistently” between the mid-1950s and late 1960s.[1]

Mignon Nixon

Nixon claims that the artworks she has chosen to examine “parody the phallus” and thus, use the phallus as part-object rather than carrying a phallic signifier.[2] In this sense, Nixon follows a Kleinian theory of the phallus as part-object in opposition to Lacanian theory which views the phallus as signifier of desire. During the institution of these diverging theories of pyschoanalysis, an idea arose that the phallus as signifier would eventually supersede the phallus as part-object. However, whereas the part-object appears to return as a logic for bodily art in postmodernism, Nixon argues that the part-object has always existed within the drives of artists and is simply surviving until the enactment of drives in postmodernism.[3] She views the part-object as having remained in postwar art at the level of the drives and, in this sense, is structural to postmodernism.

Nixon looks to works by Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, Yayoi Kusama, Eva Hesse, and Louise Bourgeois to locate the phallus as part-object’s existence in postwar art. She uses Kleinian psychoanalytical terms to explain her theory and relates the part-object to the formation of infantile subjectivity, a phase in which the infant views the breast as a part and not a whole mother. In this process of splitting the object, the infant views one object as two; a good breast which produces food and a non-existent bad breast which, in its absence causes the child to go hungry and grow frustrated.[4] The appearance of the part-object or the whole-object is the only avenue by which to satiate the drives inherent in infants. This theory, which Melanie Klein extended from Freud’s work, explains the libido and death drives remaining, seemingly dormant within humans well into adulthood. Nixon equates the part-object survival in postwar art as the result of a death drive in postmodernism. Postwar art, insists Nixon, uses the part-object as a counter-term to the phallic signifier to show a phallic symbol as an emblem of patriarchal authority and the fetish, which is different than how the part-object is used in contemporary art. This then proves that the phallus as part-object existed and is, thus, persisting as a death instinct. Nixon finds that “in its…resistance to the Oedipal logic of renunciation and radical break, and in its enactment of a perpetual fissuring, the part-object marks the operation of a self-destructive imperative.”[5] For Nixon, the part-object is surviving within drives rather than returning to manifest from them.

Throughout her examination of this theory, Nixon looks to art of the mid-1950s to the late 1960s to locate the phallus as part-object. She finds it operating as such in certain works by Marcel Duchamp; those titled Objet-Dard and Feuille de Vigne Femelle both of 1951.

Marcel Duchamp. Objet-Dard,1951. Galvanized plaster with inlaid lead rib, 7.5 x 20.1 x 6 cm. Private collection.

The phallus as part-object in these works by Duchamp indicate that “its function is disruptive, and that these interruptions are repeatedly staged.”[6] The survival of the part-object in the work of a few artists illustrates how it is linked to the history of postmodernism. Works such as Jasper Johns’ Target with Plaster Casts of 1955, Nixon claims, “ground the symbolic in the drives.”[7]

Jasper Johns. Target with Plaster Casts, 1955. Encaustic canvas with plaster casts, 129.5 x 111.8 x8.9 cm. Private collection.

To Nixon, Johns’ work is situated within the history of the part-object in that it comments on, not only the idea of symbolism, but the logic of the symbolic.

Yayoi Kusama. Infinity Mirror Room--Phalli's Field (or Floor Show), 1965.

Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field (or Floor Show) of 1965 is one of her many works which Nixon identifies as being a “photographic mode of production” which is “permeable to the drives.”[8] In this way, Nixon observes that the part-object is not just a fragment but also a logic of production. Both Eva Hesse’s Ingeminate of 1965 and Louise Bourgeois’ Fillette of 1968 illustrate that “the separation between body and object is comprised by touch, and the aesthetic autonomy of the work[s] slip on a pun and gag.”[9] The parody of the phallus made by these works was heightened when the artists individually posed with their respective artworks, in essence, posing the phalli for photographs. By touching these objects, Nixon believes that the “art objects as part objects” idea became more solidified within the drives.[10]

Eva Hesse. Ingeminate, 1965.

Robert Mapplethorpe. Louise Bourgeois (holding Fillette), 1982.

Nixon describes these artworks adequately, ensuring to explain their context as relating to her argument. However, she does not express the works as they were exhibited initially nor go into great detail in explaining materials used or methods of construction. It is clear that Nixon is not concerned so much with the physicality of the objects themselves, aside from the formal qualities, but perhaps is more interested in the ideas they portray and exude. Nixon’s purpose for examining these artworks is to effectively lend evidence to her case. She does not provide any judgment or evaluation of the artworks aside from how they operate within her proposed theory. It seems that she does not find it necessary to comment on the art as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ An underlying notion throughout the text asserts that these works were selected from the canonized, thus their status as high art make them worthy of such an in-depth analysis. Perhaps this is why Nixon forwent any evaluations or possibly the purpose of her essay just did not necessitate judgment of the artworks.

Much of Nixon’s essay is devoted to analyzing the chosen artworks from a psychoanalytic approach. The ardent analysis is often based on her interpretations of the artworks. She grounds these expository observations within an art historical framework which lends a scholarly credence to her words and philosophical findings. Throughout her analysis, Nixon clearly conveys her ideas despite the denseness of the topics which she breaches. She locates the artworks within a time period and elucidates parallels to the psychoanalytic theories of that same period. Nixon’s essay illustrates the efficiency of using a method of analysis which developed concurrently with the artworks being examined. This approach allows a revisionist art historian to adequately inform his or her criticism and draw connections between social, psychological, cultural, and other factors at work in the mentality of a period.

Work Cited

Nixon, Mignon. “Posing the Phallus.” October 92 (Spring, 2000): 98-127. Accessed

October 15, 2011. doi: 779235.

[1] Mignon Nixon, “Posing the Phallus,” October 92, (2000): 98.

[2] Ibid., 98-100.

[3] Ibid., 102.

[4] Ibid., 103.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 106.

[7] Ibid., 108.

[8] Ibid., 115.

[9] Ibid., 120.

[10] Ibid.

The Chilean Arpilleristas: Changing National Politics through Tapestry Work

2011-09-30T18:04:00.000-07:00

(abstract)
At present, a popular opinion maintains that the education of women in developing countries benefits a society's economic and social development and improves individuals' well-being. Economic studies and statistics have proven this idea to be true, however there are other processes by which women attain a higher quality of living without becoming educated. It can even be said that uneducated women have the ability to change a nation's political system. Although this scenario is unlikely, it is not altogether hypothetical and its occurrence is well-documented in history. During the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1989), the Chilean arpilleristas combined their collective memories of brutality with their traditional gender roles to at first privately share grievances over their “disappeared” loved ones and eventually to protest the regime in place. These poverty-stricken women of shanty towns met in clandestine workshops and formed a grassroots organization to create tapestries woven from their own garments and even hair to sell to foreign markets. The arpilleristas soon realized the power held by their collective memory and tapestry work. Politically mobilized, the women began to outwardly protest the government’s attempts to conceal and ignore their memories. National and international attention to their cause resulted in democracy’s defeat of Pinochet’s regime. This essay will show how a collective memory framework of persecution led to a political awakening for these women. An exploration such as this will indicate that perhaps the most enduring political movements begin with the uneducated whose blood, sweat, and tears are found within its basis.

This arpillera shows a typical day except for the man being led away by officials. This is an early work produced in a clandestine workshop as any outward protest of these violent acts would have prompted the arpillerista's arrest.

Arpillera depicting the Arpilleristas chained to congress as their political protests became more overt.

This essay was selected for Textiles and Politics, The Textile Society of America's 13th Biennial Symposium in September 2012.
http://www.textilesociety.org/symposia_2012.htm

Interpreting a Painting of Shoes: The Benefits of a Deconstructionist Methodology

2011-09-27T15:49:00.000-07:00

The ways in which art historians and critics analyze art works are not absolute however much they endeavor to be. The processes of interpreting and decoding art are limiting and often times contradictory which is problematic in affixing meaning and value. The discipline of art history must therefore attend to these boundaries and, rather than apply a single approach, utilize multiple methodologies in the exploration of art. Three essays by philosophers and an art historian, compiled in The Art of Art History edited by Donald Preziosi, illustrate how interdisciplinary approaches and the debate of ideas lend to a better understanding of art and its meanings.

In “The Origin of the Work of Art” (1935) German philosopher Martin Heidegger attempted to uncover the nature or essence of art. He believed this to be the most important question in which to attend since deducing the nature of art will aid in elucidating the origin of art. Defining the origin of art can, thus, clarify the dichotomy of the artist-artwork relationship. To Heidegger, artworks are not only representations of the environment but actually influence the creation of the environment. Culture and the meaning of existence, therefore, change when artwork is introduced.

Martin Heidegger

Heidegger viewed the source of an artwork as unrecognizable as both an artist and an artwork are determined by art. He described art as being a condition of culture but also culture as being influenced by art. According to Heidegger, an artist creates an artwork and an artwork creates an artist. Art is the provider of both artwork and artist, and the force of art controls these two elements. Heidegger acknowledged a paradox within this system as it is cyclical: without knowledge of the nature of an artwork, one is incapable of grasping the essence of the artwork, but without knowledge of the artwork, one cannot determine the essence of art. Thus, the nature of an artwork can only be realized by understanding the meaning of art or vice versa. Heidegger concluded that to avoid becoming misled in this cycle one must either define the essence of art or of the artwork. He maintained that it will be an easier feat to define the essence of the artwork and turns to a painting by van Gogh to provide an example. Heidegger first found it necessary to his argument to define ‘thing’ which he determined can be interpreted in three ways: things can be substances with properties or bearers of traits, things can be the manifold of sense perceptions, things can be formal matter. The last definition of ‘thing’ relates to Heidegger’s interpretation of a particular van Gogh painting as it includes the idea that a ‘thing’ is a piece of equipment. He used the painting A Pair of Shoes of 1886 by Vincent van Gogh to illustrate his point.

Vincent van Gogh. A Pair of Shoes, 1886. Oil on canvas. 14.75" x 18".

This painting allows for a distinction between artwork and other things, like equipment. The “equipmental-being of equipment” can be understood by viewing this painting as it permits viewers to be transported to a different place. This is because the artwork knows the truth of the subject (the shoes) and, therefore, must understand the truth of equipment. Viewers can grasp this truth because the artwork allows viewers to deepen the essence of themselves. Heidegger believed that van Gogh’s painting depicts a peasant woman’s pair of shoes, worn and tattered by the long days spend toiling in the fields. This is a narrative of a peasant’s life, however, three decades after Heidegger published this essay art historian Meyer Schapiro theorized that the painting describes a narrative of the artist himself.

In his essay, “The Still Life as a Personal Object—A Note on Heidegger and van Gogh” (1968) Meyer Schapiro disagreed with Heidegger. He believed that Heidegger’s interpretation of van Gogh’s artwork was a self-created construction. Schapiro’s explanation illustrated that the truth is historical and maintained that the shoes are not those of a peasant woman but those of a city man…the shoes of van Gogh. Although van Gogh is known for his paintings representing peasant life, Schapiro argued that the peasant shoes of proceeding van Gogh paintings are depicted in a well-kept condition which affords dignity to the peasant. He insisted that it is only his own shoes which van Gogh painted as tattered and well-worn. Therefore, to Schapiro, the painting does not provide the essence of a truth. The shoes actually represent van Gogh himself as they are those of a traveling city man and most likely the pair he wore in Holland in 1885.

Meyer Schapiro

Schapiro believed that Heidegger failed to recognize the presence of the artist in the artwork for it is inevitable that a piece of the artist is retained in his artwork. Whereas Heidegger based his theory solely on the perceptible qualities of the painting, Schapiro conceded that a still life is a personal object and possesses meaning outside of its physicality alone. This argument illustrates a clash between disciplines as Schapiro maintained a Marxist viewpoint valuing dialectical reasoning; Heidegger held a Fascist outlook which sought an ultimate truth.

Jacques Derrida in “Restitutions of the Truth in Pointing” (1978) believed that neither Heidegger nor Schapiro possessed solid visual arguments in the aforementioned essays. He stated that the shoes are not even a pair and cannot be proven to be those of a peasant nor of a city-dweller. Derrida questioned what constitutes a pair of shoes and how the elements of such combine different forms of reality.

Jacques Derrida

This deconstructionist approach forces a reconfiguration of the subject matter to study that which becomes visible underneath and between once the factors are rearranged. A post-structuralist theory such as this finds limits in theories and attempts to probe further by reconstituting the important aspects of these theories and elucidating that which lies at their foundations. To Derrida the entryway to a mode of thought is crucial to understanding the center or meaning which is sought. Without one, the other does not exist and understanding the former allows for the understanding of the latter. In this way, Derrida determined that Heidegger is ultimately more correct in his argument than Schapiro, although, Heidegger did not present it suitably. Derrida supposed that the interpretations of A Pair of Shoes by Heidegger and Schapiro point to their respective standpoints rather than to the artwork itself as Schapiro himself was a city-dweller and Heidegger supported the peasant ideology. Schapiro, Derrida upheld, was overly attached to representational thinking thereby weakening his argument. To Derrida, it is more important to understand that which surrounds the artwork rather than the essence or nature of the artwork.

Derrida offered a highly credible argument. He proposed that both theories utilized by Heidegger and Schapiro were limited and, therefore, not fully attaining a truth. Each scholar, critic, and collector has a lexicon of signs and symbols to draw upon and contend with which do not necessarily corroborate with the iconology of the artist. It is crucial to understand that form and context are not the only factors at work when examining art. The scholars themselves possess conscious or unconscious biases which affect how they interpret art. Derrida argued that when examining art, one must take a self-critical stance and incorporate many avenues of exploration. A combination of this careful, deconstructionist methodology and an objective lens will allow for a true comprehension of art.

Works Cited

Derrida, Jacques. “Restitutions of the Truth in Pointing [Pointure] (1978).” In The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, edited by Donald Preziosi, 301-315. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Heidegger, Martin. “The Origin of the Work of Art (1935).” In The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, edited by Donald Preziosi, 284-295. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Schapiro, Meyer. “The Still Life as a Personal Object: A Note on Heidegger and Van Gogh (1968).” In The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, edited by Donald Preziosi, 296-300. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Mysteries of Art: Is Provenance Necessary?

2011-07-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

Second only to aesthetic value, the quality most loved about art is its provenance. Often when in the presence of art, one can feel history radiating from objects and architecture as if it were truly a physical sensation. We can be encapsulated by an object's aura and can be changed by it. Studying the inanimate art objects surrounding us lends to an understanding of who or what was present before us, and therefore, elucidates the future. An examination such as this can, in effect, unravel longstanding and current mysteries of the world.

But what if the history, and thus the provenance, of an object is lost? As a painting changed hands over the centuries, for example, the artist's name, the title, and the reasons for its creation are all important pieces of information that can easily dissolve into the sands of time. Art dealers and museum professionals today insist on written records documenting ownership and other pertinent information of a work. This practice has not always been the case though and works surface which need much dedicated research in order to solve the enigmas locked within the art.

Recently the Left Bank Art Gallery has had one of these paintings walk in the front door. A mysterious 18th-century (possibly 17th-cenutury) painting by an unknown Italian artist has been sitting for decades with a history lost. The subject of the painting is a nude woman reigning two porpoises atop her water-faring vessel. A mermaid waves a diaphanous cloth to the left of the woman. To the right, a merman blows a shell-type horn. The title, artist, and exact date of the painting are unknown. With this significant information apparently lost, how are we to appreciate this artwork's provenance?

Unknown artist, Untitled, ca. 18th-century. Oil on canvas, 52 1/4"x62 3/4". Left Bank Art Gallery, Saint Simons Island, GA.

Begin by collecting all of the information that is known about the work. This painting is believed to have come out of the James Cash Penney (1875-1971) art collection. Penney's third wife, Caroline B. Autenreith Penney (1895-1992) was an active philanthropist and patron of the arts. They had a home in Clay County, Florida where in the 1920's Penney established the Town of Penney Farms.

Caroline B. Autenreith Penny and James Cash Penney, ca. 1930.

The painting measures w: 62 ¾” x h: 52 ¼” not including the frame, which is original. A professional art restorer dates the painting to the 18^th or 17^th-century and considers it to be Italian as evidenced by the Italian writing on the back of the frame. Further investigation of the writing must be done to translate the wording as evidence of the painting's origins may lie in these markings.

Photograph of the back of the painting depicting Italian writing on frame.

The subject seems to be the Roman goddess of love, Venus (or Aphrodite to the Greeks) who was, according to myth, born from the sea. Often she is depicted with her companion, the sacred dolphin. Her long, flowing hair symbolized the abundance of love potential. Many of the attributes of Venus and Aphrodite have been retained in the mermaid myth as the goddesses were responsible for fair sailing and had origins in the sea.

The time period of the painting estimated by the restorer suggests that this painting was possibly created during the 18^th-century. This is corroborated by the Neoclassical movement in Europe which lasted from the mid-18^ththrough the end of the 19^th century. Neoclassicism is characterized by arts which drew upon classical Western art and culture, most notably that of Ancient Rome and Greece. The movement formed in response to the Rococo movement which, with its lavish embellishments and opulence was viewed as superficial. It is very likely that this painting, with a subject matter focused on Ancient Roman mythology came from the Neoclassical movement.

As for the identity of the artist, without the provenance of the painting it is difficult to determine from whose hand it was created and vice versa. However, a 17^th-century art historian developed a theory which may aid in solving this problem. Giovanni Morelli (1816-91) was an Italian scholar who devised a technique of identifying a painting's artist by closely analyzing details of the painting, more so than previous connoisseurs and scholars had in the past. His scientific methodology centered on the fact that many artists will reuse the same technique in painting an images “unimportant” areas, such as ears or fingernails. Morelli believed that an artist does not change these aspects of paintings from one to another as these elements are not the focal point of a painting. Therefore, if one were to investigate these details of the painting, using Morelli's theory, the artist's identity may be able to be discovered.

Details. Unknown artist, Untitled, ca. 18th-century. Oil on canvas, 52 1/4"x62 3/4". Left Bank Art Gallery, Saint Simons Island, GA.

Would knowing all of this information about the painting add to its provenance? Most definitely. Not only would the value of the painting increase but knowing its place in history would add interest, thus ensuring saleability. Is there an aura lost when this information is not available? Perhaps a bit. However, standing before this painting one is struck by a physical sensation. Provenance is not something required in order to appreciate or be moved by art. Art with unknown origins is still able to provide education. Although seemingly lost, there is a history present in art of this type and this history does in fact give insight to our past as well as a lesson on the future.

Disposing Museum Material: Information Lost or New Perspectives Gained?

2011-05-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

(abstract)

Modern museum practices resemble the symptoms of an obsessive compulsive disorder known as hoarding. Like hoarders, museum institutions value accession after accession of material for its collections. Both museums and hoarders find the processes of deaccession and disposal to be extremely difficult. It seems that somewhere inherent in our social and cultural structures resides the passion for collecting objects as well as a resistance to ridding ourselves of them. Are museums destined to be swallowed up by their collections?
In the recent decades a solution has risen in the form of museum disposal procedures which allow for the removal of certain objects. However, many ethical, legal, and moral questions emerge in connection with these procedures. This essay will address the advantages and disadvantages of museum disposals; most notably the affect of disposals on the discipline of art history. Mid-eighteenth-century scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann encouraged the physical examination of objects, a process which he deemed to be essential for a proper critical analysis. Is this still necessary today? I will argue that current technologies for archiving materials, such as digital 3D scanning, have changed the playing field and have weakened the sustainability and necessity of the physical object. In examining this issue, I will address the educational drawbacks of such an approach as well as the limitations of revering simulacra over originals.

Can we, should we, break with our compulsion and desire to tangibly recall the past? Or should museums continue with current policies, subsequently perpetuating traditional art historical methods of analysis?

**This essay "The Advantages and Disadvantages of Museum Disposals" included in a book of collected essays entitled Museums and the Disposals Debate is to be published by MuseumsEtc in Autumn 2011. Visit here to purchase a copy: http://museumsetc.com/products/disposals-debate

Forgotten History: Generating Public Interest in a Museum's Permanent Collection

2011-04-19T19:16:00.000-07:00

Small-town museums, focused on local artwork and history combat a problem: What to do when the community has seen and learned what the museum has to display and teach and the institution does not attract enough tourists to maintain business? There is no easy answer to this question as each museum and community has its own needs and objectives. This essay will focus on the Mildred Huie Plantation Museum at Mediterranean House, a small operation with significant history, which showcases the work of Mildred Nix Huie en permanence, therefore limiting the ability of rotating exhibition. An exploration of this museum's collection will pose some answers to this question and suggest future plans to reinvigorate the local public's interest in the works on display.

The presented solutions to this pressing issue entail breathing new life into a long-existing exhibit by bringing new items with which to relate to the current displayed objects. Firstly, a museum in this position can make connections for visitors by exhibiting artwork or objects which raise questions that visitors would not have propounded themselves. If the existing exhibit features works from a particular art movement, introduce works which were created during the same era from a different movement and explain how the two displays contrast to or parallel one another. In the example of the Mildred Huie Museum, some exhibited works are from the 1960s, a period when the artist reflected on Fauvist concepts of the 1920s. However, during this period in the art world abstract expressionism was outmoded in favor of pop art. An interesting exhibit would feature artworks of a Southeast Georgian pop artist from the 1960s adjacent to the Fauvist paintings of Huie. This would allow viewers to ask questions such as: What is at stake for each artist during this period? Why did Huie choose to rely on a more traditional style in a time of prolific neo-avant-garde movements? Another provoking exhibit would showcase local feminist artworks from the 1970s, a time when Huie was influenced by turn-of-the-century Impressionism. Standing before this juxtaposition, a view might ponder: Why did Huie regress by looking to a movement dominated by male artists when feminist artists of the time where changing the canonical framework of art and art criticism?

A second way to encourage new perspectives on long-term exhibits is by connecting visitors to their locality by showcasing other art forms of the region and exploring how the two displays correlate or dissociate. Because the Mildred Huie Museum collection highlights the artist's passion for local history and beauty, it would be valuable to understand how other artist-residents of the Saint Simons Island region depicted their environment. It may seem like a far reach, but an exhibit featuring artworks by pre-Columbian Native American inhabitants may show more analogous features than one might think. The exquisite and naturalistic intensity of the Golden Isles has endured for many centuries, and one may wonder if, cultural differences aside, someone living six-hundred years ago would view the landscape similarly to a modern-day woman named Mildred Huie.

The scenarios laid out above suggest ways in which a museum with permanent collections can generate excitement of its lasting exhibits. These solutions focus on the additions of rotating exhibits, but there are also ways to invite and welcome the community's own ideas into the institution. For example, plan lectures in which the community can hear information directly from an individual educated on the exhibited topic in a setting welcoming of their questions and concerns.

Ask the community for their opinions on what they would like to know more about and would like to see exhibited in the museum. Both of these ideas aid in breaking down barriers between museum institutions and the general public. This effectively allows the two to work together in a symbiotic relationship and ultimately keep one another informed and perpetually inquisitive. A relationship such as this will permit the museum's objective to remain in the forefront of the community's mind and prevent the forgetting of history.

** As curator of the Mildred Huie Museum, the director and I work diligently to operate the museum to the best of its functionality and purpose. Some of the propositions outlined above are foreseeable future endeavors while others may never be realized. However, many projects are in the works which bring us closer to our community and help us to maintain the relationships necessary to preserve our corner of history. For example, I am preparing to present a lecture discussing the topic of the blog entry from April 1, 2011. This lecture would provide the opportunity for the audience to connect the techniques used by Huie to different art movements, thus generating interest in our permanent collection.

Monet's Palette in Paintings by Mildred Nix Huie

2011-04-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

After the 1950s, Mildred Nix Huie (1906-2000), like many artists often do, began directing her paintings toward a commercial audience. Her subjects during the 1960s and 1970s focused on landmark and plantation scenes drawn from her locality. Historical landmarks such as Fort Frederica, Christ Church, and the seventeen colonial plantations on and near Saint Simons Island, Georgia interested Huie as well as vacationers and locals alike. In a keen move, Huie combined her passion for the region's history with her artistic talents in order that her works be marketable to the community of collectors. In this sense Huie was able to use her paintings to transfer her knowledge of history and emotionality of Coastal Georgia to viewers of her art.

What is remarkable about this shift is Huie's dedication to a specific color palette throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Whereas in previous works Huie often used bold colors, later in her career she utilized a softer, lighter palette. Her choice of color is comparable to that of Claude Monet after 1860. It was later in Monet's career that he abandoned dark colors in favor of lighter hues.

This image illustrates colors often used by Impressionist painter Claude Monet.

Not only was Monet's conception of a limited palette made famous but his recognizable brushwork was as well. The broken color applied with rapid brushstrokes became synonymous with Monet and the greater Impressionism movement (culminating in the 1870s and 1880s). In addition to a change in palette choice, Huie also took on more Impressionistic qualities in her brushwork. Although stylistically different from Monet, Huie began applying paint to surfaces in color-block fashion. For example, rather than technically painting flowers how they are seen by the eye, she painted a series of brushstrokes to give the viewer the impression of flowers.

Mildred Nix Huie, Cloister Fountain, ca. 1968. Oil on canvas, 26"x14". Bequest of Lucy Brous. Mildred Huie Plantation Museum at Mediterranean House, Saint Simons Island, GA.

Cloister Fountain (1968) depicts the Cloister courtyard on Sea Island, GA, a favorite place of the artist's to paint. The foreground is where the viewers eye is immediately drawn. In the right front third of the painting is a large fountain, energetically spewing foamy water into the air. Behind this a blue bird rests, unconcerned with the chaotic eruption of the fountain. The background consists of foliage and flowers. Although the definite geometric shapes of the garden scene are indistinguishable due to the Impressionistic brushstrokes, the viewer senses that this is a well-manicured and designed space. The careful placement of colors and brushstrokes indicate that the artist desired to convey the idea that the flora is not growing haphazardly but in an intentional manner.

Mildred Nix Huie. Cloister Lily Pond, 1970. Oil on
canvas, 13.5"x 10.5". Mildred Huie Plantation
Museum at Mediterranean House, Saint Simons
Island, GA.

Claude Monet, White and Yellow Water Lilies, 1915-1917. Oil on canvas, 78.74"x78.74". Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Germany.

Cloister Lily Pond (1970) is instantly reminiscent of Monet's White and Yellow Water Lilies (1915-1917). In Huie's work the foreground contains a lily pond which stretches into the distance creating a focal point and subsequently consuming the bottom half of the canvas. The blooming water lilies float atop the water carrying their pink and purple blossoms. The sunlight appears to be directed onto the water from the top right corner of the scene, casting purplish shadows into the serene water of the pond. In both Monet's and Hiue's water lily paintings the water beneath the drifting leafage is dark and contrasting to the brightness of the lilypads. A combination of blue and purple brushstrokes create this effect, neither artist relying on black to depict depth or shadows. This is important as Impressionist painters rarely use black. Monet used a combination of reds, greens, and blues to produce colors which appear black in nature. Huie's Cloister Lily Pond is congruous with this concept as her choice of colors resembles those of Monet. Proposedly, Huie used this same combination of colors in Cloister Lily Pond and many other of her works. Although, the scenes depicted and the water lilies' colors differ from one painting to the other, a parallel remains evident in both painters' choice of colors to depict water.

It should be noted here that Huie traveled to France many times throughout her career. During the mid-eighties Huie visited Monet's home and gardens at Giverny. Monet's Garden, Giverny (ca. 1985) consists of the same color palette and brushwork as the two previously discuessed works by Huie. Greens and blues indicate shadow and pink, purple, and orange color-blocks give the impression of flowers. In the foreground a path winds through the garden leading to Monet's house in the background. Nearly twenty years after completion of Cloister Fountain, Huie was still commited to using a light, pastel palette and Impressionistic brushstrokes.

Mildred Nix Huie. Monet's Garden, Giverny, ca.1985. Oil on canvas, 20"x 24". Mildred Huie Plantation Museum at Mediterranean House, Saint Simons Island, GA.

Perhaps Huie was motivated to adopt a palette similar to Monet's in order to improve the marketability of her paintings. Since his rise to fame during his lifetime (1840-1926), Monet's works have continued to sell with increasing pricetags over the decades. In May 2008 Monet's The Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil (1873) sold for $41.4 million at Christie's of New York and broke the record for the selling price of French Impressionist paintings. This is telling of people's desire to own a Monet. It is quite possible that Huie realized this desirability and, combined with her admiration for Impressionist techniques and Monet's palette, this motivated her to use her passion and talents to her advantage and give the people what they want. However, it is equally as plausible that Huie saw blues, greens and reds in the lily pond, as Monet had, and simply painted what she saw.

Mildred Nix Huie: Reflecting upon Fauvist Influences

2011-04-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

Mildred Nix Huie (1906-2000) was an impressionist painter whose passion of history and regional ardor emit from her work. Influenced by the scenic landmarks of Saint Simons Island, Georgia, Huie successfully preserved the history of the coastal community through her art. Collections produced by Huie during the 1960s and 1970s and exhibited en permanence at the Mildred Huie Plantation Museum at Mediterranean House on Saint Simons Island include Landmark Scenes of the region and colonial Plantations of Coastal Georgia. However, earlier in her career as an artist, Huie drew heavily upon Fauvism for inspiration.

The Fauvist movement, led by Henri Matisse and André Derain, lasted only four years (from 1904-1908) but continued to impact the style of artists beyond its early twentieth century beginnings. The style is seen as developing from a combination of Post-Impressionism and Seurat's pointillism along with other Neo-Impressionist artists. The use of color and brushstrokes of the Fauvist painters were different from those of Impressionist painters. While Impressionist paintings comprised of flowing, almost ethereal strokes, the Fauvists favored a more permanent technique of seemingly haphazard brush work. The color palette of the Fauvists was crucial to the movement. Strident and powerful colors were often used to lend to the painting's sense of permanency, a component not evident in many Impressionist works.

Didier, Bord de Saone/Bateaux, ca. 1920. Oil on paper, 7"x9". Bequest of Robert G. Wilcox. Mildred Huie Plantation Museum at Mediterranean House, Saint Simons Island, Georgia.

Bord de Saone/Bateaux (ca. 1920) by Didier, a member of the Ziniars School of Lyon, France, institutes many of these Fauvist elements. The artist, who Huie held in high esteem, chose a bold color palette which allows the viewer to envision a vibrant, hustling narrative, despite the lack of people in the scene. A bright summer day looks down upon a docked boat which is ready to depart on its voyage. Although the scene is a fleeting one, the use of color lends to the subject's permanence in reality and its substantial quality. The strong lines, almost without interruption create a eye-directing mosaic in which the lines of masts, ropes, and sails are continued into the scenery of the background. This linear aspect of the painting also suggests the subject's belonging to a place and time within the scene.

Huie's Fauvist studies were completed mostly in the 1920s (while she studied at Shorter College in Rome, GA and Florida State College for Women majoring in Latin and minoring in Greek) through the 1940's (while living in Albany, GA and managing WALB radio and TV). Although, Huie continued to return to Fauvist influences in later works.

Mildred Nix Huie, Fauvist Vase Study, 1921. Watercolor on canvas, 22"x29". Bequest of Lillian Clarke. Mildred Huie Plantation Musuem at Mediterranean House, Saint Simons Island, Georgia.

Fauvist Vase Study (1921) contains a more limited palette than those of the founding Fauvists. Huie used muted yellows, greens, blues, and some pink in this abstract watercolor. The strong brushstrokes create geometric shapes from which a vase emerges to the left of the center of the painting. Although the palette is not as vibrant and consistent with traditional Fauvist works, Fauvist Vase Study evokes a sense of strength and permanence via its brushwork.

Mildred Nix Huie, Fauve Floral, 1970. Oil on canvas, 9"x12". Bequest of John McIndoe. Mildred Huie Plantation Museum at Mediterranean House, Saint Simons Island, Georgia.

Fauve Floral (1970) consists of more bold colors than her earlier painting. Yellows, reds, and oranges draw the eye to the center of the painting as the petals of three black-eyed susans. Two other flowers lay to the right of the upright bunch, slowly wilting and losing color. A sea-foam green behind the flower petals works to contrast the flowers from their surroundings, offering a sense strength despite the flowers' ephemeral quality evidenced by the wilting few.

Although Huie switched to more flowing brushwork and a pastel color palette (inspired by that of Monet's) after the 1950's, her love of Fauvist techniques remained. She would often return to the elements indicative of Fauvism discussed above in her later works, as is evident by Fauve Floral.