Graphic Spot

By Cayetano Ferrer May 30, 2004 Uncategorized

Empty and Lost

by Cayetano Ferrer

Ever envision a city street without instructions, directions, or advertisements? In the visual art project “Empty and Lost,” student Cayetano Ferrer creates new visual experiences by making digital prints of scenes taken from busy metropolitan environments with all the text taken out of them. The change is subtle, yet altering.

By transforming signage into shapes and colors, the chaotic world of Chicago’s Loop becomes a little easier on the eye. We are left with the feeling of emptiness, which recalls an experience of being lost in an unfamiliar environment. Even when the environment is actually quite familiar. It is an eerily comfortable position to be in, and will lead you to question your own place in public space.

Cayetano’s prints and signs can be viewed in person as part of a group exhibit called “City In Transit” at the 1926 gallery space. The opening reception is on May 4th from 8 to 10pm, and is curated by SAIC’s Arts Administration class, led by Josh Decter. It runs from April 30th through May 16th. Other artists whose work will be showcased include Michael Ryan, Laura Grey, Erin Moore, Jim Elniski, and Justin Goh.

Two tits forward, one giant leap back

By Charles Loie May 30, 2004 Arts & Culture

By Charles Loie

Birds do it, bees do it, even educated flees do it. But when Americans do it, or better yet, talk about and hint at “it,” they are smacked like a wack-a-mole by the Chuck-e-cheese mindset of the powers that be. Personally, I’m sick and tired of the ass-backward attempt at pulpit-preaching the evil that is sexual content and innuendo for the sake of children or anyone else and, furthermore, insulting the greater public by acting as if they had no choice in the matter. But not just sexuality, anything taboo, anything with any semblance of truth that mocks the deficiency within a system, is evil. The irony of Howard Stern is that the shtick that made his fortune is now the source of his undoing. The tragedy is that his martyrdom affects not only himself, but every artist working in America.

You may find it strange to identify Stern as an artist. He has made a long career of blatant sexuality, often bordering on the grotesque and, more often than not, hilarity. In the past four years, while the dirty man aspect is wearing thin and losing its novelty, Stern has had some profound and honest political commentary about the Bush administration. I say Stern is an artist because he forces a perspective on the things he puts out in the world, his own self-absorption included.

And then there was “Nipplegate,” the grandest excuse ever to begin “regulating” all that we hear and see. What once was a shameless act of self-promotion from an artist who has increasingly wanted the world to be aware that she has breasts (exhibit B-DD Rhythm Nation Janet–The Janet of today), is now the Federal Communication Commissions’ (FCC) touchstone to go out on a smut witch hunt. Sure, they could have started with purely the sex symbols, like Ms. Janet, but they went for the “shock jocks,” the airwave satirists whose sexual content is much more than just symbolic.

On April 8, 2004, the FCC slammed Clear Channel, the communications monopoly firm (radio, advertising and concert promotions, among other things), with a $495,000 fine for indecency due to comments made on Stern’s broadcast. Fearing other liability issues, Stern was taken off six of Clear Channel’s “channels” with one reprise. During this reprise, Infinity, Stern’s syndication company, censored a “best of” broadcast that previously was acceptable to air. Amusingly enough, similar broadcasts were deemed acceptable in 2003 by Clear Channel when the FCC investigated some 15 seconds of questionable air-time (as can be seen in a memo issued by Clear Channel, conveniently at howardstern.com, an extremely comprehensive and popular site).

Weeks before the crackdown Stern was quoted as saying, “Eight-to-ten billion dollars a year is spent on porno in this country and John Ashcroft is saying ‘It’s invading my life.’ It’s not invading your life. We’re inviting it in. We like it. Why can’t we admit that we’re a country that likes outrageous humor? That likes to poke holes in society? Who are these people that are taking that away from us? It’s Bush. It’s Ashcroft. It’s Colin Powell, Jr. They’re winning. Fight them. I am going off the air. I look forward to the day, because those guys will make me bigger than life…I am ready to be bigger than I’ve ever been. I’m ready to accept the responsibility.”

What once was a doomsday speech smacking of self-importance now reads as a warning to all those who push boundaries in the fields of artistic expression.

A further quote issued by Stern directly after his dismissal declares that all art, from paintings to literature, is at stake. Without going into the cliché ridden excuse that these regulations stem from America’s puritanical base, I will say that the first Amendment is usually the first thing the religious right wipes their ass with. According to the first Amendment the rights addressed within cannot be infringed even if it is deemed indecent by the greater public. But the line between what is indecent and what is prime for popular consumption is more than razor thin, it’s imaginary, it’s air.

By opening our eyes, by stepping outside, we are bombarded by sexualized and violent imagery to sell products without being given a choice. And, for the most part, these images are hollow. Which is not to say pornography is filled with great depth, but it doesn’t hide what it is. Art, inside or outside the galleries, that is deemed offensive doesn’t either.

To bring up a fictitious, though no less pointed example, the popular Showtime show The L Word, a show no doubt the lesbian-fixated Stern would find appropriate here in juxtaposition, hosts a character who works at a modern art museum in Los Angeles and was the subject of a protest for showing offensive, “edgy” material. One such blasphemous work, which I truly wish was more than just a product of a clever writer, was a video/performance piece featuring a naked woman being penetrated doggy style by a fully dressed Jesus with the apostles looking on. While watching these episodes, I thought that there was no way in this day and age for such a protest to be so large and vocal, especially in Los Angeles. But the truth is it can be and it should be. The beautiful thing about free speech is that it ensures freedom on more than a dichotomous level.

Artists produce their work to ellicit a response from the public. If the public decides that this work is worth vocally responding to, whether positive or negative, that is their right as well. What underlies this relationship is that all parties are allowed forums to express their opinions, as long as those opinions do not instigate physical harm. The choices we make as members of the public to view or listen to these opinions are our own and are not forced upon us. That hand reaching for the button, dial, or a modest student newspaper, is a hand with hypothetical free will. To put blame on the artist for our own choices is a selfish bit of blame projection.

Howard Stern and his ilk are the first large- scale strike in what may be a long drawn out war against our own “best interest.” Who may follow is yet to be seen, but clearly the battle lines have been drawn between those who create or uphold the creation and those who destroy and limit the creation of art. For all our culture’s advances, we continually fall back on a strange piety that serves no other virtue than promulgating the old and lambasting the new and thusly “taboo.” In the field of the arts, if there is to be a purpose at all, there is no greater purpose than to redefine and expand the norm. Not to give Stern more airs, but what he stands for is more than the titty parade he revels in. Rather, he is a martyr, if you will, for non-conformity. A word and concept that is at times laughable in its association with inaction and cynicism. The future of art is dependent on the unconventional, and to keep that alive artists need to go even further.

Illustration by Jenjen Tobias

Dead or alive?

By Kymberly Pinder May 30, 2004 Uncategorized

Facing the monster of identity politics

By Kymberly Pinder

So what is ‘identity politics’ and why has it become such a bad word? The confrontational nature of much of the art of the 1980s that addressed racial, class and gender inequities by such artists as Karen Finley, Barbara Kruger, Adrian Piper, Gran Fury, and Lorna Simpson, to name a few, has been lumped into a part of our recent to some, but distant to many, history of political correctness. The Reagan Era, especially as encapsulated by the 1990 “Decade Show” (simultaneously held at the New Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the now defunct Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art) was a time when art-making seemed to be all about activism, or liberal diatribes, depending on your point of view. In the 1990s, utilizing satire which was so dear to many of the ’80s artists, both mainstream popular culture and the conservative right assured us that most inequalities were things of the past. Critics in turn, considered less overtly political work non-political work.

By coining and misunderstanding such enigmatic phrases as “post-black,” “post-feminist,” and “post-queer,” some critics have held a funeral for identity politics, though only a handful of artists attended. In all fairness, when Thelma Golden in 2001 dubbed some contemporary work by black artists “post-black” in the Freestyle exhibition catalog for Harlem’s Studio Museum, she DID qualify this term: “It was characterized by artists who were adamant about not being labeled as ‘black’ artists, though their work was steeped, in fact deeply interested, in redefining complex notions of blackness. In the beginning, there were only a few marked instances of such an outlook, but at the end of the 1990s, it seemed that post-black had fully entered into the art world consciousness. Post-black was the new black.”

It has been subsequent eagerness on the part of others to interpret the term as a declaration of the “end of race” and therefore, any dialogue about race, that has caused such a stir. The same motivations have ushered in the scholarship of eye-rolling regarding the political “dinosaurs” of the last millennium, such as feminism, gay rights, and labor movements. Since when did this pesky prefix mean the end of anything in the art world? Postmodernists do not ignore modernism, they acknowledge its existence and proliferation into mainstream culture and start from there. Of course, artists continue to ponder the many dimensions of the relationship between the personal and the political through the age-old tensions between the private and the public. The increased acceptance of installation and performance art outside and within the academy definitely means this dialogue will continue. When William Pope L. stops traffic in Manhattan to drag himself clad as a superhero through its streets, and Krzysztof Wodiczko reconstructs national memories by projecting photographs of ignored or erased communities onto museum facades, art about identity politics reaches beyond the grave of its naysayers to a much larger public.

As the effects of the one-two punch of multiculturalism and multimedia have saturated the contemporary (art) world, the critics’ and art historians’ overt attempts to label the latest trend, to call out the current or future movement have become more and more futile.

What has happened to the neat, contained “evolution” of Modernism and Postmodernism’s movements that presented, according to our textbooks, a clear trajectory of one movement responding to another: abstract expressionism to social realism, pop to minimalism, performance and conceptualism to most ‘isms’ of the academy, and so on and so on? When the death of painting and its revival, or “traditional” sculpture and time-based art coexist in the same moment, maybe even in the same artist’s oeuvre, what is the future survey to do? Probably implode or just eschew linearity for parallel narratives.

Looking at the scholarship being written about art from the twentieth century, “outing” the complexities of identity of everyone from Clement Greenberg to Thomas Eakins reigns supreme. “Identity scholars,” such as Lucy Lippard, Richard Meyer, Coco Fusco and Griselda Pollock, continue to churn out texts for this aspect of art history. The interest in exploring the motivations of past artists and those of their audiences can only be attributed to the preoccupation of such concerns for today’s art scene.

The collector’s statement is fast becoming as significant as that of the artist. The critics thought they killed identity politics but it never died. Slightly less vocal, and a bit more ironic and subtle than its more belligerent self in the ’80s, it shuffles unrelentingly through the galleries, museums and biennials like a zombie. The ability of many contemporary artists, such as Ellen Gallagher, Kiki Smith, Mona Hatoum, Yinka Shonibare (and many of the Young British Artists) to explore both high formalist and political concerns to their fullest in a single work defies much standard categorization. Many politicized artists of today are also diehard aesthetes. Seduced by their materials, viewers sometimes feel betrayed by their messages. The truth is that work that addresses points of view other than its viewer forces some self-reflection that, well, just isn’t always comfortable.

Our new-fangled, ultra-hip, globalized, twenty-first-century selves would be so relieved if indeed we were “post-identity,” then we could all shop at Banana Republic™ (or Art Chicago™) and be done with it, but it is the very expansion of our diversified experience that compels so many of today’s artists to reassert their individuality and question the essentializing tendencies of the ubiquitous global sound bites. It is the rampant commodification of identity, of things people used to call their own, that will continue to reanimate this discourse among artists of today and of the future.

Ilustration by Russell Gottwaldt

Cinematters

By Eli Ungar May 30, 2004 Arts & Culture

It’s a Jersey Girl!
Kevin Smith goes paternal

By Eli Ungar

The negative reaction to Gigli last year was one of those rare times when our entire culture was in consensus about a film. Critics, viewers, and late-night talk show hosts converged to mock Gigli for its shameless flaunting of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s real-life relationship. In some ways, the reaction was a little bit extreme–the movie had some serious problems, but it wasn’t quite as bad as everyone made it out to be. Nevertheless, the time was ripe for us to rage against the less-than-subtle culture of celebrity that invades our lives on a daily basis. The question in my mind walking into Jersey Girl was: Can Kevin Smith pull off a Bennifer movie in a post-Gigli America?

Jersey Girl has an almost painfully conventional plot. We start with Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck), a successful P.R. representative for a Manhattan firm that deals with celebrities. When his wife Gertrude (Jennifer Lopez) dies in childbirth, Trinke becomes emotionally unstable and he loses his job. He moves in with his father (George Carlin), who lives in New Jersey, where he has to face the challenges of being a single parent and having a less than glamorous occupation. Smith is a director who is famous for not having a visual style, but this did not stop him from carving out a niche in the film world. It all started with Clerks, a $28,000 16 mm film about two convenience store workers. Smith wrote and directed Clerks when he was 24 and though the film was not strong technically, its unique combination of wit and intelligent vulgarity made it an immediate success. In Clerks, we are also introduced to the two characters who are to become Smith’s trademark: “Jay”, the hyper verbose ultra-crass stoner with a heart of gold and “Silent Bob”, the chubby side kick who rarely speaks and is played by Smith himself. Since Clerks, we’ve had four other Jay and Silent Bob films: Mallratz, Chasing Amy (his finest work to date), Dogma (his most controversial work to date), and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (his weakest work to date). In these films, which represent a decade of work, Kevin Smith dared to present a vision that was hilarious, insightful and intelligent, if at times a bit adolescent.

Jersey Girl is Kevin Smith’s first film that doesn’t rely on the Jay and Silent Bob characters. It represents an important career move . For although some critics have argued the case for more Jay and Silent Bob films and many fans may be disappointed, five films is quite enough, and it’s time to see Kevin Smith grow as a filmmaker. Jersey Girl is the first step in a new direction and despite its formulaic plot and a tendency to flirt with sentimentality, it is a sign of good things to come.

When watching Jersey Girl the first pleasant surprise is the quality of the performances. First-time actress Raquel Castro is adorable as Affleck’s daughter, Gertie, who decides that for her school performance, she wants to put on a scene from the Broadway musical Sweeny Todd.

Ben Affleck is in top form as the first slick, then humiliated Ollie Trinke, and Liv Tyler, who plays his love interest, delivers the performance of her career. Her character, Maya, is a Psychology Grad student who works at a local video store. She plays her part with forward charm and deep humanity and she is a pleasure to watch. This is not the first film in which Affleck and Tyler have played love interests. Remember Michael Bay’s Armageddon? To understand how profound the influence of a director can be, compare Affleck and Tyler’s performances in these two films! Rounding it off, we have George Carlin who gives a believable and skillfully understated performance as Affleck’s father.

There are times during Jersey Girl when I felt myself about to cringe, due to the use of slow ballads and other such film clichés. Nevertheless, the performances and sharp dialogue were so good that it was easy to forgive the film its commercial indulgences. Kevin Smith has become an icon of success and he is adored by many film students who wish to succeed, as he did, without sacrificing their artistic or intellectual integrity. Moreover, as he becomes more powerful in the film industry he seems to have the rare decency not to forget where he came from and who helped him along the way. With this combination of humility, talent, and chutzpah, Mr. Smith has beaten the odds and demonstrated that he is a force to be reckoned with. In his DVD release An Evening with Kevin Smith, we are treated to two hours of footage from a lecture tour that Smith took through American University campuses after completing Jay and Silent Bob. It is a riveting set of talks, and one of the aspects of Kevin Smith that emerges is the fact that he has a clear understanding of his own limitations and he is unabashed about admitting to them. On the other hand, it is clear that he also fully appreciates who he is and what he has accomplished. Jersey Girl is a promising prelude to a new era in his career.

Do iraqis have freedom of speech?

By Dani Deahl May 30, 2004 Uncategorized

By Dani Deahl

As Americans we have all grown up with basic tenets that we take for granted. Free exercise of religion, freedom of press, freedom of belief, freedom of speech–all part of our American system that most of us don’t think twice about. But if one of these freedoms were suddenly taken away, what would your reaction be? Perhaps it would be similar to that of the Iraqis.

The Iraqi people found their right to free speech challenged when on March 28, American soldiers shut down the weekly Al Hawza, a Baghdad Shiite newspaper. The occupying forces defended their position, stating that the newspaper had continually printed lies about the American presence, but the official explanation fell on deaf ears. By the time night fell that day, thousands of Iraqis gathered in central Baghdad to rally against the closing. As soldiers rushed to contain the crowds, shouts of “No, no, America!” and “Where is democracy now?” could be heard through the din, and groups were spotted burning the U.S. flag.

Although the June 30 target of handing back sovereignty is only weeks away, Iraqis say that actions such as these make target goals of security and democracy seem that much farther.

“ When you repress the repressed, they only get stronger.” says Hamid Al-Bayati, the spokesman for Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. “Punishing this newspaper will only increase the passion for those who speak out against the Americans.”

But the Americans stand by their decision. Al Hawza has been accused of being an outlet for its leader, Moktada Al-Sadr, a young Shiite cleric who is known for openly being against the United States. There were two articles that were particularly inflammatory, one called “Bremer Follows the Steps of Saddam” (referring to L. Paul Bremer, the top administrator in Iraq). This article singled out the Coalition Provisional Authority, the temporary governing body designated by the United Nations as the lawful government until the June handover. It alleged that the CPA was “implementing a policy of starving the Iraqi public.” The second statement which prompted the shut down was a report in February about an explosion killing more than 50 Iraqi police recruits. It stated that the attack was not a car bomb, as occupation officials stated, but an American missile.

Part of Bremer’s power to shut down the paper derived from a law that passed in the CPA in June stating that news media organizations must be licensed. That license, however, can be revoked if the organization publishes or broadcasts material that incites violence or civil disorder. Since its invocation, the law has been enforced several times. In September of 2003, reporters from two satellite Arab channels, al-Arabiyya and al-Jazeera, were barred from covering official press conferences and from entering official buildings for two weeks. In November of 2003, Al-Arabiyya was banned from broadcasting in Iraq based upon an audiotape believed to be of Saddam Hussein urging the Iraqis to resist occupation. January of 2004 saw Al-Jazzera banned from covering official Iraqi Governing Council [IGC] activities because of a talk show guest who asserted that some IGC members had relations with or visited Israel.

Even though the al Hawza has been told they can re-open in 60 days, editors have stated that they are out of business. Saadoon Mohsen Thamad, the paper’s news editor lamented, “We have been evicted from our offices, and we have no jobs…how are we going to continue?”

The event has also caused a stir among Iraqis who assert that shutting the newspaper down at this time will only serve to increase anti-occupation sentiments. Many say that there was no basis for the closure as the letter outlining the indiscretions did not cite material that directly advocated violence. Even if there were a basis though, “…[the paper] should be free to express its opinion,” asserts Kamal Abdul Karim, the night editor of the daily Azzaman.

Iraqis also fear the future plans of Al-Sadr, since these actions have only served to give him more credibility with the poorer classes. American authorities state they weighed the risks beforehand but, according to Al Elsadr, the media liaison for the American occupation government, “…we basically concluded that we couldn’t afford to wait for another issue to hit the streets.”

Perhaps the Americans felt that the steps they took were the right ones, but when we consider what our troops were supposed to instill in Iraq, do these actions really support their goals? Ali Alyassari, the editor of al Hawza doesn’t believe so. “That chain you see on the door is one of the American symbols of freedom,” he says. “Do you think this is political freedom?”

Illustration by Ted Atzleff

Shattered dreams

By Eli Ungar April 15, 2004 Uncategorized

The Failure of the Peace Process in the Middle East 1995-2002

By Eli Ungar

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a way of forcing even the most reasonable of people to choose sides and consequently ignore certain facts that prove problematic to their point of view. Ever since the second Intifada broke out in September of 2000, the polarization has intensified to the point where it seems impossible to find an accurate account of what is actually going on. How refreshing it is in this culture of extremes to see an attempt to cut through the rhetoric and achieve some sense of old-school journalistic objectivity.

Charles Enderlin does just this in his book Shattered Dreams. Enderlin is the Middle East Bureau Chief for France 2 Television and he has lived in Israel for over a decade. Chronicling the failure of the Oslo Peace Accords from 1995-2002, the story begins with the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. From the start, Enderlin grabs our attention wuth his combination of insightful anecdotes and revealing interviews. The presentation of facts is handled in a way that is engaging without being overbearing and it succeeds in maintaining a sort of rare objectivity that is not detached. The description of Rabin’s assassination, for example, is moving without being sentimental, and, more importantly, its tone doesn’t compromise the integrity of the report. Having lived in Israel during the years described in the first part of the book, I found reading it to be a profoundly educational experience. I have personal memories of Rabin’s funeral in Jerusalem and the events surrounding it, but reading Shattered Dreams took me from my own subjective emotional responses to a more measured understanding of the events.

Yihiah Ayyash, otherwise known as “The Engineer,” was the head of a Hamas Commando unit and had organized a number of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Almost immediately after the Rabin assassination, Israeli Intelligence found him hiding in the Gaza Strip and assassinated him by rigging his cell phone to explode. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets for his funeral. Among these were members of the Palestinian Authority, including Yaseer Arafat himself, offering their condolences to the Engineer’s family. I remember watching this on TV and wondering, for the first time, whether the Palestinian people really wanted peace. For if they did, how could they support such a hate-monger? What I was entirely unaware of at the time, but have subsequently learned from reading this book, is that Israeli Officials were in contact with Palestinian Authority (P.A.) officials prior to the attack and they actually talked to each other about whether or not to go ahead with this planned assassination. In the end, Enderlin tells us that Shimon Peres and his advisers thought that it would be too risky from a political standpoint to forgo the operation, because if Ayyash were able to carry out a suicide bombing before the upcoming elections, Benyamin Netanyahu, the opposition leader, would be able to say that Peres did not acted when he had the chance.

Ayyash assassination was the beginning of a chain of events that would ultimately lead to the end of the Oslo accords. Following the massive funeral, Hamas retaliated in a series of brutal suicide bombings (one of which I myself narrowly escaped) in Jerusalem. Once again, my memory of how things happened is challenged by Enderlin’s broad understanding of the conflict. If I were to narrate the events of the first half of 1996, I would say that Peres lost the election due to the horror of the suicide bombings and the effect they had on Israeli public opinion. Under the circumstances, it made sense for the Israeli public to elect Benyamin Netanyahu who promised the security that they so craved.

This is, in part, true. Immediately following Rabin’s assassination, the Left in Israel was very strong and the suicide bombings did hurt them at the polls. However, it was not this specific bombing alone that lead to Peres’ defeat. The entire Arab-Israeli community, who would have without a doubt voted for Peres, boycotted the elections in protest of the horrible tragedy at Kfar Kana, where around 100 Lebanese civilians died due to the gross negligence of the Israeli Army. The 1996 election was the closest in Israeli history and had the Israeli Arabs voted, Peres could have won.

One of the most astounding and tragic aspects about Enderlin’s account is just how close Barak and Arafat’s negotiation teams had come to actually concluding an agreement. All of the cards were in place: President Clinton, who was on his way out of office, wanted to ensure his place in history as the President who had ended the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Barak’s team was open-minded enough to consider creative solutions to the refugee issue as well as the issue of settlement evacuations. Arafat’s team was beginning to be flexible on many of the core issues as well. So what went wrong?

Shattered Dreams is not a book of interpretative historiography. Enderlin does not tell us what went wrong. He blames neither Arafat nor Barak for the ultimate failure of the peace accords. He shows us how things went wrong and the order in which things occurred. We are presented with the facts and we have to make up our own minds about what happened and why it happened. One of the interesting things that I took away from this book was that it is not always the grand-narrative conflicts that lead to the failure of negotiations. Often times, it is the little things, like unfortunate coincidences of bad circumstance. Prior to reading Shattered Dreams, for example, I was convinced that the issue of the Palestinian refugees would have been the most difficult issue for the Israelis in negotiations. After all, the Right of Return, even in theory, threatens Israel’s raison d’ˆetre —its “Jewish character.” As it turns out, the refugee issue was one of the easiest and least contentious on the table at Camp David. On the other hand, an issue that I would have thought relatively minor, like sovereignty over the Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif, the negotiators on both sides were staunch secular nationalists, turned out to be the biggest issue of all.

Having read the book, I feel that I do have greater insight and a better understanding of how the events transpired, even during the years that I lived in the region. But more significantly, I feel like I can approach this issue once again as a mature adult. It is so rare to find a treatment of the conflict that is not either an exposition on the evils of the Israeli occupation, or a depiction of Palestinian inhumanity, both approaches of which I find to be insulting to my intelligence. The brilliance of this book is that it does not give us easy answers. There is no one person, or party, or ethnicity, or religion that is to blame for the tragedy that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a complex and multifaceted conflict that resists simple explanations.

I know that many people will read this book and find within it a justification for their own partisan politics, be they “pro-Israeli” or “pro-Palestinian.” Nevertheless, Charles Enderlin has not given these people an excuse to do so and for this he is to be congratulated. Shattered Dreams will serve as a bible for any future leader who wishes to end this century-long conflict. Let’s hope that the right people have already read it.

Cinematters

By Eli Ungar April 15, 2004 Arts & Culture

It’s a Jersey Girl! Kevin Smith goes paternal

By Eli Ungar

Fair Play

By Ruba Katrib April 15, 2004 Arts & Culture

Gearing Up for Art Chicago and The Stray Show

By Ruba Katrib

It’s worth the ten dollar student ticket to visit this spring’s Art Chicago 2004, but don’t be surprised if you leave Navy Pier more crazed than amazed by the spectacle. Art Chicago proclaims itself to be “a sophisticated, yet casual, setting in which the anticipated 40,000 collectors, museum curators and general public can purchase the work on display, or merely gain a privileged insight into the contemporary art market’s current state by surveying the thousands of works on view.” But because of the projected 200 galleries in attendance and 3,000 artists, whose work will be up on temporary walls in the 90,000 square foot pier for the duration of the three day fair—unless they sell, of course—patrons can’t help but feel overwhelmed.

However, for some collectors the fair seems to function like shopping at Costco, a one stop-shopping establishment where you can find everything you could ever want in bulk and at somewhat competitive prices. And don’t forget the amazing people-watching opportunities, as the art world and suburban population rub shoulders. The vibe of the art fair combines the chaos of the crowds with the growing boredom of the gallerists, most whom sit at their booths for all three days and attend the after-parties for all three nights.

Art Chicago began in 1992, produced by Thomas Blackman Associates (TBA), and was one of the most exhilarating art events in Chicago. Its twelve-year history has produced some interesting developments, including the four-year-old The Stray Show, another TBA event that runs in tandem with Art Chicago. This year’s The Stray Show features about forty emerging galleries, three non-profit organizations, and four publications.

Don’t panic if some popular staples from previous The Stray Show years are missing—they just made a move up to Art Chicago trying to catch wind of the fair’s frenzy. 1R Gallery (Chicago), Bucket Rider Gallery (Chicago) and Foxy Productions (New York) will now be found on the pier. Because it is still cheaper to get a booth at The Stray Show, expect to see a mixture of compelling, sensational, and sloppy displays representing galleries and organizations from the Midwest, New York, and a few other places in the country.

One new face at both The Stray Show and Art Chicago will be ThreeWalls, a one-year-old non-profit artist residency and exhibition space located in the West Loop’s 119 N. Peoria building. As a staff member of ThreeWalls, I can tell you that one of our primary goals for both events is increased visibility. While for-profit galleries will vie for visibility as well, they are also motivated by the sales that make investing in a booth worth the price. ThreeWalls will not actually sell anything, so our motivations are a little different.

Our booth at Art Chicago will be one of the smaller publication stands and will more closely resemble an information center than an art exhibit. At The Stray Show we will have a larger booth where we will feature the work of our three artists-in-residence from 2004-Daniel Barrow (Winnipeg, Manitoba), Luanne Martineau (Victoria, British Columbia) and David Noonan (Sydney, Australia).

For ThreeWalls, both Art Chicago and The Stray Show are excellent opportunities to reach a large audience and to provide people with information on how to become involved in our programming. The Stray Show will also help promote the work of our featured artists-in-residence and our program itself.

As a staff member of an arts organization in Chicago I realize the importance and benefits of involvement in Art Chicago and The Stray Show—fairs that attempt to bring an international community together for a few crazy days. But I hope that the annual frenzy around these shows does not eclipse the day-to-day work of keeping the Chicago art community reputable and autonomous beyond the fairs.

My First Whitney

By Jenny Gheith Lyz Nagan April 15, 2004 Arts & Culture

Two students decipher the current artistic climate at the 2004 Whitney Biennial

This was our first time at the Whitney Biennial, or any biennial for that matter. Touted as the best in years, it includes 108 of America’s hottest artists. The three curators—Chrissie Iles, Shamim M. Momin, and Debra Singer—spent the last two years mining the art scene for artists who represent the current cultural climate. The curators note in the catalogue introduction that a “significant sea change in contemporary art may be under way” as a result of the economic and political events of the ’90s. As biennial virgins it was difficult to gauge if this is really true. Overall, we were extremely impressed with the range of mediums, originality of approaches, and the curatorial vision.

One of the most noticeable aspects of the show is the attention to materiality and visible traces of the artist’s hand. Painting and drawing dominate most of the show. Barnaby Furnas’s “Hamburger Hill” creates tension between serenity and bloodshed with a violent battle scene set against a light blue backdrop of sea and sky. The whimsical, moonlit world by everyone’s favorite, Laura Owens, demonstrates her incredible talent and for some is the highlight of the show. Typically reluctant to talk about her work, the L.A.-based artist refused to let the curators view her new work prior to installation. Other notable painters are Cecily Brown, Fred Tomaselli, Amy Cutler, Julie Mehretu, and Laylah Ali. Some disappointments are the California cool, uninspired interiors and portraits by David Hockney and the much talked about portraits by Elizabeth Peyton.

Carefully rendered drawings are in full force this year. The ink drawings by Ernesto Caivano remind the viewer of the sensationalist possibilities of superb craftsmanship. The bizarre skyscapes intricately depict birds and trees, but are removed from any recognizable world. Headless, masturbating women are the subject of Chloe Piene’s charcoal drawings. The roughly outlined figures are at once confrontational and self-absorbed. Two large charcoal drawings by Robert Longo dominate the small gallery they occupy. In his typical fashion, they are well crafted and wonderfully attentive, yet just that. Other highlights include Zak Smith’s tiny obsessive illustrations and Robyn O’Neil’s sparsely populated, flattened landscape. On the weaker side are the drawings by Sam Durant that recapture the tumultuous atmosphere of the 1960s.

The installation work at the Whitney Biennial is flashy, both literally and conceptually, and ranges from overwhelming to visually absent. The psychedelic gesamtkunstwerke by Assume Vivid Astro Focus overloads the senses with floor to ceiling pop-inspired images, flashing lights, and electronic beats. In the same vein is the mirrored environment of Yayoi Kusama. Initial interest is peaked by the long line of people waiting to be let into the room while a guard mans the door and dictates the time each viewer spends inside. Once inside, the enveloping reflective space disorients the viewer, as hanging colored lights and a three-sided, shallow pool of water isolate and immobilize. Another all-encompassing, yet less effective, installation is Virgil Marti’s distorting “Grow Room.” Medium-sized mirrors placed in tile-like fashion and painted with floral patterns create an overtly decorative version of a typical grow room. Fans of Maurizio Cattelan will laugh at his literally invisible work, which remains buried somewhere on the second floor. Katie Grinnan’s “Dream Catcher” rounds out the must-see sculptural installations.

Two of the most memorable works from the show are the video pieces by Chloe Piene and Eve Sussman. Situated so that the crowd was forced to go through it, “Black Mouth” by Piene is confrontational and hypnotic. Shown in complete darkness, the giant screen shows a muddy, teenage girl frontally lit in a nocturnal environment. In slow motion she thrashes — her hair and limbs flying around — accompanied by the roaring of a lion. The tension builds as the viewer tries to decipher the emotional motivation of her actions. Is she laughing? Is she hurt? Is she pantomiming a lion? The filmatic interpretation of “Las Meninas” by Sussman imagines the events leading up to, including and immediately following the infamous scene captured by Velasquez. Cinemat-ically beautiful and intellectually intriguing, “89 Seconds at Alcázar” does not answer any questions about the relational dynamics, but offers a fantastic painting in motion. Although her photographs are typically multi-layered, Sharon Lockhart’s projected film “No” is boring and seemingly uninspired. Aïda Ruilova’s choppy videos are irritatingly aggressive.

The ven diagram model proposed by the curatorial team succeeded in illuminating the overlapping themes and issues raised in contemporary art. One problem was the overwhelming presence of the two cultural capitals. Of the 108 artists, 80 are based in New York or Los Angeles, leaving only one-fourth of the artists to represent the rest of the country. This throws into question the current status of the art world. Can one be a celebrated, contemporary artist and not work in New York or L.A.? How can one find out what is happening in other parts of the country? Despite this criticism, this year’s Whitney Biennial is a fantastic collection of work displaying the current and vibrant artistic activity.

Art students take on the working world

By S. Amada April 15, 2004 Uncategorized

How some SAIC graduates are seizing their futures with both hands

By S. Amada

The end of the spring term is fast approaching and, for some of us, that means it’s time to find a summer job. For those who are graduating it could mean it’s time to find a this-could-be-for-the-rest-of-my-life job. At universities and colleges across the country students are graduating, job hunting and getting jobs. Is it any different for students at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago? Does being an artist make this process inherently different? If it does make it different perhaps it is in the nature of being a creative person. Many SAIC graduates will want to continue to create their artwork and many won’t settle or feel comfortable with a nine to five corporate job.

The good news is that when you have the ability to be creative in your artwork, you have the ability to be creative in structuring your life. It is possible to use your creativity to make a work-life that supports you in all the ways you choose. Some graduates will go the route of finding a job that supports them financially, yet still fits into their personal aesthetic and allows time for pursuing their own creative endeavors. Yvonne Dutchover is graduating from the MFA Writing program this spring and has already secured a job as a grant writer at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum. “I knew I wanted to do something with writing, and by working for an arts and cultural institution as a grant writer, I use my skills but also support an organization I believe in. I would say to students to try to find a “day job” that pays the bills, but also gives you some satisfaction since that’s where you spend most of your day. Grant writing is perfect for me because I write and edit, which keeps me sharp, but it isn’t so exhausting that I don’t have the time or energy for my own work. It’s also interdisciplinary, with visual arts, performing arts, educational programs, etc., so it’s interesting and fun to work there.”

Outside of her “day job,” Dutchover’s goal for her first year or two after graduation is to continue working on and finish writing her novel. It is fortunate that she has found a job that affords her the energy to put time into doing this, but even so she is planning to apply to short-term artist’s residency programs. “I am able to write sections of the novel while also working full time, but a couple of weeks or a month of uninterrupted time to work on my book would be a big boost in helping me finish.”

Odie Lindsey is also graduating from SAIC’s MFA Writing program this spring. While he says he plans to get a job, it is out of the necessity to generate income. “I’d like to teach, but jobs are insanely not-there for recent MFA’s. Too bad SAIC, being so culturally-forward, doesn’t offer more residency-type opportunities. Can you imagine what could be done if as much creative energy was put towards cultivating the work of just-graduating students [as] enrollment?” This desire to continue the opportunity to be in such a supportive environment as SAIC is born out of his previous experiences in the work day world. “I worked in music forever, which was worse than working in insurance—no matter how cool the clients were.” He adds, “May you artists and writers never have to work to promote someone else’s creative efforts—save in academia. There is no such thing as a day job without compromise, no matter how hard you try and justify it to yourself. Thus, please compromise on your own time, your own dime. Sell insurance, not yourself.”

While you’re still at SAIC, though, Lindsey advises, “take advantage…It’s a great forum for people to come together and present work: written, visual, other, all, etc.” Again, Lindsey is speaking from experience here. During his stay at SAIC Lindsey was one of the founding members of Telophase, a publication that organizes shows and performances. The publication was spawned out of the writing department by the hard work of a few individuals, a supportive faculty, and collaboration from many different artists. “The big difference between this and so many other potential arts-groups is that as opposed to just talking, we actually went out, found a space, worked the space, sent press releases, posted things at SAIC, edited submissions, put a book together, held a show, etc…it was certainly an amazing learning experience, alongside a great feeling of accomplishment.” Telophase has grown from focusing on SAIC’s writing department to reaching out to other artists and departments at SAIC. Now, there are current submissions are coming in from all across the country.

When Lindsey talks of his experiences with Telophase a theme emerges— much of the experience of being at SAIC comes from collaborative projects. “For me, it’s about the romance of working together…We [the co-founders] are all fairly different individuals, and the idea that our brains can come together to fight, fuck, live, breathe…create and melt into each other is the most rewarding part.” He goes on to add, though, that while “the business stuff, the press, etc., is all secondary. It’s a pain, but it’s also a reality. In fact, overall, the most important things might be the ‘un-fun’ elements: planning, press, marketing, binding, cleaning toilets at the space, meeting, making excuses, etc.” Given how important these elements are to making something like Telophase successful, Lindsey is concerned that “most of us aren’t given the opportunity to experience and learn about this while in school.” He’d like to see this practical side emphasized a bit more by the administration at SAIC.

Other SAIC graduates also have managed to find their own ways to learn these business skills and bring them into the work they do post graduation. Shannon Stratton (MFA Fiber and Material Studies; 2003), Sonia Yoon (MFA Sculpture; 2002), and Jeff Ward (MFA Sculpture; 2002) all work at Three Walls Gallery (www.three-walls.org) which is a not-for-profit artist-in-residency and art center in Chicago. All of them had some sort of arts administration or management experience before coming to Three Walls where each of them is currently an unpaid director. Both Stratton and Yoon gained management experience while at SAIC by working as gallery managers of 1926. Each of them also worked on other projects before coming to Three Walls. Ward began The Pond, a curating collective and exhibition site, with his classmates David Coyle (MFA Painting and Drawing, 2002), Pete Fagundo (MFA Painting and Drawing, 2003), and Howard Fonda (MFA Painting and Drawing; 2001). Ward explains: “My transition from student-hood to civilian life was largely already made through The Pond. That project was started while I was still in school to advance a conversation wherein art and artists’ practice was seen to be both an inherently noble and valuable contributor to culture and worthy of rigorous critique and loyal championing. Taking a position at Three Walls, I spied a similar fidelity to art as well as a forum to continue the kind of work I had been doing in an also worthwhile and more community-oriented venue.”

While each of them still has to find other ways to support themselves financially, Yoon says: “I earn my living using self-taught skills to do what I have been privileged to gain from going to art schools. Each, however, mutually generate skills and motivation for the other…Some of us still produce our own artwork. Although challenging, we manage to succeed in presenting our work frequently through other venues.” When asked for advice Ward says, “I find I am loathe to give practical advice…My only real sage-like wisdom would be to find a Team: Everyone should get together with some people with whom they think they can make something work and set about doing it. The most difficult thing I found after school was finding an indicator for success. Teammates can help one another arbitrate the merits of an undertaking.”

Yoon adds, “I believe with certainty that individuals are naturally drawn to each other to do things, share vision and converge endeavors. While I enthusiastically advocate teamwork, I also know that some tend to excel or manage to patch a path on their own. People seem quite clearly either to know or not know what route to take or what their dream job could be. There are valuable seeds to germinate for those not yet made aware of what they are drawn toward. I feel the best decisions that I have made were those that put me in proximity with trusted others.”

And about those business skills? Ward says they’ll come. “In my life, I have found that academic studio study is just as much training in creative problem solving as it is learning the techniques and history of crafting art objects and actions. Artists are, I believe, among the wiliest, willful and adaptive of people. In as much as this is true, the business skills come.” Some SAIC graduates have even found enjoyment in developing their business skills. Marc LeBlanc, BFA, sculpture, 2003, co-creator of 1R Gallery (www.1rgallery.com) in Chicago says, “I have found that I love business as much as I love art…I still make my own work, I’ve created a balance. My luck is twofold in this regard, I make work about experience in an art community and my work is not incredibly labor-intensive. The majority of my time is for the gallery, promoting artists and working with Van [Harrison, co-director of 1R Gallery] to insure that it will all bear fruit. Running the business has certainly changed how I view art and create it however, it has not altered my ability to create and exhibit.”

1R Gallery had their first opening in November 2001 and already it is a self-sufficient business. LeBlanc notes, “Speaking as a business, we are extremely young and this is quite a feat. However, there is always room for financial growth. Choosing to do my (our) own thing has its great benefits and its awful downfalls. We make our own hours, we are the decision makers, I only answer to the IRS. Things like that. However, there are no promises, if it all comes crashing down, well you can see the pressure I’m sure.” One of the things that has helped insure the success of this and many other successful businesses is the willingness to make a plan and do the daily work. LeBlanc’s advice is “Research, plan, make sure you realize all the implications of running a business, the demands and setbacks.”

Certainly not all artists who are out there carving their own path like having to handle the business side of their ventures, but they do it anyway. Idris Goodwin, MFA Writing 2003, playwright and hip-hop artist and co-founder, artistic director, and board president of the not-for-profit Hermit Arts (www.hermitsite.com) says, “I am very much a believer in the D.I.Y.D.S. (do-it-your-damn-self) approach. Most of the film makers and musicians and artists I admire all started out with self-financed product until someone took notice. I think this approach is best because it allows for the artist to perfect their craft and grow…I would much rather have someone else running the business…Eventually I’d like to be chilling out, drinking wine on the porch, and painting bad portraits of my wife. For now I just want to do my work, my way, outside of LA or New York, which means I gotta work harder than they do. It means I have to press my fingers in a lot of different soil. It means I need to attain new skills quickly. It means I need to work with others to create an infrastructure to make sure my work gets completed and promoted properly…It goes back to personal goals. What am I doing? How am I gonna do it? And when one plan fails I devise another one. I make about 100 mistakes a week, but I try to learn from all of them.”

Goodwin also emphasizes the importance of the connections made while at SAIC. “All the significant things I’ve accomplished have been the result of personal connections, but many of those personal connections came through the creation or presentation of my work.” And what are those accomplishments? “Most significantly I won a 2004-2005 NEA and Theater Communications Group playwrighting residency grant allowing me to develop a script for Freestreet Theater. I finished a full length album with my hip hop group Farm Crew called Some Other Now. We got it in to some stores here [in Chicago] thanks to a small label we signed with called Naivete Records started by an SAIC student, Emily Evans. With Emily we put together a compilation of Chicago Spoken Word Artists called New Skool Poetics. It’s a mix of teenagers, twentysomethings, and grown-ups. It’s 24 tracks: some live recordings and [some] studio recordings accentuated with musical accompaniment. Beau O’Reilly [playwrighting teacher in the writing department]…introduced me to the world of D.I.Y.D.S. theater. While at SAIC I put up three plays [one at Curious Theater Branch, O’Reilly’s theater in Roger’s Park] and after I graduated I figured…’why stop?’” And he hasn’t. Check out Goodwin’s current plays at www.hermitsite.com or his CDs at www.naiveterecords.com.

So, in closing, know what you want, and go for it, but be realistic about it. Start now, whether you’re a first year student or graduating, get out, meet people, get your work out there anyway you can. Get a day job if that’s your style but don’t forget to make time for your art. Or blaze your own trail, alone or with a team, and either figure out the business stuff or partner with someone who can. And despite saying he doesn’t give advice Ward says, “Ask questions. Dream magnanimously. [And develop a] humble ego.”

Young artists getting serious

By Amber Smock April 15, 2004 Uncategorized

By Amber Smock

If you were a creatively talented teenager in the Renaissance, the first step to becoming a successful artist was to serve as an apprentice to a master artist. Michelangelo Buonarroti, at the age of thirteen, obtained an apprenticeship with the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio. At fifteen, Leonardo da Vinci became an apprentice to Andrea del Verrochio.

Today, many young artists are still serious about art, but today’s framework for youth art is shaped largely by our laws and social values. We now have child labor laws, public school systems and social beliefs that value childhood. Yet as kids get older, they leave behind the colorful classrooms of elementary school for the more “serious” environments of junior high and high school. Whether they pursue their artistic inclinations or not depends on a number of factors.

As SAIC Arts Education professor Drea Howenstein points out, art education models vary wildly from school to school, from community organization to community organization. Teachers help students realize their artistic potential at the individual level. Jorge Lucero, a SAIC alum who teaches art at Northside College Prep, points out that “high school art needs to stop being an intermediary between being a student and becoming a ‘real’ artist. Learning skills and finding a voice can coexist and don’t have to follow each other.”

In Chicago, as in other major cities, it hurts to consider the sheer volume of issues schools must negotiate: neighborhood isolation, the need for diversity sensitivity, teacher burnout, student dropout, immigrant/refugee adjustment, teen health, gangs, drugs, and more. Still, many Chicago youth who want to make art do make it, do find art mentors, and do go on to college to study an art-related field. As well, many young people who usually wouldn’t think twice about art are getting a chance to open their minds.

Magnet schools

As one option, Chicago offers magnet schools for students interested in “majoring” in a particular course of study, such as art. Students must apply and be accepted to enroll. They come from all over the city. Lane Tech High School, a magnet school and one of the largest Chicago schools with an enrollment of nearly five thousand, offers the most extensive arts-focused curriculum in the Chicago Public School District.

At Lane Tech, the art department has seven art teachers and architecture classes taught through the technology department. The classes taught include painting, photography, computer design, and graphic design. Amy Moore, Lane Tech’s ceramics teacher, acknowledges that working in the public schools can be “enormously difficult.” Regardless, she adds, “Art is a subject that is highly regarded and supported by administration and staff, which makes the art teachers and students very happy.”

Magnet schools that focus on other subjects can still offer excellent arts opportunities. For the past four years, Jorge Lucero has taught art at the selective Northside College Prep, which focuses on tech skills. Lucero and his colleagues offer students the opportunity to investigate art as an alternative path. As a result, Northside Prep students often take up to four art classes a year. The school also offers a senior project program that allows students to develop a full-year art project under the guidance of a mentor. Lucero currently mentors a poet and a sculptor.

The Northside Prep art department also extends its offerings by collaborating with community arts organizations such as Chicago Arts Partnership in Education (CAPE), Transcultural Exchange and Performing Arts Chicago, through whom the school has formed an ongoing partnership with the performance groups Goat Island and Lucky Pierre. In addition, Northside offers after school art clubs, so kids can spend even more time being creative than their peers at other schools.Public schools

For students who don’t attend a magnet school, what sorts of arts opportunities can they expect? While there are 83 high schools in the district, take a look at, for example, Amundsen High School in Andersonville. Its Chicago Public Schools profile notes that as of 2003, Amundsen enrolls about 1,500 students, 90.4 percent of whom come from low-income families. Teacher Janet Fennerty notes that its most recent rate of graduation is 51 percent. The majority of the students live in areas outside of the gentrifying Andersonville neighborhood, and Amundsen has an active gang presence.

Students speak over 40 languages, with 18.6 percent having been identified as having limited English skills. To better serve the diverse educational needs of the students, seven years ago Fennerty helped start Global Village, a school-within-the-school. Incoming freshmen are selected randomly for Global Village classes, whose teachers work together to integrate the curriculum. Students stay together through each grade, providing a better opportunity to know one another and learn to break cultural barriers. The administration has lately dispersed Global Village juniors and seniors through regular classes, somewhat dissipating the original full integration. Still, 62 percent of Global Village students graduate.

Global Village students work on art projects for 45 minutes a day, and community partnerships, as at Northside, boost their range of artistic opportunity. Once a week, Drea Howenstein brings in her art education students from SAIC, who develop ongoing projects with the kids. Last semester, they worked on an environmental/art project called “I Am Nature,” which culminated in a show at 1926 N. Halsted. This semester, they’re focusing on the theme “I Am,”which lets the high school students tell about their families and cultures. “I Am” is opening at the Hot House gallery on April 30.

Though Fennerty notes that a few Global Village students have taken art very seriously, going on to pursue art-related majors at college, but for the majority of the students art is just part of school. Or is it? Art lets kids share their uniqueness, their emotions, and their sensitivity to the world around them.

Nationwide, opportunities for kids in the arts are particularly uneven. President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 promises money for arts education as a “core academic subject,” but the arts haven’t seen any funds. Instead, the Act’s most striking effect has been to create public school environments where every step a teacher takes is made with the standardized “ability” tests in mind. Integrating the arts into the classroom is still desirable, still mandated, but teachers’ necessary freedom of mind is being slowly throttled.

Community organizations

Besides working at Lane Tech, Amy Moore also teaches at Marwen, an exceptional community organization in River North that provides free art classes to underserved Chicago youth, grades 6-12. At Marwen, all supplies are free. There is a library, a career center, spacious studios, and when you enter the main lobby, you’ll find yourself in a warehouse-style gallery as hip as any big-name gallery in the area. Students can take up to two classes a semester, classes being on average two hours long.

Students who go to Marwen have a strong interest in becoming artists, and Marwen caters to their seriousness by providing career advice, school trips, and even a career development class. Classes are taught primarily by professional visual artists, who tend to set high standards in the classes. Though serious, within the studios, the kids are free to experiment along with other experimental artists.

This past winter semester, Moore taught “3-D Me,” a ceramics class that taught students to make life-sized busts of themselves. Other classes offered included Maria Gaspar’s “Art in a Box,” Benjamin Jaffe’s “Digital Developing” and Darrell K. Roberts’ “Drawing Studio.” Guillermo Delgado taught “The Human Form: Advanced Mixed Media,” a figure-drawing class concentrating on the nude human form, which requires parental permission.

The winter semester classes held the opening of their art exhibit at the beginning of April, and the most captivating sight, beyond the school-open-house/professional-art-opening mood, was to see the moments when students would drag a parent up to a painting or drawing or sculpture, only to say, “That’s mine!” at which the parent would whip out a camera, or smile with only half-hidden pride.

Delgado, the figure drawing teacher, kept arranging students in front of their drawing for photographs. He explained later that the students in his class arrive “hungry for an intense experience,” which he tries to provide through the figure drawing sessions. Besides helping them to build their portfolio, Delgado believes teaching figure drawing helps the kids learn respect for the human body. It’s hard to imagine a class like this getting a green flag in the public schools.

Cyd Engel, Marwen’s Director of Education, points out that Chicago community art organizations do not face the same stress of testing standards that public school teachers face. Marwen serves kids from 58 zip codes and is much more like a school than an after-school group. It also offers professional development art classes to teachers, for a fee.

Eighty-five percent of Marwen students go on to college, many to art schools like SAIC and the Rhode Island School of Design. Many go to UIC. Alumni often continue to be involved at Marwen, which offers many their first opportunities for a one-man show. The same night as the winter semester opening, a group of alumni held a show on the second floor of works two feet by two feet in size.

Throughout Chicago, other organizations also serve the needs of youth artists: from Street-Level Youth Media in the Ukrainian Village to Little Black Pearl on the South Side, from umbrella organizations like Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education to institutions like the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum. Art opportunities in Chicago communities have vastly improved over the years, according to Delgado, but the thing with young artists is there’s a new crop every year, which means new connections to be made.

Art educators

Art educators, as mentioned, come in many stripes. Marcy Sperry, a graduate student in the Art Education department at SAIC, points out that many art ed students want to teach in community organizations or museums or alternative education settings, not just schools. In addition, many of the art teachers now involved in art education never thought they would be teachers. For most, it’s a matter of connecting with and helping people.

For instance, Amy Moore says, “Did I always want to be an art teacher? No way! Teaching to me is more important than art in the sense that I would rather teach math than work at an art gallery.” Jorge Lucero of Northside Prep remarks, “I never intended to be a teacher but the meaning of my name, which is the Spanish version of the English George, is farmer, one who plants seeds.”

For some, it’s about community: Delgado says that as a kid, he constantly looked for ways to bring people together. At one point he wanted to be a magician; at another, he wanted to be a priest. Today he is neither, but when a teacher first asked him to come to speak in front of a classroom about his art, he discovered that he loved bringing art into kids’ lives.

With so many opportunities, it’s tempting to streamline them into a single art standard for everyone, but this would cause the youth art scene to lose some of its vitality. The urban landscape creates so many school situations, and there are so many students, that the very diversity is a strength. Plus, there will always be students who don’t want to make art, and there will be students who really, really, really want to.

Even back when Michelangelo at thirteen signed up as Ghirlandaio’s apprentice, he did it because he really wanted to: he defied his father, who was horrified. And yet he was, even then, a great artist. Today, art opportunities for young people are multiplying, and still making art is just about making art. It’s about the individual. Five hundred years after Buonarroti senior tried to stop his son from learning more about art, art classes thrive, even on budgets of zero, even in the worst neighborhoods. Through art and the people who teach art, young people continue to leap barriers: cultural, educational, and personal.

F zine/p>
Remember back in junior high and high school when you were just a kid who liked art? How often did you get to make art in school? Did you know any other young artists? Did you know any adults who made art for a living?

Lots of young people take art seriously, but very few opportunities exist to participate in an art community that extends beyond the boundary of school. For many, college is their first chance to be part of a community making art. Yet if a young person has talent, why shouldn’t he or she develop it right now?

Part of being an artist, particularly at SAIC, is helping to revitalize the art community. That includes reaching out to young artists in the schools. Every day, dozens of SAIC students, faculty and alumni work with young people in art classes and workshops all over the city and beyond.

As part of our own commitment to the art community, F News is proud to announce the development of Fzine.com, our new online division devoted to covering news about young artists and their teachers. We will be featuring profiles of youth artists and the people who work with them, as well as offering career advice, art resources, a calendar and an art gallery.

Fzine.com’s main goal is to serve as a news site where any young artist from any school and any walk of life can see what other artists their age are doing. In addition, Fzine.com will offer perspectives on what it is like to study for an art degree and go on to work in an art-related career. In addition, art teachers will be able to use Fzine.com to network and evaluate practices in other schools.

When you visit F News this spring at www.fnewsmagazine, take a moment to check out Fzine.com, www.fzine.com, to see how we’re coming along.

Freelancers, please note: Fzine.com desperately needs writers, artists and computer wizards who would be interested in helping to develop this website, particularly over the summer. If you would like to learn more, or you know someone who works with youth artists, please contact Amber Smock at [email protected].

The art of nation branding

By Caroline Keem Marine Bouvier Jennifer Pincus April 15, 2004 Arts & Culture

Introduction by Caroline Keem

Think of a country where you grew up or where you’ve spent a lot of time. Now, take your associations of that place and try focusing all that experience into a cultural package that would introduce and make this country memorable to someone who has never been there. Countries like Spain, Germany, Britain and Kosovo are doing just this type of thing to “brand” their nation. Ad agencies are now hired not only by corporations but also by countries hoping to re-package and re-present themselves with a refreshed, refocused, magnetic national brand.

When done well, nation branding can accentuate collective truths about a country and attract the interests of a potential foreign investor or tourist. Branding can allow a nation torn by recent political strife to undergo a collective search for identity and self-determination to refresh its outlook. But, there are also voices contending that when something as diverse and complex as a country gets “branded,” somebody is going to get burned by stereotyping and oversimplification.

In Maud Lavin’s Graduate Visual Communications Seminar this semester, we focused on branding as one of the core issues of design and began to specifically discuss this idea of branding nations. This led to a series of writings that touch on the value and validity of nation branding and how this will impact the responsibilities and roles of future designers in the cultural marketplace.

What follows are excerpts expressing varying opinions on this subject. Jennifer Pincus compares the role and weight of the national brand to that of the corporate brand and presents ideas on how much branding is already a part of the public thought construct and must be worked with, not avoided, by nations. Marine Bouvier takes on the issue of nation branding as a means of controlled stereotyping using the example of recent French attempts to re-brand themselves to the American tourist. Yi-Nung Chou takes us on a fantasy journey through nostalgia for the future and the possibility of playing with the consumer’s sense of time and historic association to re-brand a personal identity.

Nation branding? Or stereotyping?

By Marine Bouvier

Otherwise known as “frogs,” the French are usually depicted as men with curly moustaches, on bicycles, wearing “funny hats” or berets, with a baguette in one hand, and a glass of red wine in the other. This is a stereotype: “a conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion or image.” It appears usually in three major forms: incomplete information, simplification and generalization. How, then, does stereotyping relate to the practice of nation branding?

In a worldwide market, countries compete against one another for tourism, investments, presence in elite groups, and buyers for their exports and services. Due to globalization, countries are trying to be as easily recognizable as major branded products, using the same tools, and to have a simple, clear, and direct national identity. But a country is a complex entity (not a product) with a history, a culture and tradition as well as a government, an economy, political and public figures, international relations, and social services. In using product-marketing tools, a country communicates a direct and simple image, but in doing so promotes only incomplete information.

Since 1984, France has created a brand and a logo that present a modern country, a place of beauty that welcomes travelers and that stands for quality. This brand has been the subject of a study realized in 2000 by the Système d’information géographique which established that France “has a strong image with a good potential, but this image has been subjected to a reductive logic that doesn’t correspond fully to the truth.” Even though this study emphasizes the success of the brand itself, it still recognizes that by reducing the notion that is France to a logotype and a series of images, there is a danger of losing the country’s real meaning. By applying the tools used by major products (simpler entities than a nation!), nation branding summarizes a complex entity, often to the point of distorting the truth. It is like creating a stereotype: it promotes only incomplete information. However, instead of acknowledging this initial mistake, France is now working to make this brand stronger. Its goal for 2004 is to extend the brand to all aspects of the country, not just tourism.

In order to promote a successful identity a country has to express an image of conformity. All of its parts, from tourism to political relations, have to work together to promote the same clear representation. Following recent political disagreements between France and the United States concerning Iraq, a web survey was conducted that confirmed a change in American public opinion on France. Close to 40 percent of Americans who had arranged future trips to the country changed their plans, 66 percent of them expressed the fear of “not being welcomed.”As a direct response to this, the French Ministry of Tourism created an advertising campaign: “Let’s Fall in Love Again,” which consisted of short films and promotional travel packages presented in fifteen U.S. cities from June 2003 to March 2004. The films were a series of testimonies of Americans who love France done by public figures such as a New York firefighter, jazz player Wynton Marsalis, movie superstar Robert DeNiro, and director Woody Allen. The campaign went so far as to create a contest with a prize: a dream vacation for two at the Chˆateau de la Bourdaisière, where the reality TV show “Joe Millionaire” had been filmed. To further this effort, and to prove to Americans that they are welcome in France, a series of personalized advertisements were published in major U.S. newspapers such as The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune. The advertisements told of returning American visitors who had experienced no hostility in France. Even though France made all of these efforts, it still suffered a decline in American tourism of approximately 13 percent in 2003. It is only upon an amelioration of public relations between France and the U.S. that France will once again be a destination of choice for American travelers. Nation branding creates a simple view of a country by implying that all of its parts have to reflect the same image. Nation branding, like stereotyping, is a simplification of the country.

I have established that stereotyping and nation branding are the same in the way they are created, but their results differ. A stereotype is often a negative image, while nation branding is a positive one. In the case of France, a stereotype is that French are “cheese-eating surrender monkeys,” while its national brand promotes a welcoming modern country that stands for quality. This is due to the origin of the representations. A stereotype is often created by people outside the group it concerns and is a criticism of that group. On the other hand, nation branding comes from within the country in trying to control its own representation in the global market. Its purpose is commercial: it promotes the country itself and in doing so, creates a positive image. We can therefore understand nation branding as a stereotype because it is created in the same way, but this stereotype is nevertheless a positive and controlled one.

Pro-Nation Branding

By Jennifer Pincus

We are constantly absorbing new images whose aim is to lock a brand into the farthest reaches of our mind. The concept of branding is not something new or unusual when it comes to products or companies. Its goal is to sell. However, when we talk about branding a nation, it seems the topic becomes different and more controversial. Other factors suddenly enter into the equation and the idea of comparison (corporate branding versus national branding) is, some argue, inappropriate.

But why shouldn’t we model national branding strategies more closely after those of corporate branding? The most successful companies are those whose brand is remembered. Why shouldn’t the same idea hold true for a nation that must compete in the global marketplace? To position itself in the marketplace, a nation must have some amount of recognition in the mind of their intended audience. A logical approach to achieve this is to create a brand that accentuates the critical attributes of the nation that will set it apart from the rest.

Allen Adamson writes in his article, titled “What’s your brands job?” published in Advertising Age, that “the brand is the essence of a company itself. Corporate brands have one of two roles: They either stand for ‘authority’ or for ‘assurance.’” A brand that is known to be the best in its category, without question is the leader of the industry and has the role of authority. When we think about such a branded company, we don’t question its ability to stand apart from its competition. (Think of copy products and Xerox comes to mind, think of fine leather handbags, Italy is a leader.) Italy is a country that has positioned itself as the authority on design of luxury consumer products. We consider such products imported from Italy to have a certain elegance about them, no finer exists.

Tourist web sites such as nationmaster.com, kasbah.com and visiteurope.com promote Italy as a nation that can provide everything that anyone could ever desire. Whether it be fine art, sports, cuisine, historic architecture, or music, all of this embodies the (advertised) spirit of Italy. This packaging of attributes, this branding campaign, is vital for establishing and maintaining an identity that reflects the key aspects of a nation. Nation branding is not restricted to tourism pitches but includes cultural efforts which can range from touring symphonies internationally to teaching English in schools. In the U.S., we have become a culture so accustomed to the idea of branding that we don’t realize how integral a part it plays on so many different levels. In fact, branding has become an unspoken mandate for corporate and cultural entities who want to matter. It is precisely because of this that we shouldn’t be afraid to develop nation branding models as we do with corporate brands.

Branding for future nostalgia

By Yi-Nung Chou

Design is not only for selling, but also can be used to imagine and build an ideal future. For me, a brand is a dream, and this dream is based on the real world-and more. The most wonderful thing is that I can make my dreams come true through consuming some specific brand. Women like me who can’t pay for a pair of Prada shoes, buy Häagen-Dazs. Brands have the power to make a poor girl become a princess. And this is branding’s important power—the power of fantasy.

In the present, all of us dream of the future and for nostalgia at the same time. Time and brand hold the same power-fantasy. We can see a brand through design, advertisements…but we can’t see time. We can own a personal, private time (a memory or a dream), but it is hard to own a personal brand. So, how about branding time?
Computer game Yi-Nung 2004

The main character Yi-Nung (nickname Eno), is an Asian girl born in the year 1982 (I was born in 1977). Eno is super pretty and talented (really?). At least she is dressed well (not wearing a “Chicago” T-shirt bought from Walgreens), and always wearing make up. She has a lot of decorations on her body, all of them representing the year 2004 fashion design. People who play the character Eno, must find her best friends, Mariya and Ai. They will help Eno with her language problem. Eno must visit all the galleries in Chicago, take the CTA to buy art supplies and not get lost, use English for class discussions, visit the Field Museum, know where American Girl Place is, not miss any deadlines. They must complete all these tasks or they will fail the game. Through this game, people will enjoy Chicago 2004. The food that Eno eats is famous in Chicago like thick stuffed pizza, not McDonalds. The place Eno shops is Marshall Field’s, not Walgreens and Jewel. SAIC’s buildings become beautiful and huge, and the Chicago CTA is clean. People on the streets are all dressed in Gucci, LV, YSL. Eno’s friends talk about art all the time, they do not say, “Oh, I am poor, I need to get some money.” Eno’s favorite drinks, Eno’s favorite snacks . . . all are specially designed. And all the objects in the game are for sale in the real world. So everybody can imagine that she is Eno.

There is an area named “Tamsui” in Taiwan which is famous for selling “history.” It retains some historic architecture—some built by the Dutch, some by the Japanese. In Tamsui, you can see weird scenery like McDonalds neighboring an antique Dutch building. Together these scenes compose the Fake and Fabulous Taiwanese Dream. Branding time needs skills. Because time is also involved in cross-cultural design, we dream our past life and others at the same time. Both of them make each other more elaborate. That is why I tried to beautify some elements of my computer game. But not every detail, I also kept some reality at the same time. So people can easily follow me to look through time with a smile. I am excited about branding because I can immerse myself in a dream bridging real and surreal worlds. And I am always satisfied after I wake up from this dream.

My theory is when we design a brand, we must think about what will be left after time. Consumers treasure moments of happiness, so a brand should include tiny elements that make people smile. For me, one might be a food coupon, for you, maybe football. However, all of these things compose “now,” and after 30 years, all will be deformed, beautified, and an element of our nostalgia.

Empty and Lost

Illustration by Jenjen Tobias

Facing the monster of identity politics

Ilustration by Russell Gottwaldt

It’s a Jersey Girl! Kevin Smith goes paternal

Illustration by Ted Atzleff

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It’s a Jersey Girl!
Kevin Smith goes paternal