ART THOU AWARE
Chicagoans at the Whitney Biennial
Out of the three Chicago artists to be
in The Whitney Biennial currently on view in New York, two are from SAIC:
Anne Wilson and Conor McGrady. Their pieces exemplify the diversity of ideas
present at what many critics consider to be the most important contemporary art exhibition in the United States. For the exhibition, Wilson, a professor in the Fiber Department, assembled an on-site work called "Topologies." Standing 30 inches off the ground, at 18 feet long and 74 inches wide, the piece, which is made of found black lace that Wilson meticulously deconstructed and re-made, resonates with issues surrounding domesticity, history and the human body. McGrady, who holds an MFA from SAIC, a native of Northern Ireland, confronts his viewers with the effects of violence and political realities. At The Whitney he is showing drawings of empty spaces that show traces of humanity, such as the interior of a welfare office and the interior of a home ransacked by a military search.
Low Blow Art
The New York Times decided to pull a strip from their website the same day it was posted because it incensed several subscribers. The editorial cartoon, "Terror Widows" by artist Ted Rall, portrayed the widows of September 11 victims as vacuous and greedy opportunists. For example, one panel of the strip spoofs The Larry King Show: the talk show host asks a widow about her husband calling her from the 104th floor when he knew he was going to die, and her response was, "Oh yes - he was on fire! By the way Larry, that's a bitchin' tie." Although the cartoonist defended the comic in an article which ran on CNN.com, The New York Times quickly pulled the piece and apologized for its inappropriateness.
Training Ground for the Future
The J. Paul Getty Museum in L.A. recently opened an exhibition, Railroad Vision, that articulates some of the cultural changes that modernism brought about. The exhibit, on display through the end of June, examines the relationship of photography to the railroad, two technologies born virtually at the same time. Photographs by Carleton Watkins, Alfred Stieglitz, and Gustave Le Gray are shown alongside stenographs, travel books, and other early rare photographs. This exhibition seems to be a particulary exciting acknowledgement of the changing nature of art history as a discipline, as it evolves from a practice based on the history of aesthetics to one that studies the relationship between historical phenomena and visual cultural production.
Curated Corpses
After having already toured Swizerland, Japan, Germany, and Belgium, Gunther von Hagens' exhibition of corpses recently arrived in London's Atlantis Gallery. While Britian is home to the likes of Damien Hirst, who has preserved dead animals in formaldehyde, could the Brits be ready for this display of 25 human corpses and 175 body parts arranged in compromising positions and situations - the least distressing of which is a skinned male crouched over a chess set (we won't describe the other bodies)? As director of Body Worlds, the organization sponsoring the exhibit, Professor von Hagens defends his project as one that inspires people to understand their bodies better and to improve their health. Thousands have already signed up to donate their bodies. While the educational benefits of such a show can not be disputed, should this display be in an art gallery? Could Duchamp ever have anticipated this kind of interpretation of the "ready-made?"
A WHACK! POP! BANG! to High ART
In a progressive step toward dissolving the distinction between high art and low art, the University of Nebraska's Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery featured the exhibition Comics, Heroes and American Visual Culture last month. The exhibit was inspired by a recent donation of original strips featuring such characters as Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon and Superman, and the creations of more contemporary anti-heroes by the likes of Art Spiegelman and R. Crumb, which the curator of the museum intends on blending with the museum's permanent modern collection. It is interesting to note that while the museum accepted this sizeable donation of comics, it sold several important European modernist paintings earlier this year in order to focus solely on American art. Another bit of high/low news: an illustration by R. Crumb made the cover of the March issue of Art Forum.
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