by The Tears of Things
Sometime this election-year fall the Arizona State University Art Museum will present a special exhibition -- Democracy in America -- and the only information we've been able to find out about it was a tantalizing hint by Kathleen Vanesian in her recent profile of Heidi Hesse (see previous post):
[Hesse] has been chosen for inclusion in "Democracy in America," a group show scheduled for this fall at ASU Art Museum jointly curated by ASUAM's entire curatorial staff.
We at The Tears of Things are so excited about this prospect that we can't wait for a list of artists or how they are realizing this theme. So we've created the skeleton crew -- twenty-one Arizona artists -- of an alternate, possible, maybe even likely exhibition. We will make two assumptions: contributors will be mostly local jokels artists, and most of them will be, shall we say, critical of the current administration, and the country in general. Both safe assumptions, we think. So away we go, in alphabetical order, and . . . watch your beverage:
Mary Bates. Liberola: A suite of six wireframe seriagraphs by an ASU professor, wherein the shape of the Liberty Bell morphs, over six transformations, into the classic outline and shape of the Coca-Cola bottle. Colors are red and blue, alternating . . . and that's it.
Carrie Bloomston. Freedom To Choose All Is Good: In a kind of wall/floor tableau, Bloomston has created a canvas "cloud" in what looks like sfumato style, but up close the eye detects hundreds of tiny brown and grey marks. Half the cloud is on the wall, half on the floor. Sitting in the middle, against the wall, painted The Color of the Moment, #99CC66, is a multi-armed female mannikin, and arrayed before her in a semicircle are all the brushes, palette knives, pastels, paints, chalks, and crayons she will need. On the wall behind her is written in script, It's All Good.
Michael Ray Charles. T'reefiffssuhweet. In a special project commissioned for this exhibition, Charles, another ASU professor, had thirteen (for the colonies) of his best-known canvases reproduced as photolithographs, all the same size (50 x 30), and with two-fifths of each image whited-out with opaque horizontal bars, referencing, as they persist in saying, the US Constitution's infamous three-fifths clause.
Sue Chenoweth. The Ineffable Impressions of Democracy: Chenoweth, known for her prodigious lifelong production and compulsive hoarding of same, here presents hundreds of pencil drawings from the time she was two until very recently -- all of them reprinted on white paper and with either red or blue ink for the lines. They shall cover an entire wall.
Cindy Dach, Greg Esser, Wayne Rainey. Depicting A Diptychted Democracy: Operating as "The DocuPosse," this trio collaborated on an ambitious project. They have/will spread out over the Valley to record in still photos every public meeting they are allowed into, from homeowner's associations to school board meetings to city councils to the state legislature committee meetings. In each case, two photos exist: on the left, the panel or those running the meeting; on the right, the audience at the same time. The resulting diptyches should cover an entire wall.
Angela Ellsworth. uriNATION Dress: Building on her earlier work, Ellsworth will thoroughly soak a six-foot American flag in her collected urine. When dried, she will fashion it into a Miss Liberty toga to wear at the opening, along with a crown made of dirty, worn insoles and an empty can of air freshener for a torch.
Jeff Falk. Noitaralced: In a live performance at the opening, and in a video loop during the exhibition, Falk appears as alter ego Ffej Klaf, dressed in white shirt and jeans, both on backwards, and a baseball cap (forwards, with ASU printed on it). He will recite, from memory, the Declaration of Independence -- backwards. In the background, a recorded kazoo softly honks the tune to "Yankee Doodle Dandy," also backwards.
Mark Freedman, Oliver Hibert, Grant Wiggins. The Popped Art Party: This crew has a name, The TRA25 Capsule, but we just call them The Boys. Here they present a multi-media mock Presidential campaign for the Popped Art Party -- "Fighting for Your Right to Party" -- Freedman for POTUS, Hibert for Veep, and Wiggins as the Campaign Manager. The Boys will present ballots, posters, buttons, audio and video statements, and a special voting booth.
Jon Haddock. Haddock already has his 99-Senator-piece, one-note riff on the Patriot Act available, but word is he's also working diligently on a Warner Brothers-style cartoon version series of the recent mercenary mutilations in Iraq, such as that circle of Iraqis hacking up one of the unrecognizable unfortunates. Very edgy. Vintage Haddock.
Heidi Hesse. She'll probably have her Gummer -- see previous post -- shipped up north, but she may also recycle her grade-school-classroom-exercise interactive pieces, such as Making and Unmaking Liberty. (See her site for details.)
Annie Lopez. Tearful Trail of Treads: Lopez and her crew traveled by car and truck from Central and Washington to the freeway south, and picked up every substantial shred of tire tread on the roadside all the way down to Nogales and back. Hundreds of these will then be nailed to three walls of an exhibition room. In the middle of each tread, a unique photographic self-portrait of Mz. Lopez from her substantial archive.
Sloan McFarland. American Pieland: A video wall-projection of a full-body shot of MacFarland, acoustic guitar in hands, singing and playing Don Maclean's American Pie at half-speed. Thousands of images downloaded from the interenet on the themes of Americana and pie flicker by on and behind him as he sings Aaa lllooonnnggg lllooonnnggg . . . for thirty-six minutes.
Beverly McIver. The Democratization of Mammy: This five-part series of paintings was specially commissioned for this exhibition by the newly-established Weithorn Grant. McIver (another ASU professor) appears in every one in her trademark domestic's apron, red headkerchief, white gloves, and blackface -- as Martha Washington, Dolly Madison, Abigail Adams, and (in whiteface) Sally Hemmings.
Sherrie Medina. You Still Govern Like A Girl: Imagine every bit of memorabilia you can about Rose Mofford in all her iterations, then lay it out neatly in a life-sized but loose interpreation of Mofford's office, and you'll have some idea of Medina's project. But it will also include an artwork you have to see to believe: The Silver Stack, a six-foot standing reproduction of Mofford's hairdo in platinum and silver lurex.
Beatrice Moore. The Garden of Democratic Delights: The Godmother of Art Detour presents a very large canvas depicting her signature chimera creatures, with human heads and either insect or bird wings. Hundreds of them float before a garden-like background, and the viewer may discern many familiar faces in this landscape.
Gregory Sale. Shibboleth/Tripping Up The Zippies: Mr. Sale, in a Hans Haacke-like investigation that could cost him his job at the Arizona Commission on the Arts, presents a two-part installation. In the first, large reproductions of official documents, and wall charts, show how all local governments have been quietly outsourcing an average of 40 percent of their telephone work for several years. In the second part, Sale and his collaborators made dozens of calls to call centers on the governments' lists, and skillfully tried to trip up the operators on the other end -- often, the other end was in India. A dozen headphones will be available for those who want to listen to the edited results.
Steve Yazzie. I'm Just Sayin': This is a large oil on canvas double portrait "Fusion History" painting. On the right, Yazzie's Code Talker grandfather, in full uniform, sits with his arms crossed looking skeptical. On the left, the inventor of the Speak 'N'Spell, in a business suit, is holding out one of them, a fine red model, toward the frowning Navajo.
Posted by Jerome at April 20, 2004 04:59 PM | TrackBack