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rschristian · 8 years ago

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We Want a Revolution: Black Women Artists at the Brooklyn Museum On Artefuse (August 2017)

Lorraine O’Grady smiles and struts down a dimly lit hallway in a long white evening gown, tiara, and silken sash reading “MLLE BOURGEOISE NOIRE” across her torso. The year is 1980, and O’Grady is enacting her first and arguably most famous performance piece, named after the titular character. With her pageantry, pleasant manner, and seemingly elegant dress, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire appears to be a beacon of congeniality and beauty – an effect used to mask her true critique.

Wearing a costume made of 180 pairs of white gloves, procured from various Manhattan thrift shops, and carrying a white cat o’ nine tails made of sailing rope from a seaport store and studded with white chrysanthemums, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire (Miss Black Middle-Class) invaded art openings, both literally and figuratively disrupting the segregation of the art world. With its layers of long white gloves, O’Grady’s dress resembles a kind of medieval armor and perhaps functioned in a similar way. With one component of her costume being used to make the ensemble whole, O’Grady created something like a physical synecdoche.

The construction of Ms. O’Grady’s dress and the relationship between her materials and her message represents one part of the larger narrative of black womanhood, a narrative that is comprised of both shared and individualized experiences.

Lorraine O’Grady (American, born 1934). Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Goes to the New Museum, 1981. Performed at the New Museum, New York. Gelatin silver print, 9 ¼ x 7 in. (23.6 x 17.8 cm). Courtesy of Alexander Gray Associates. © 2017 Lorraine O’Grady / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Focusing on the interwoven narratives of more than forty artists and activists, We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 at the Brooklyn Museum explores the political, social, cultural, and aesthetic priorities of women of color during the emergence of second-wave feminism. The first exhibition of its kind, We Wanted a Revolution brings to light the intersectional experiences of women of color, experiences that often subvert the primarily white, mainstream feminist movement of the 1960s in order to reorient conversations around race, feminism, political action, art production, and history in this crucial period.

Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Mirror Mirror, 1987-88. Silver print, 24 ¾ x 20 ¾ in. (62.9 x 52.7 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. © Carrie Mae Weems

We Wanted a Revolution opened in April and runs for another month as part of A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism at the Brooklyn Museum, a yearlong series of exhibitions – beginning last October with Beverly Buchanan—Ruins and Rituals – celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. The artists represented in the exhibition include Emma Amos, Elizabeth Catlett, Blondell Cummings, Dindga McCannon, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O’Grady, Faith Ringgold, Lorna Simpson, and Carrie Mae Weems.

The exhibition is noticeable and exceptionally diverse, including conceptual work, performance, video, photography, painting, sculpture, and print. Portraits of elegantly dressed black families and historical figures, crowd shots of civil rights protests, boldly colored textiles and mixed media canvases, and striking abstractions come together in a sort of archival presentation. Faith Ringgold’s For the Women’s House (1971) and Maren Hassinger’s large sculpture Leaning (1980) are adjacent to one another in direct visual opposition. Ringgold’s brightly colored mural, dedicated to the women incarcerated in the Correctional Institution for Women on Rikers Island, imagines the first female president and professional women basketball players among other positive female role models suggested Ringgold by incarcerated women. Hassinger’s sculpture, on the other hand, is a cold, yet beautifully precise installation of bush-like forms made from twisted, welded, and bent wire rope. These resolute fixtures evoke an artificial landscape, but oddly enough also possess a human-like quality that allows the viewer to reflect back on themselves, and even on the Rinngold’s neighboring painting. This dynamic does not end here but persists throughout the rest of the exhibit.

Faith Ringgold (American, born 1930). For the Women’s House, 1971. Oil on canvas, 96 x 96 in. (243.8 x 243.8 cm). Courtesy of Rose M. Singer Center, Rikers Island Correctional Center. © 2017 Faith Ringgold / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85 Installation Views (C) Jonathan Dorado Maren Hassinger (American, born 1947). Leaning, 1980. Wire and wire rope, 16 in. x variable width and depth (40.7 cm x variable width and depth). Courtesy of the artist. © Maren Hassinger.

Walking through the exhibit, anyone who has heard about the controversy surrounding Dana Schutz’s portrait of Emmett Till in the 2017 Whitney Biennial should be keenly aware of the significance of a show where the narrative of blackness is articulated by black artists. The artists presented here create figures with dignity, even when cast as radical or victimized because of the color of their skin. Dindga McCannon’s striking mixed media painting Revolutionary Sister (1971) is one such example, featuring a figure who resembles a cross between an African warrior and a comic-book superhero. McCannon wrote about her inspiration for making Revolutionary Sister: “In the 60’s and 70’s we didn’t have many women warriors (that we were aware of) so I created my own.” Inspired by the Statue of Liberty, the figure bears a headpiece made from recycled mini flagpoles, and a belt made from bullets, validating her warrior status and inspired by Blaxploitation films of the time, which featured prominent elements of black pop culture for black audiences.

Dindga McCannon (American, born 1947). Revolutionary Sister, 1971. Mixed media construction on wood, 62 x 27 in. (157.5 x 68.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum (Photo: Jonathan Dorado, Brooklyn Museum).

Another artist in the exhibit, Elizabeth Catlett (1915 – 2012), began her career in the 1930s, but her work was not regularly exhibited until the 1960s when the Civil Rights Movement drew new attention to her prints of revolutionary figures like Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X. Like many of her contemporaries, Catlett employed print for its ability to be widely disseminated, and for its historic association with protest and freedom of expression.

Her sculpture Target (1970) features the bronze bust of a man on a wooden block framed by a rifle sight. The stoic expression of the sculpture – made in response to the killing of prominent Black Panther figures Fred Hampton and Mark Clark by the Chicago police in the winter of 1969 – signifies a kind of passive resistance. The work is emotionally charged by the sociopolitical climate in which it was made, as well as the one we find ourselves in today with the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray among many others at the hands of the police. By using a riflescope as a framing device, Catlett forces the viewer to stand witness to this act of injustice. Another sculpture by Catlett, Homage to My Young Black Sisters (1968), while less daunting in its tone, conveys the same sympathy the artist shows towards all her figures, once stating, “I have always wanted my art to service my people—to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential.”

Others, like renowned dancer Blondell Cummings (1944 – 2015), question the boundaries of race and gender through performance. In Cummings’ performance piece Chicken Soup, the dancer oscillates between re-enactments of kitchen work and convulsively choreographed movements, (1961) painting a portrait of a woman as a drudging housewife in an ironic pas de deux with a cast-iron skillet. Cummings’ movement is graceful yet violent, like an automaton designed to follow a predetermined sequence of operations. As she moves about the stage occupying the space surrounding her, she remains beholden to her task. If O’Grady’s performance of Mlle Bourgeoise Noire is an implicit act of defiance, Cummings’ is explicit, but both women effectively evoke the rage and resentment of being told to “stay in their place.”

Lona Foote (American, 1948-1993). Blondell Cummings performing “Blind Dates” at Just Above Midtown Gallery, November 1982, 1982. Photograph, 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm). Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries. © Estate of Lona Foote, courtesy of Howard Mandel

For many women of color, the word “feminism” has long carried the pangs of inequity and psychological segregation. We Wanted a Revolution not only manages to reclaim some of the meaning of this word for black women; it also manages to do so in our current sociopolitical climate when such narratives are being actively pushed aside. In his review of the exhibit for the New York Times, art critic Holland Cotter noted “The only change I would make, apart from adding more artists, would be to tweak its title: I’d edit it down to its opening phrase and put that in the present tense.” I am inclined to agree with Mr. Cotter – we do want a revolution.

We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85 will be on view until September 17, 2017, at the Brooklyn Museum.

Title image: Jan van Raay (American, born 1942). Faith Ringgold (right) and Michele Wallace (middle) at Art Workers Coalition Protest, Whitney Museum, 1971. Digital C-print. Courtesy of Jan van Raay, Portland, OR, 305-37. © Jan van Raay

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rschristian · 8 years ago

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Assumed Identity in the Public Sphere: Causality and Consequences in the 2016 Election

Published September 2017 by The Dialectics: Journal of Law, Leadership, and Society, Pennsylvania State University

“By ‘public sphere’ we mean first of all a domain of our social life in which such a thing as public opinion can be formed. Access to the public sphere is open in principle to all citizens” (Habermas, 1962). This opening statement in Jürgen Habermas’s essay “The Public Sphere” sets up the theoretical framework, as well as the fundamental flaw, of his idea of the democratic public sphere. Originally conceived in his seminal book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas’s concept is still considered the foundation of contemporary studies on the public sphere. He discusses both the physical and psychological spaces that constitute the public sphere, the historical context in which these spaces came about, and how members should engage in its discourse. What Habermas does not fully examine is the tendency towards and consequences of homogeneity within the public sphere, and how this tendency is, in many ways, facilitated by his model. The ramifications of this circumstance are explored in modern revisionist theories on the public sphere, aided by the acknowledgement of multiple publics in which people of similar mindsets or backgrounds can come together and discuss common themes. A multiplicity of publics is beneficial to those who seek a safe place to express their opinions without judgement; one caveat, however, is that some publics may be automatically stigmatized or discriminatory. The only solution to such a schism is a society that is without bias and prejudice, but how can such a society exist when its members are ideologically separated? This schism is particularly prevalent within the two party political system within the United States, and the divide between the democratic and republican parties, or liberals and conservatives, respectively. Using both the traditional and revisionist theories of the public sphere, one can begin to elucidate the circumstances that lead to such extreme partisanship.

Defining the Public Sphere

Habermas begins his discussion of the public sphere by distinguishing between opinion and public opinion:

The term ‘public opinion’ refers to the functions of criticism and control of organized state authority that the public exercises informally, as well as formally during periodic elections...Whereas mere opinions (things taken for granted as part of a culture, normative convictions, collective prejudices and judgments) seem to persist unchanged in their quasi-natural structure as a kind of sediment to history, public opinion...can be formed only if a public that engages in rational discussion exists (Habermas, 1962).

Opinions, in Habermas’s use of the word, could then be thought of as a set of ethics or values passed from one generation to the next. They may vary depending on the society, but they are generally accepted and understood by members of that particular culture. The inherent value of the public sphere is that unlike opinions, which as Habermas states “seem to persist unchanged,” (Habermas, 1962) public opinions are constantly in a precarious state of fluctuation.

He discusses the use of press in revolutionary periods as a forum for public discussion. During the French Revolution of 1848, or the February Revolution, for instance, “over 450 clubs and more than 200 papers came into being [in Paris] between February and May alone” (Habermas, 1962) with almost every politician and radical thinker forming his own journal. He goes on to say, “Until the permanent legalization of a public sphere that functioned politically, the appearance of a political newspaper was equivalent to engagement in the struggle for a zone of freedom for public opinion, for publicness as a principle.” (Habermas, 1962) He explains that during this period of social and/or political change, journalists began writing from the opinion of the public rather than private interests. The type of press Habermas is discussing here is not the kind that merely regurgitates the facts of a particular issue; he is instead, referring to a more polemic, engaged, even politically charged form of writing that at once reflects the views of the public, but also incites debate. In this way, the press became an institution essentially by the public, for the public, a mediated space in which people could express their opinions without fear of persecution from feudal powers.

Revisionist Theories on the Public Sphere

In her article “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” (1990) critical theorist Nancy Fraser discusses the original concept of the public sphere set up by Habermas in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere as she attempts to establish a new conception of the post-bourgeois public sphere. “The idea of ‘the public sphere’ in Habermas’s sense” Fraser states “designates a theater in modern societies in which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk” (Fraser, 1990). Using Habermas’s model, Fraser deliniates three analytical sections of the public sphere: the state, the official-economy of paid employment, and arenas of public discourse (Fraser, 1990). One of the values of discourse in the public sphere, as opposed to the state or the market, is that citizens can openly circulate opinions that are critical of the state and without capitalist intentions. Habermas expresses a similar point, observing that the proliferation of capitalist society and its inherent undermining of unbiased public opinion in favor of private interests serve to undermine the public sphere.

While Fraser believes that “Habermas’s idea of the public sphere is indispensable to critical social theory and to democratic political practice,” she points out the ways in which his model is not wholly satisfactory; “he never explicitly problematizes some dubious assumptions that underlie the bourgeois model. As a result, we are left at the end of Structural Transformations without a conception of the public sphere that is sufficiently distinct from the bourgeois conception to serve the needs of critical theory today.” Fraser cites some of the major revisionist theories by authors such as Joan Landes, Mary Ryan, and Geoff Eley, all of whom contend that Habermas idealized the liberal public sphere and its exclusion of women and the existence of multiple publics. In his essay, “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century,” historian Geoff Eley argues that while, at times, Habermas acknowledges the limitations of the class and property-bound basis for the public sphere, he does so in a way that does not jeopardize his key claim about the democratic nature of his model. Like Fraser, he points out that “It is important to acknowledge the existence of competing publics – not just later in the nineteenth century when Habermas presents the fragmentation of the classical liberal model of Oeffentlichkeit [public sphere], but at every stage in the history of the public sphere” (Eley, 1994). Acknowledging the multiplicity of publics within the public sphere raises the question of citizenry, and how some voices within the public sphere achieve greater legitimacy than others. Eley uses Fraser’s argument about the role of gender within the public sphere to explain this phenomenon.

How men functioned within the public sphere was constructed in opposition to traditional notions of femininity. The presence of the female figure in the public sphere, the authors claim, was seen as counterintuitive to the aims of the sphere; “a new, austere style of public speech and behavior was promoted, a style deemed ‘rational,’ ‘virtuous,’ and ‘manly.’ In this way, masculinist gender constructs were built into the very conception of the republican public sphere, as was a logic that led, at the height of the Jacobian rule, to the formal exclusion from political life of women,” in the context of the French Revolution (Fraser, 1990). In other words, the fundamental concept of womanhood defined that of manhood.

In seventeenth and eighteenth-century France, women, especially those of elite status, served a crucial role in public discourse in the space of the salon. The notion of politesse defined discussion within the salon, and because women were thought to have a “natural aversion to coarseness,” they were actively sought out by gentlemen who believed they could improve themselves through conversation (Cohen, 2002). While women were valued in this capacity, they still did not share the same level of equality as men. As Eley states, “The new category of the “public man” and his “virtue” was constructed via a series of oppositions to ‘femininity’ which both mobilized older conceptions of domesticity and women’s place and rationalized them into a formal claim concerning women’s ‘nature.’” (Eley, 1994). Moreover, as the concepts of public and private life became increasingly polarized, and the latter became increasingly feminized and domestic, women were excluded from the public sphere; “the natural identification of sexuality and desire with the feminine allowed the social and political construction of masculinity” (Eley, 1994).

Fraser argues that one of the fundamental flaws of the “bourgeois public sphere” is that it claimed to represent the interests of the public. Multiple publics or “subaltern publics” can have their advantages, but they can also be detrimental if they prove to be undemocratic and exclusionary. According to Fraser, “the view that women were excluded from the public sphere turns out to be ideological; it rests on a class- and gender-biased notion of publicity, one which accepts at face value the bourgeois public’s claim to be the public.” The Habermasian model does not account for this claim, or at least does not polemicize it in the way Fraser and her colleagues do. “On the contrary, virtually contemporaneous with the bourgeois public there arose a host of competing counterpublics, including nationalist publics, popular peasant publics, elite women’s publics, and working class publics. Thus, there were competing publics from the start, not just from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as Habermas implies” (Fraser, 1990).

Publics and Counterpublics

In his book Publics and Counterpublics (2005), Michael Warner argues that as a fundamental aspect of modern culture, the concept of a public is a social construct. He examines the dynamics present within publics, particularly in regards to speech and active participation and how the concept of “otherness” comes into play within the public arena. His discussion of counterpublics is based on Fraser’s definition of “subaltern publics,” but he expands upon her theory by suggesting that one’s presence in a counterpublic is inherently stigmatized (Warner, 2005). In other words, Fraser’s idea of a counterpublic includes marginalized members of society, while Warner’s includes those who are discriminated against by their willingness to participate in what is considered social taboo. “Counterpublics are, by definition, formed by their conflict with the norms and contexts of their cultural environment, and this context of domination inevitably entails distortion. Mass publics and counterpublics, in other words, are both damaged forms of publicness, just as gender and sexuality are, in this culture, damaged forms of privacy” (Warner, 2005).

In chapter four of Publics and Counterpublics, “The Mass Public and the Mass Subject,” Warner directly engages with Habermas’s work in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. He believes that Habermas’s model pays particular attention to how the structure and practices of mediated publics, i.e. print, genre, architecture, and capital. What Warner finds lacking in Habermas’s approach is a practical interpretation of the social conditions necessary to achieve his utopian ideal (Warner, 2005). “The bourgeois public sphere claimed to have no relation to body image at all” Warner observes, “Yet the bourgeois public sphere continued to rely on features of certain bodies. Access to the public came in the whiteness and maleness that were then denied as forms of positivity, since the white male qua public person was only abstract rather than white and male.” He goes on to say that “The bourgeois public sphere has been structured from the outset by a logic of abstraction that provides a privilege for unmarked identities: the male, the white, the middle class, the normal” (Warner, 2005).

Understanding the Party Lines

Warner draws a distinction between the public and a public: “The public is a kind of social totality. Its most common sense is that of the people in general. A public can also be a second thing: a concrete audience, a crowd witnessing itself in visible space...Such a public also has a sense of totality, bounded by the event or by he shared physical space” (Warner, 2002). Therefore, a public exists within the public and is defined through the medium of speech or text. A public can be joined willingly, but given its concrete form, it can, in principle, be exclusionary. Such a phenomenon can be understood in the context of the current election cycle. The line that has been drawn between democrats and republicans on issues of policy is reinforced by social media algorithm based news. When people get their news from Facebook, Twitter, or other social media platforms, they are only presented with authors who express opinions similar to those of other articles selected by the user. Therefore, while social media allows people to participate, perhaps even simultaneously, in multiple publics, the tendency to only read left or right-leaning texts creates a polarization between publics.

Despite the role of social media in inciting this division, the phenomenon of compartmentalized knowledge this media creates is far from new. Walter Lippmann’s theory on the impossibility of the “omnicompetent, sovereign citizen” as described in his 1925 book, The Phantom Public is uncannily reminiscent to the present election cycle. In the chapter “Principles of Public Opinion,” he argues that the role of the public in politics is reduced by the appointment of “executive actors” who carry out actions on the public’s behalf. Given Lippmann’s perception of the general ineptitude of the public, this “executive actor” serves the public by allowing them to give up the burden of decision making. Such nonparticipation in the simplest of political actions was prevalent during the time Lippmann wrote his book, but such indecisiveness is still seen today as people fail to overcome the constraints of partisan opinions. On this process, Lippmann writes:

Executive action is not for the public. The public acts only by aligning itself as the partisan of someone in a position to act executively.

The intrinsic merits of a question are not for the public. The public intervenes from the outside upon the work of the insiders.

The anticipation, the analysis and the solution of a question are not for the public. The public’s judgement rests on a small sample of the facts at issue.

- 7. ...(Lippmann, 1925).

In other words, the failure to be fully versed on the issues of both one’s party and the opposing party or parties fuels partisanship. Moreover, it sets up a scenario in which members of the opposing party become marked bodies of otherness, seemingly incapable of being understood.

“Today newspapers and magazines, radio and TV are the media of the public sphere” Habermas writes, “We speak of the political public sphere in contrast, for instance, to the literary one, when public discussion deals with objects connected to the activity of the state” (Habermas, 1962). By this, he seems to mean that political spheres can not achieve the same level of critical discourse as the public sphere. Lippmann would probably argue that this is because members of the general public do not have enough information to engage in political discourse. Politicians, or “executive actors” in Lippmann’s words, are then characterized by a limited set of values that set them in opposition to their opponent. If voters are not given all of the facts about a candidate, they cannot make informed decisions. They can, however, single out the candidate with a public or following with which they can identify, i.e. Trump’s public is perceived as socially, politically, and morally backwards by Clinton supporters, and vice versa. According to Warner, a public is both self-aware and self-organizing. Consider a rally for Trump and the way his protestors are mistreated by members of his public. The reaction of the Trump protesters proves that this is not a public sphere, in Habermas’s sense of the term; it is private, self-isolating, and exclusionary.

Conclusion

Trump’s public is what Warner believes constitutes the bourgeois public sphere, “privilege for unmarked identities: the male, the white, the middle class, the normal” (Warner, 2005). Habermas claimed “To the public sphere as a sphere mediating between state and society, a sphere in which the public as the vehicle of public opinion is formed, there corresponds the principle of publicness – the publicness that once had to win out against the secret politics of monarchs and that since then has permitted democratic control of state activity.” (Habermas, 1962). The lack of discourse within the political sphere is detrimental to the foundations of democracy. It stigmatizes dissenters and perpetuates partisan ideology, but also creates a system in which the nuances of political alignment are imperceptible. It also fails to recognize how heavily social stigma plays into politics. The system that silences political opposition is ideologically based on the one that marginalized non-hegemonic groups. For the political public sphere to function, social inequality must be eliminated. In Fraser’s words, “this theory should render visible the ways in which social inequality taints deliberation within publics in late capitalist societies.”

References

Cohen, M. (2002). Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century. Abingdon: Routledge.

Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text 25/26, 56–80.

Eley, G. (1994). Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century. In Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley, and Sherry B. Ortner (Eds.) Culture/Power/History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory (297-335). New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Habermas, J. (1989). The Public Sphere. In Steven Seidman (Ed.) Jürgen Habermas on Society and Politics: A Reader. (Shierry Weber Nicholsen, Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press.

Lippmann, W. (1925). Principles of Public Opinion. In The Phantom Public (133-144). New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.

Warner, M. (2005). Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books.

Warner, M. (2002). Publics and Counterpublics (Abbreviated Version). Quarterly Journal of Speech Vol. 88, 413-425.

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rschristian · 8 years ago

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Breaking All the Rules with Charlotte Moorman On Art Versed (December 2016)

A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s–1980s is currently on view at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s fine art museum. The exhibit was drawn from the Charlotte Moorman Archive housed at Northwestern University’s Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections. With more than 300 items on view, ranging from film clips, performance props, musical scores, photographs, audio recordings, and vintage posters, this marks the first major exhibition devoted to a groundbreaking, yet under-recognized figure in the post-war avant-garde.

Along with works by Moorman, the exhibition includes pieces by some of her frequent collaborators, including Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, John Cage, Takehisa Kosugi, Jim McWilliams, Joseph Beuys, and Giuseppe Chiari, many of whom created works for Moorman to perform. While she is often remembered as Paik’s muse, Moorman -or the “topless cellist,” as she was known- was dedicated to both performing and promoting the innovative work she and her colleagues would create. Moorman later remarked: “With all of my formal training at Juilliard, I feel I know the rules. That’s something that is very important if you are going to break them.”

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1933, Moorman began her career as a classically trained musician. After earning an MA in music from the University of Texas at Austin, she moved to New York to study at the Juilliard School of Music while building a career as a freelance classical musician. After attending a concert by fellow Juilliard student Kenji Kobayashi in spring 1961, in which Kobayashi played Cage’s 26’1.1499″ for a String Player –a “non-musical” score with sounds of the performer’s choosing-, Moorman began to shift focus. Kobayashi introduced Moorman to the downtown avant-garde arts scene, where composer La Monte Young, artist Yoko Ono, choreographer Simone Forti, and others were experimenting with new interdisciplinary art forms.

Charlotte Moorman performing Jim McWilliams’s Sky Kiss, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia, April 11, 1976. Unidentified photographer, reproduced courtesy Kaldor Public Art Projects.

Moorman went on to organize fifteen avant-garde festivals from 1963 to 1980 (which are also documented in the show), where she was able to cultivate a strong community of hundreds of artists, filmmakers, dancers, poets, musicians, and festival goers who wanted freedom from the constraints of concert halls, galleries, and museums. Over the years, these festivals migrated from traditional performance venues to public spaces, setting a precedent for future large scale multimedia festivals of this kind.

A typical performance could include playing a cello made from a practice bomb (i.e. non-explosive), frying an egg or mushrooms, drinking Coke, letting air out of a balloon, breaking glass, or reading passages ranging from a newspaper article on the Watergate scandal to instructions on a box of tampons. Combining classical training with pop culture, Moorman once pointed out: “I don’t feel that I’m destroying any tradition. I feel that I’m creating something new.”

As an artist, Charlotte Moorman subverted traditional notions of beauty and society’s obsession with the female form by referencing the very sources from which these notions began. It is nearly impossible to look at images of Moorman performing and not be reminded of classical paintings of inexplicably nude women lying in repose in scenic landscapes.

One of the many highlights of the show is a video of Moorman performing Yoko Ono’s iconic “Cut Piece” in 1982. The artist sits before a large crowd gathered at the roof of her Manhattan loft. The guest, good-spirited and a little drunk, really give the party life. But the occasion is marked by a solemn tone. It takes place only a few days before she was to have a lump in her breast biopsied, three years after having a mastectomy to remove the other breast.

Kenneth Werner, Charlotte Moorman performing Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece with Nam June Paik, Galerie Aachen, Aachen, West Germany, 1966. Chromogenic color print, Charlotte Moorman Archive, Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries.

As each guest approaches to cut a piece from her gown, Moorman exhibits her characteristic stoic sensibility and poise, traits that distinguish her as a master of her craft. Barbara Moore, an art historian and friend of Moorman’s, noted that the artist kept all the remaining scraps of clothing from her numerous performances of this work “packed into heaps of shopping bags, the ultimate dossier,” epitomizing her endless dedication to her work. “Don’t throw anything out” were Moorman’s dying words as she succumbed to her illness in 1991 at the age of 57. The result, the Charlotte Moorman Archive, allows us to trace the prolific career of one of the most provocative artists of the 20th century.

A Feast of Astonishments will be on view at the Grey Art Gallery until December 10.

Also on view: Don’t Throw Anything Out: Charlotte Moorman’s Archive, at The Fales Library, Tracey/Barry Gallery, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, 70 Washington Square South, Third Floor.

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rschristian · 8 years ago

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Diane Arbus Takes the Met Breuer In Art Versed (August 2016)

“I am full of a sense of promise, like I often have, the feeling of always being at the beginning.” — Diane Arbus, July 1957

With more than 100 never-before-seen photographs, the Met Breuer’s Diane Arbus: In the Beginning explores the early work of a photographer considered by many to be one of the most influential and provocative artists of the 20th century. The exhibit focuses on the first seven years of the artist’s prolific career, from 1956 to 1962, the period in which she developed the idiosyncratic style for which she is now known. The majority of the photographs included in the exhibition are part of the museum’s vast Diane Arbus Archive, acquired in 2007 by gift and promised gift from the artist’s daughters, Doon Arbus and Amy Arbus. The works are intentionally presented neither in sequential nor thematic order, allowing the viewer to wander through the maze-like exhibit any way they choose. That is to say, with no beginning and no end.

Born to an affluent New York family in 1923, Diane Arbus was fascinated by photography even before she received her first professional camera in 1941 at the age of 18, a present from her husband, actor and photographer Allan Arbus. She photographed intermittently for the next 15 years while working with him as a stylist in their fashion photography company, which gained such notable clients as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Glamour. In 1956, however, she quit the commercial photography business, and began taking classes at the New School under photographer Lisette Model, the artist’s mentor and lifelong friend. That same year, Arbus numbered a roll of 35mm film #1, as if to claim to herself that this moment would be her definitive beginning.

In addition to Arbus’s photographs, also on view are works by her two biggest influencers, Lisette Model and portraitist August Sander, as well as some of Arbus’s contemporaries. The exhibit also presents photographs from the artist’s only portfolio, A box of ten photographs. Among these images are some of Arbus’s most iconic works, such as Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967; Jewish Giant, taken at Home with His Parents in the Bronx, New York, 1970; and A Young Man in Curlers at Home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. 1966. Like so many artists, Arbus only achieved real fame after her death in 1971 at the age of 48 when she took her own life. She did exhibit in major venues during her lifetime, but even then, her work was often polarizing. Young Man in Curlers was notably spat on during a group exhibition at MoMA in 1967. A print of this work sold at auction in 2004 for $198,400.

In her work Arbus explores the fine line between fact and fiction, the candid and the posed, revealing something fundamental to human nature. We behave differently when we are being observed—we tend to perform for one another. In fact, many of Arbus’s subjects were performers, from “female impersonators” to circus acts and cartoon characters who straddle that oh-so familiar line between real and imaginary.

While reading the gallery copy of the exhibition catalogue, I happened to sit down next to Patricia Bosworth, journalist and author of a 1984 biography on Arbus. Mrs. Bosworth was having a lively conversation with her husband about the show. They lamented over a lack of “honesty” in the show, as well as the absence of her biography and Arthur Lubow’s recent biography in the museum’s pop-up bookstore, which only sells books published by Phaidon. As for the lack of “honesty,” I believe Mrs. Bosworth was referring to the fact that the museum glossed over some of the most interesting and controversial aspects of the artist’s life, from her open marriage and active libido to her lifelong struggle with clinical depression, details which both Lubow and Bosworth include in their biographies. It is no coincidence that Arbus quit commercial photography during the rise of counterculture in the 1950s and 60s–she documented this culture as much as she was a part of it.

Arbus once said “Something is ironic in the world and it has to do with the fact that what you intend never comes out like you intend it.” A photograph only represents a split second in time, but in these small moments Arbus was able to capture the humanity in her subjects in a way that many others cannot. You stand in front of them and they return your gaze, asking you to consider the reality of their lives. Whatever conclusions you may draw about these subjects or the intentions of the photographer, it does not take away from one simple truth. At least you know they exist.

Diane Arbus: In the Beginning is on view at the Met Breuer through November 27, 2016.

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rschristian · 8 years ago

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When Painting Meets Sculpture: Thornton Dial In Art Versed (June 2017)

As politically minded as he was self-reflective, Thornton Dial (1928–2016) was difficult to pin down. Since the early 90s, the artist has been featured in exhibitions at museum’s across the country, and over the years his work has been acquired by major institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum, the MoMA, the Philadelphia Museum, and the Hirshhorn in DC. Inspired by his upbringing in Jim Crow-era Alabama, much of Dial’s early work focuses on issues of race and class, and how the identity of the “outsider” played into national consciousness. The agonized expressions of the figures in The Raggly Flag confront us with the contradictory message of unity the American Flag is meant to convey in a nation where many are still treated as second-class citizens. In his later work, Dial began exploring a more universal struggle, while never failing to address the nation with its own problematic history. As the first exhibition in New York since the artist’s passing earlier this year, We All Live Under the Same Old Flag at Marianne Boesky Gallery represents this change of perspective, along with Dial’s ability to capture a wider audience through his use of Americana style and appropriated consumer culture.

The Raggly Flag, 1989 Enamel on wood 48 x 96 inches 121.9 x 243.8 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and Marianne Boesky

As a self-taught artist, Dial began his sculptural style of painting by compiling found objects and scrap materials from his job as a metalworker. He was able to transform old tires, chains, twigs, and rusted tools into highly textured and often expressionistic wall reliefs, paintings, and works on paper. His practice of weaving used fabrics together harkens back to the tradition of African American quiltmaking, seen in Negro History, a relatively recent work made from carpet, metal, putty, oil, enamel, and spray paint on wood.

Negro History, 2003 Carpet, metal, putty, oil, enamel, and spray paint on wood 50 x 49 x 3/4 inches 127 x 124.5 x 1.9 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and Marianne Boesky

Thornton believed in the individual interpretation of his work, but his titles are often times highly charged and specific to the black community and experience, which the gallery refers to as “a secret language of symbols that convey strength, survival, and freedom—important to the dialogue of the black experience.” The extent to which this language is “secret” can be left up to the viewer; nevertheless, Negro Story is an apt title for a work that takes something old and worn and uses it to create something beautiful.

We All Live Under the Same Old Flag (Installation Views) Marianne Boesky Gallery, 2016

As Dial shifted his focus to wider national histories of oppression and equality, his work became more simplified in form, material, and color. In the weeks following the attacks on September 11, 2001, the artist worked almost non-stop on large-scale paintings and sculptures in an attempt to capture a national ethos. The resulting works incorporate the expressive quality of his earlier works, but are more focused on scale and composition. Winter Jackets, a beautiful painting featuring a figure in the grasps of a ghostly form, represents this newfound sensibility.

Winter Jackets, 2007 Clothing, enamel, and spray paint on canvas on wood 80 x 66 x 2 inches 203.2 x 167.6 x 5.1 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and Marianne Boesky.

Dial left behind a visually and historically rich body of work that tells anything but a singular perspective. “Art is a guide for every person that is looking for something,” Dial said in an interview with the New York Times. “That’s how I can describe myself: Mr. Dial is a man looking for something.”

Thornton Dial: We All Live Under the Same Old Flag closes Saturday, June 18, 2016.

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rschristian · 8 years ago

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Triumphs & Tragedies: Louise Bourgeois at the National Gallery On Art Versed (May 2016)

Louise Bourgeois: No Exit is currently on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Bourgeois (1911-2010) is best known for her large-scale sculptures, one of which is located in the museum’s sculpture garden. However, with twenty-one works, including drawings, prints, and sculptures, the exhibit provides an intimate look into the mind of a truly remarkable artist as she contemplated themes of life, death, domesticity, and womanhood.

The French-American artist was born to a prosperous Parisian family in 1911. Her family owned a gallery in Aubusson, the tapestry producing region of central France and home to Bourgeois’s mother’s family. The artist spent part of her childhood working in the gallery where her family sold and restored antique tapestries, helping repair them by filling in worn areas, using lines to indicate where stitches should be made. These experiences made a lasting impression, as displayed in Bourgeois’s early works on view in the National Gallery’s exhibition. The images recall the cascading rivers and mountain peaks of Aubusson, while simultaneously recalling the interweavings of textiles.

Louise Bourgeois, La tapisserie de mon enfance–Mountains in Aubusson (The Tapestry of My Childhood), 1947. Brush and black ink and gouache on cream paper: 19 x 12 in. (48.3 x 30.5 cm)Corcoran Collection (Gift of William H. G. FitzGerald, Desmond FitzGerald, and B. Francis Saul II) © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, NY

She began her long and prolific career as an artist in the early 1930s after being introduced to the Surrealists, whose ideology centered on the creative potential of the unconscious mind. After marrying the American art historian Robert Goldwater and moving to New York in 1938, she became reacquainted with the European Surrealists who were exiled during the war. Yet, the artist herself denied the label of a Surrealist. “At the mention of surrealism, I cringe. I am not a surrealist.” Still, it is difficult to separate the whimsicality and bizarre juxtapositions of her work from that of the Surrealists, or even their predecessors, the Dadaists. The works in the show bring to mind Francis Picabia’s mechanical portraits, Max Ernst’s collages, or Joan Miró’s landscapes.

Louise Bourgeois, He Disappeared into Complete Silence, Plate 7, 1947. Engraving in black on wove paper. Plate: 17.78 x 13.65 cm (7 x 5 3/8 in.) Sheet: 25.4 x 17.78 cm (10 x 7 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, Purchased as the Gift of Dian Woodner © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, NY

Instead Bourgeois preferred the label of existentialist, admiring the works of Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and, of course, Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre’s 1944 play, No Exit, from which the exhibition takes its name, is the story of three recently departed souls on their way to hell, anticipating the physical torment they are about to endure. As it turns out, the pain they experience in hell is not physical, but psychological. Their hell is being trapped in a room from which there is no escape for all eternity with the people they despise the most, each other – just imagine going to a dinner party with all the people you’ve ever blocked on Facebook, and then multiply that feeling by infinity. As Sartre famously says, “Hell is other people.”

Louise Bourgeois, Untitled, 1952. Painted wood and plaster, overall: 161.9 cm (63 3/4 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of the Collectors Committee © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, NY

While Bourgeois draws her inspiration from Sartre, her personal hell seems to be the absence of other people. The nine engravings and enigmatic parables that volume He Disappeared into Complete Silence (1947) show Bourgeois at her most Surreal. The subjects, ranging from a little girl who buried her coveted candy in the ground, only to find that it has been ruined by the damp soil, to a man who cuts up his wife and serves her at a dinner party, represent what the artist referred to as “tiny tragedies of human frustration.” The characters of her story show indifference, or even cruelty towards one another, conveying the deep sense of isolation that often embodies Bourgeois’s work. We are left with a sense of ambivalence towards them, they commit acts that signal both internal and external conflict. One plate tells the story of a loving but overbearing mother, and a son “of a quiet nature and rather intelligent,” but who is indifferent to his mother’s love. The prodigal son leaves, and later the mother dies without his knowledge. Three haunting, elongated figures occupy the space, prompting us to wonder who the third figure could be. The feeling we are left with is one of remorse and sympathy for the mother, but also for the son. The print could be semi-autobiographical, Bourgeois lost her mother at 21 years old, around the time she was beginning her career. This loss had a profound effect on her artwork, seen especially in her series Maman, and again in what could be seen as a companion piece, M is for Mother (1998). The latter, on view in the exhibit, is a drawing of an imposing letter M that conveys both maternal comfort and control. With such a conflict, Bourgeois forces us to question our relationships with those around us.

Louise Bourgeois, He Disappeared into Complete Silence, Plate 9, 1947. Engraving in black on wove paper. Plate: 22.54 x 10 cm (8 7/8 x 3 15/16 in.) Sheet: 25.4 x 17.78 cm (10 x 7 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, Purchased as the Gift of Dian Woodner © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, NY

Like Sartre, she believed that free will was the essence of existentialist thought, but unlike Sartre, she also believed that our pasts inform our future. Deeply fixed memories inspired her oeuvre over the course of a remarkably long career. This reluctance to let go meant that she rarely considered a work finished, generally leaving open the possibility of a future iteration. One of her later books, the puritan (1990), deals precisely with this theme. This bound volume of eight hand-colored engravings on handmade paper takes place in New York, and is a story of lost love. “With the puritan,” Bourgeois explained, “I analyzed an episode forty years after it happened. I could see things from a distance…I put it on a grid…I considered the situation objectively, scientifically, not emotionally. I was interested not in anxiety, but in perspective, in seeing things from different points of view.”

Louise Bourgeois, the puritan (4), 1990. Engraving in black with additions in gouache on Twinrocker handmade paper with Japan gampi chine collé. Plate: 42.55 x 27.31 cm (16 3/4 x 10 3/4 in.) Sheet: 65.72 x 50.17 cm (25 7/8 x 19 3/4 in.) © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, NY

A number of sculptures are included in the exhibit as well, ranging from her small but recognizable cast Germinal (1967), to the life-sized sculptures the artist referred to as “Personages.” These sculptures, Bourgeois said, were made to be exhibited at ground level so that they could be interacted with “like people.” While they exist in our space, they also stand isolated and detached. Made from modest, often discarded materials and employing simple methods of construction, these totemic figures reflect a wartime sensibility of salvage and reuse in a damaged environment.

Louise Bourgeois, Mortise, 1950. Painted wood, overall: 152.4 x 45.7 x 38.1 cm (60 x 18 x 15 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of the Collectors Committee © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, NY

Bourgeois’s work asks a timeless and essential question: in periods of conflict, uncertainty, or hostility, can we live meaningful lives? It seems to me that Bourgeois would say that it is in these moments that we are at our most authentic, and that the greatest struggle we have to overcome is not external, but internal. This is, however, a question Bourgeois would want us to answer for ourselves.

Louise Bourgeois: No Exit is on view until May 15, 2016.

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rschristian · 8 years ago

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Artists’ Books at the National Museum of African Art On Art Versed (April 2017)

I recently got back from a short, museum-packed trip to Washington, D.C. for spring break. Do you remember the museum scene from Passport to Paris? It was a little like that, except unlike Mary-Kate and Ashley, I had a blast. Among the multiple Smithsonian institutions I visited, one of my favorites was the National Museum of African Art (not to be confused with the National Museum of African American History and Culture opening this September). The seemingly small but uniquely designed museum first opened its doors in 1964. At the time it was known as the Museum of African Art, located on Capitol Hill in a townhouse that had been the home of Frederick Douglass. In August 1979, the museum became part of the Smithsonian Institution. It is now located on the National Mall (which, by the way, is full of cherry blossoms this time of year, in case you’re planning your own “wanna get away” trip).

Robbin Ami Silverberg (b. 1958, United States) and Kim Berman (b. 1960, South Africa), Emandulo Re-Creation (detail), Johannesburg, South Africa: Artist Proof Studio, 1997 Edition 6/30

Among other exhibits, now on view is Artists’ Books and Africa. The twenty-five books included in the exhibition are either by African artists or feature traditional African themes, and all come from the permanent collections of the museum and the Smithsonian libraries. Through the books, the exhibition explores African history and cultures by embodying collective memory and reclaiming cultural heritage and storytelling. The show features fine art books as well as those employing multiple formats, materials and techniques by predominantly contemporary artists.

Bruce Onobrakpeya (b. 1932, Nigeria), Bruce Onobrakpeya Portfolio of Art and Literature (detail), Lagos, Nigeria: Ovuomaroro Studio & Gallery, 2003, Edition 19/75

The books range in theme from personal narratives to reflections on the human condition. The sprawled out pages of Atta Kwami’s (b. 1956 in Ghana) Grace Kwami Sculpture (1993) resemble the form of a spider, drawing upon the African folklore of Anansi, the mischievous but knowledgeable spider known for his cleverness and skill, to tell the story of the artist’s mother, Grace Kwami (1923–2006), who was also an artist. Each of the book’s “legs” show pictures illustrating Grace’s life, creating a metaphor between the skillfulness of the spider and the creativity of the artist’s mother (my mind immediately went to Maman by Louise Bourgeois).

Atta Kwami (b. 1956, Ghana), Grace Kwami Sculpture, London: Atta Kwami, 1993, Edition 6/32

Another artist, Judith Mason (b. 1938 in South Africa) and poet Wilma Stockenström (b. 1933 in South Africa) use the book to visualize pain, or more specifically, a woman’s pain. In their book, Skoelapperheuwel, Skoelappervrou (Butterfly Hill, Butterfly Woman), Mason uses lithographs of pencil illustrations and collages of torn paper as the background for Stockenström’s enigmatic yet thought provoking words. Written in free verse Afrikaans, Stockenström contemplates the role of women in society, as well as other existentialist themes such as death and the afterlife. The ripped pages signify a kind of trauma presumably felt by all women, whether from childbirth, intercourse, or menstruation. The poetry is not fully translated into English, but even without textual reference, the message of the powerful and often visceral images is clear.

Judith Mason, Wilma Stockenström, Skoelapperheuwel, Skoelappervrou (Butterfly Hill, Butterfly Woman) (detail), Pretoria, South Africa: Ombondi Editions, 1988, 2010

The versatility of artist books shows how their form and structure often supercede their content. Inspired by the “power to the people” mindset of the 1960s, inexpensive artists’ books referred to as “democratic multiples” are made to be distributed to as many people as possible, and typically convey social or political messages. South African artist Luan Nel’s (b. 1971) piece Paper: An Installation by Luan Nel at the Mark Coetzee Fine Art Cabinet takes the form of a tiny deck of cards. Looking at the cards feels like taking a Rorschach test as the small, ambiguous figures gradually create stories and sequences the longer you engage with them. The images are playful, but also veil the experiences of the artist’s life, addressing his homosexuality, Afrikaans heritage, his upbringing in the strict Dutch Reformed Church, and being drafted by the South African army during the era of apartheid.

Luan Nel, b. 1971, South Africa, Paper: An Installation by Luan Nel at the Mark Coetzee Fine Art Cabinet (detail), Cape Town, South Africa: Mark Coetzee Fine Art Cabinet, 1997

The books are beautiful, surprising, darkly humorous, and at times bizarre. At first glance they seem to be purely aesthetically driven, but each page reveals something about the artist who created it. Artists’ Books and Africa will be on view until September 11, 2016 at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.

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rschristian · 8 years ago

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Glenn Ligon Knows What Time It Is On Art Versed (March 2016)

Glenn Ligon has always had a preoccupation with the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality. Ligon’s two exhibitions What We Said The Last Time and We Need To Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is, in which the artist illustrates his engrossment with these subjects, are occurring simultaneously at Luhring Augustine‘s Chelsea and Bushwick locations.

What We Said The Last Time features a series of seventeen enlarged prints from the paint-splattered pages of the artist’s well-worn copy James Baldwin’s 1953 essay “Stranger in the Village” from Notes of a Native Son (published 1955). Written during a stay in a small settlement in Switzerland, “Stranger in the Village” examines race as a social construct. “From all available evidence no black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village before I came,” Baldwin writes as he documents his experiences as a gay black man visiting the small Swiss town as a way to better understand the African American identity. Also on view is Entanglements, a curatorial project by Ligon that examines how artists use the studio as a base from which to engage momentous cultural shifts and political events in both direct and oblique ways.

Glenn Ligon, Untitled, 2016, 71 x 49 inches (180.3 x 124.5 cm)

Beginning in 1996, Ligon has used Baldwin’s essay as the basis for his “Stranger” series, which includes prints, drawings, and paintings made from oil slick and occasionally coal dust that nearly obscures the text. While working on this series, Ligon kept copies of Baldwin’s essay on his studio table for reference, and over the years they accumulated a large amount of black paint, oil stains, and fingerprints. This show marks the first time Ligon has used the entirety of Baldwin’s essay in his career. Like so much of Ligon’s work, the resulting prints illustrate the role of intertextuality in contemporary art, and how one medium can simultaneously inform and contradict another. The use of Baldwin’s seminal essay attests to the power of language and ink on paper, but Ligon’s pseudo-redaction of the text tells us something different. One page has the page number and top right corner completely ripped off and thick drops of paint cover sections of the text, but we can still see his quick annotations, contrasting Baldwin’s ruminations with the artist’s own spontaneity.

Glenn Ligon, Untitled, 2016, 71 x 49 inches (180.3 x 124.5 cm)

We Need To Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is in Bushwick opened January 16 and predominantly features Ligon’s Live (2014), a silent video installation based on the 1982 film Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip. This is not the first time Mr. Ligon has engaged with Pryor’s work. The artist’s text-based paintings often incorporate references to Pryor’s stand-up, most notably in a series of gold-colored paintings beginning in 1993 based on Pryor’s groundbreaking material from the 1970s. The installation is set up in a circle of six large screens and a smaller screen in a corner. On the smaller screen, we see the unedited version of Pryor’s original performance, while the other screens zoom in on specific parts of Pryor’s body as they appear in the original footage: his head, his shadow, his right hand, his left hand, his mouth, and his groin. The projected images are visible from both sides of the screen, so the viewer can encircle the installation and almost always be confronted by Pryor’s captivating stage presence. Each screen is illuminated only when their designated body parts appear in the original film, so the screens sporadically flicker on and off as your eyes jump around the room to catch his image.

Installation view, We Need To Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is, Luhring Augustine Bushwick

Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1982, and is still widely considered one of the best comedy albums of all time. Throughout his illustrious career and chaotic personal life, Pryor was anything but shy about his views on sexuality, social injustice, and drug use. On the night on June 9, 1980, for instance, Pryor notoriously lit himself on fire with nothing but a bottle of rum and a match after freebasing cocaine, an incident that undoubtedly accounts for his flame red suit and yellow boutonniere (he also begins his act by asking the members of the audience “Anybody got a light?”)

Installation view, We Need To Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is, Luhring Augustine Bushwick

By fragmenting the footage, Pryor’s body parts seems to move independently from the others. His rapid gestures seem second nature to him, but his expression shifts seamlessly between deadpan and animated throughout the film. The lack of audio is particularly jarring when we see Pryor erupt into fits of emotional gestures and cursing. These moments are often followed by brief periods of complete silence and darkness as the camera temporarily leaves the comedian’s body.

Installation view, We Need To Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is, Luhring Augustine Bushwick

Ligon, Pryor, and Baldwin all share an obsession with the idea of black masculinity, but by drawing on this idea rather than readily subverting it, all three were able to contrast the narrative of blackness with its reality. By cutting up Pryor’s image and muting his voice, and by blacking out Baldwin’s text, Ligon illuminates their vulnerability. This installation subtly critiques the social constructs of race and masculinity, but also emphasizes the limits of language in expressing ourselves to one another. The artist forces us to contemplate the ways in which we represent ourselves, both voluntarily and unconsciously. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, he also conveys the fact that to be marginalized either as a group or individually means to be silenced, or to essentially be rendered without language. If we do not have language, how do we communicate? Some say that actions speak louder than words, but it seems that Mr. Ligon does not believe the two should be separated.

What We Said The Last Time at Luhring Augustine in Chelsea is on view until April 2, 2016; We Need To Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is at Luhring Augustine Bushwick is on view until April 17, 2016.

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