Susan Meiselas
I would like to report on Meiselas with regards to the word conflict because she is one of the first artists to present the stripper/strip industry from two sides. Unlike Philip Lorca DiCorcia, who presented strippers as objective as he could, Meiselas presented the dancer from the perspective of the dancer, and the customer. At the time, this discussion had not been had. Meiselas took a humanizing approach to the women involved in the performances, which, up until this point (the 70's) was not allowed. Women, strippers or not, werent allowed equal roles or representation. She presents the power of the dancer. This generation marked the beginning of the end of the treatment and representation of women. She also showed the opposite side, the viewer. The customer plays an equally important role.
Untitled, from Carnival Strippers, bw photo, 1976
Untitled, from Carnival Strippers, bw photo, 197
For my outside review, im attaching a link to her website, which has a sound piece attached to it regarding this series. Click on the photo of the girl holding the cigarette.
http://www.susanmeiselas.com/content.php?sec=cs
Meiselas, Susan. "Carnival Strippers." Susan Meiselas. 2003. 17 Oct 2008
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Artist 9
Kara Walker
The Victorian Silhouette, a symbol of status (who else could afford to commission them?), was adopted by Kara Walker and transformed into illustrations and narratives about violence, gender, race and class. She used an easily recognizable and often times benign symbol to construct discussions about major issues such as slavery. She uses our traditional visual associations (silhouette as portrait) to draw us in and then hit us with something thats quite the opposite of benign.
Gone, An Historical of a Civil War as it Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart, 1994, Cut paper and adhesive on wall, 13 x 50 feet
Narratives of a Negress, book illustration, 2003
Selecting works from the span of the artist’s career, Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress featured anti-racist parodies depicting powerful images of race, sex, slavery, and violence. Widely exhibited and internationally acclaimed, Walker creates a distinct disconnect between the delicate beauty of her chosen medium—black cut-paper silhouettes, like those popular with genteel audiences of the nineteenth century—and the visceral impact of her imagery. Her work brought to light troubling episodes from the history of black and white relations and illuminated problems of racism, sexism, and abuse that have persisted into the present. Highlights of the exhibition included Gone: An Historical Romance of the Civil War as it Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart, a groundbreaking, fifty-foot-long panorama not seen since 1994, and For the Benefit of All the Races of Mankind (Mos’ Specially the Master One, Boss) An Exhibition of Artifacts, Remnants, and Effluvia EXCAVATED from the Black Heart of a Negress III (2002), a new work using light projections to flood Walker’s paper silhouettes and the gallery walls with bright swaths of color.
Exhibition Representative, "Exhibitions." Tang. 2008. Tang Museum, Skidmore College. 17 Oct 2008
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Artist 10
Reynold Reynolds
In his film, Burn, Reynold Reynolds uses fire as a metaphor for our internal personal conflicts as well as the conflicts we have with others. Starting off as a small fire that is ignored, it grows and grows until there is undeniable destruction around you, which you still ignore.
stills from Burn, film, 2001
Burn is the third film REYNOLD REYNOLDS and PATRICK JOLLEY have made together. Their second film, The Drowning Room, received an honorable mention at Sundance 2000, also receiving an award at SXSW, 2000. Burn is a narrative collage, peopled with devils, angels, and allegorical creatures. A house burns from the inside while its occupants focus on the emotional issues of their lives. The inhabitants serve life sentences with no remission in an architecture of insecurity - while impending disaster is ignored.
When traumas and alienation emerge from behind the perfect veneer of TV soaps and cinematic romances, their peaceful, smooth-running idyll turns into catastrophe. The film and video artist Reynold Reynolds uses his experience as a film theorist in order to visualise this collision between the idealised cliché and its opposite in his videos and installations. The language and methods of the cinema are analytical instruments in his work; in a narrative collage, for example, the inhabitants scarcely seem to notice that their house is burning, as they are so caught up in their own emotional states. In "Burn", the people resemble prisoners facing a life sentence with no hope of reprieve, monotonously going about their everyday business quite unaware of the approaching disaster.
In this wildly outlandish film an absent minded couple sit calmly reading as fires erupt in their clothing, books and furniture. They nonchalantly swat at he flames with a stoic inattentiveness. Burn embraces an anti-narrative structure yet intense drama is found in the conflagration about to envelope the couples' abode. Finally a decisive act is taken leading to the possibility of a miraculous event. BLACK MARIA FILM FESTIVAL 2003
Unknown, "Burn." Reynold Reynolds. 2006. Reynold Reynolds. 17 Oct 2008
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