Art Relish

By Ryan Nabulsi

On April 16th, 2010, Archetype Gallery opened The New Pan-African Ideal featuring various works from a nationally selected group of artists.  According to Archetype’s press release, “Pan-Africanism seeks to promote the unification of all Africans and those affected by the Diaspora.”  Curator Christopher Hutchinson chose a variety of works from photography to multimedia installation pieces that he said displayed the shared experience of colonialism.  Through the work, Hutchinson hoped to encourage a dialogue that would broaden the definition of Pan-Africanism to account for a multitude of narratives.  By doing so, Hutchinson believed that Pan-Africanism can be strengthened through the discourse of shared experiences.  Without new dialogues that examine the reaches of colonialism, Hutchinson said the ideal of Pan-Africanism “sputters.” Because of the Presidency of Barack Obama, Hutchinson stated that now is the key time to reflect on Pan-Africanism; to create a New Pan-African Ideal.

Echoing Hutchinson’s belief that now is the key time to reflect on Pan-Africanism, works such as “Year One:  Political Statement” by John Tindel, “I Am What I Am” by Carla Aaron-Lopez and Zachary Friedline employed images of President Obama to investigate different issues of colonialism.  Tindel’s piece displays a waist up portrait of Obama in a tuxedo with a Karl Marx pin attached to the breast of his jacket, champagne bottle in one hand and a glass in the other; Obama’s legs have become part of a fish/whale springing out of the water with “Good Day Socialism” written on it in the style of the American Flag.  A bright yellow halo/sun appears to surround Obama’s head.  Obama’s picture, an appropriation from some unidentifiable press-photo, has been decorated with signs that brand him the savior of the “lefty liberals.”  Tindel does not appear to condemn or praise Obama; but rather leaves the interpretation for the viewer.  Is Obama a savior, as suggested by the halo/sun surrounding him?  Or a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as suggested by the contradiction of socialist ideals which the champagne Obama seems to offer?  In Aaron-Lopez’s “I Am What I Am,” a printed scan of a collage, Obama’s image again is appropriated and transformed.  Aaron-Lopez takes a picture of Obama smiling and places it on another body with a script tattoo reading “I Am What I Am.”  Ripped strips of unidentifiable magazine surround Obama’s head with colors of red, yellow, black and gray. “I Am What I Am,” seems to incorporate all the different expectations of the Obama Presidency, but answers those questions in the title and tattoo; Obama is the first African-American President, but also only one person.  Staying true to Hutchinson’s aim, “I Am What I Am” asks the viewer to be wary of prophetic claims of complete change and realize that change has to come with everyone not simply one person.  Like Tindel’s work, Aaron-Lopez addresses the expectations and realities of the Obama Presidency.  On the other hand, Friedline’s “Vehicle of Deceit,” a multimedia piece in which the artist has constructed an apparatus where Obama appears as a puppet whose strings are being pulled by four blue donkeys, places less emphasis on Obama the person and focuses more on the entire structure of politics.  In Friedline’s work, Obama is not a savior figure or an individual, but is reduced to a piece of the intricate machinery surrounding him with no control of his own movements.  Friedline seems to point the viewer towards the structure and system instead of individual participants.  These three works represent just a sampling of the interesting and challenging work represented at Archetype Gallery.  Taken as a whole, the works in The New Pan-African Ideal provide a wide and interesting interpretation of Pan-Africanism offering no single version, instead asking the viewers to participate in the creation of the new ideal.

The New Pan-African Ideal will be open until May 13th and can be viewed during regular gallery hours or by appointemnt.  For more information visit their website, www.archetypeartgallery.com .

By Serene Al-Kawas and Marcia Vaitsman

An exhibition at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art has taken on a life of its own. “Undercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identities” houses many artists, famous and unknown, under a larger concept of disguise and reinvention. The exhibit ties together over 50 works, each functioning differently though dependently. The pieces include video, photography, painting, sculpture and more, each resonating with another, bringing life and energy to the room. Artists such as Lorna Simpson, Renee Cox, Lalla Essaydi, Cindy Sherman, and Emma Amos are featured, their work drawing new meaning in its placement within this vast but vital concept.

Lorna Simpson is a heavy hitter in this vein of identity work, but even in an exhibition as large and important as this, her work shines. On one large wall of the gallery, Simpson’s 54 duotone lithographs of wigs and text are displayed as an installation. The sheer number of panels is overwhelming, yet each seems to carry an identity and personality of its own. It becomes rather obvious, as each of these images is a wig portrait, that the lack of people in the work is a means of concentrating on the wigs themselves. The prints are made on thick felt panels, and push-pinned to the wall, giving them lifelike texture without the intrusion of a glass frame. The wigs come in many sizes and shapes, including braids, afros, mustaches, merkins and even blonde waves. Though much of what Simpson is discussing in her work is prevalent in Black female identities, she makes a point forcing her work to be post-structural and inclusive; this is a conversation in which a white woman can participate as easily as a Latino man. No longer is the dialogue limited to her immediate cultural group, and the work is stronger for that. The pieces seem to simultaneously imply forced disguise as well as chosen reinvention. The notion that hair is such a massive part of our outward identity that it shapes our inner identity is relevant in modern society as well as historically; revolutionary America saw wigs as a sign of class. Hair seems to penetrate beyond vanity and strikes a chord within us as a reflection of our identity.

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by Carla Aaron-Lopez

“Bloody Boy” by Yi-Hsin Tzeng

I get excited when people find humor in everyday household objects. Think of a magazine. We pass by them all the time at grocery stores, convenience stores, doctor’s offices and in our homes. Some of us pay a ridiculous amount of attention to what is said in them while others use them to pass the time while waiting for the bus or riding a train. The one thing we often forget while reading them is that their purpose is to sell, sell, sell. Enter Yi-Hsin Tzeng, a Savannah College of Art and Design painting graduate student. For one month (Nov. 7 – Nov. 29, 2009) at Young Blood Gallery in Atlanta, Tzeng’s series “My Magazine Project” will be on display consisting of her collection of works on paper, paintings and magazine recreations. Her artist statement starts with a quote by Simon Well, “Beauty often promises, but never gives.” I couldn’t agree more. After looking at her works, one can’t help but draw a relationship between how she has defaced the beautiful people in magazines with Takeshi Murakami’s 2002 painting “Tan Tan Bo Puking.”

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