5: Public Pedagogy: Politicizing the Personal

My wife made this "collage" for Valentine's Day a few years ago.  It includes photos of us as a couple and individuals, including interesting architecture we encountered (e.g. an Art Deco hotel we stayed at in Milwaukee in the upper left) and ephemera from events we attended together.  A number of the photos are placed on boxes that when opened up reveal email messages we exchanged during our "courting" period.  I think this exhibits appropriation and layering, as mentioned by Gude, very effectively.  Ticket stubs, rail passes, horoscope clippings and photographs are re-purposed and layered on top og one another to create a sort of time capsule of our relationship to that point.  I find it interesting that we went through a rough period soon after this was made, but this was hanging in our hallway to see as we passed through numerous times each day as a reminder- a way to reminisce, but also stay grounded.  We eventually got married and will celebrate our second anniversary this summer, so I offer this up in contrast to some of the seemingly negative valentine messages from postsecret.com. 

4: Contemporary Art Concepts

Maya Dern's Meshes of the Afternoon

An interesting short film, which I learned was an influence on David Lynch.  Many postmodern principles are present in this film, including juxtaposition of radically disparate elements and recontextualization: repositioning the familiar in relation to the unfamiliar (Gude, p.9).  Another principle exhibited in this film is layering (Gude, p.10).  Images and scenes are repeated with new elements being added each time.  The soundtrack of the film often lends sound effects to the scene (e.g. the key dropping on the stairs, and the skipping of the record player), an element of hybridity (Gude, p.10).  The issue of gazing is also present- a shifting context within which a familiar image is seen- and brings up many questions: who creates and controls? How does it affect our understanding of reality? Who is being looked at and who does the looking? (Gude, p.10, 11).  Wexler also has some ideas that pertain to this film, such as the boundary between looking and participating in art and the deconstruction of knowledge and power (p.25).  The realtionship between subject-object creates aesthetic empathy for the viewer, affecting one's concept of the relation between self and world (p.31).

I thought the movie did a good job of exploring the boundary between shadow and substance, especially in the early scenes.  The close-up on the eye leads us into a dream sequence which becomes disoriented, and scenes are repeated with added elements, and it seems as though one is watching the watchers while simultaneously watching the self.  Perhaps the juxtaposition of knife/key/flower in these instances are symbolic of the different aspects of one's personality?  Overall, I thought the movie could be a metaphor for life: the flower representing the innocence of youth, the repeated scenes and objects being the mundane aspects of day-to-life in middle age, and then death at the end.


Mark Ryden

For a contemporary artist, I chose Mark Ryden.  Ryden uses recurring themes in his work, many of which are present in this work: meat, Abraham Lincoln,  and children.  Ryden combines the appropriation of familiar, iconic images, the juxtaposition of radically disparate elements, and the repositioning of the familiar in relation to the unfamiliar (along with deconstruction) to create a provoking and energetic piece of art. Take a gander at www.markryden.com to see more.

Image from Google: Mark Ryden - Meat Train

3. Installation Art Encounters: Extending the Invitation

Extending An Invitation

To:  Toni Morrison

Because: Toni Morrison is one of my favorite authors.  I first encountered her work in undergrad with The Bluest Eye, and my favorite novel is Song of Solomon.  I feel she should be invited because her novels mainly concentrate on black women, an underrepresented yet major part of our society.  Before her days as an author, she strove to bring black literature to the mainstream (notably Angela Davis) as an editor at Random House.  She was the first black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the first black woman writer to hold a named chair at an Ivy League university- Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of Humanities at Princeton University.  While she does not identify her work as "feminist," she does not subscribe to patriarchy and believes in equitable access for all.

Nominator:  Rodney Draughn

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison
http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/biographies/morrison.html



I thought an image of a tree with roots would be an apt visual metaphor.  If one is familiar with Morrison's novel Beloved, the image immediately echoes the scars on Sethe's back, emblematic of the painful horror of slavery, but also invoking the idea of family.  I also feel the image of roots beneath the tree speaks to Morrison's story telling.  As a child, Morrison's father told her numerous folktales of the black community which she incorporated into her own stories.  We are all a combination of numerous stories from our past, and other stories we have co-opted along the way, as we create and tell our own stories about ourselves.