notions on help and need

this image found on http://www.adsmonkey.com/category/pro-ads/
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Cordaid - People in Need

National Portrait Gallery and Native American Museum

Here are some images from another visit to the district.
One is a statement found at the new Native American History Museum. The attention to layout and presentation is very progressive and deserves another visit definitely. The Second photo is of my brother who is still in the process of recovering from Schidzophrenia despite ever shrinking federal funding.
The Third photo is by Kehinde Wiley and is at the National Portrait Gallery- Much more impressive in person than in print. and the last is a small statue of some wonderful mythic creature carved from stone. This again I found at the Native American History Museum.

The nature of what race means in your work....pt1

The following excerpt I found from the New York Times Website with some quizzical dates attached. I assume that 1997 was the original published date.

Saturday, August 30, 2008 (?)

Art in Review

By ROBERTA SMITH

Published: June 6, 1997

The salient characteristics of his film installations are their physicality and narrative openness: the first is a strength and the second is sometimes a problem. In particular, Mr. McQueen relies on post-modern ambiguity, and the viewer's ability to supply alternative readings, in a way that can be overly familiar.

On the physical side, however, there is clear originality. Mr. McQueen favors wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor projections that thrust images into the room to visceral effect; extreme camera angles and passing shots that make one super-conscious of the camera as both an object and a participant in the action, and dramatic sequences that emphasize the human body either in gigantic close-up or in motion. The artist, who appears in several sequences, and his actors are black, which makes race an intrinsic element of the work, a kind of linchpin between form and content.

Paul asked me to look into how British artist Steve Mcqueen responds to questions of race in his art or statements of intent along those lines. All I have seen is purposeful evasiveness. My task is in response to my personal idea that the reason I am so impressed specifically with the work "Bear" is as follows: When encountering "Bear" you enter a room in which the film is projected larger than life on a wall filling the whole surface. The image presented is that of two black males in various stated of physical and non physical engagement. Sometimes grappling, some times leering, sometimes outwardly smiling at one another. The film is very minimalistic and is shot in black and white. What I was presented with was at once so simple, and so open ended that I was confounded suddenly. I was confounded not because of some complicated piece of empotional of graphic manipulation, I let my own self, my own personae and history fill in what I was looking at. my reaction was fueled by personal notions and societal perceptions of race, gender and sexuality. Once I was able to set those aside I was able to see that what I feared hindered me to seeing what was really great about the piece. What I find amazing is the simplicity of the beauty of movement, the dance, the humanity that is displayed. What I absolutely love is that there are two black males displayed on screen and in one fail swoop it I can see that it is about black males but not about race...but it is. It IS about race for me in that there is nothing specificly being said visually about this piece that says it has to be black males. There are no props, no location, just two bodies. There is no verbal dialogue to place national or regional dialect. This piece if it had two Caucasian males would have almost none of the same potential baggage. But since that baggage even the sexual implications is contextural to society we ourselves place that upon the piece.
For me the triumph is that the piece is about representation of black males in film and being able to read it as pure and without stigma. I am going to assume you are following this because I am not very good at explaining when something is not about race when it seems like it is...and it is...not! All I know is that thus far I have not found any interview in which Mcqueen speaks directly about the importance of race, rather there are numerous occasions in which there are representations of black people in his pieces. They are "black" by nature of being born with a melanin disposition of dark skin, they are included in the films based upon personal associations and mutual interests(ie siblings, friends), and exist fundamentally as people in a film that by the director verbally disavows as being about race.
It seems to me that being able to use language to talk about race is useful and necessary but can also be problematic when it becomes defining or expected of the artist. I think in Mcqueen's case he uses things that are quite simply unsettling at times. The usage of such device forces a emotional and intellectual conflict in the viewer. If the viewer can get though this, they allow themselves to view the real beauty of the "thing" presented. But to boil it down, make it about race, or something else makes that struggle too easy to write off . Race for example is constructed, it has no real scientific foundation for the hierarchical staging of our society. So therefore we see race where it does not exist, but it does exist in our mind. So then what is true?

on how to speak with conviction?

Talib Kweli

Avery Brooks v. Ossie Davis

Steve Mcqueen- the basics of what follows...

Exerpt taken from a review of "Mighty Silence," by Michael Rush Performing Arts Journal 19.3 (1997) 59-64The Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights reserved.Copyright © 1997"...The artist then startles us with a shot (from guess where? yes) looking up at a man (McQueen himself again) pissing a substantial amount of liquid onto the camera. (The gallery notes tell us that he shot this through a glass tabletop.) Like Bruce Nauman who juxtaposes seemingly incongruent images next to each other on different monitors, McQueen jolts our passive viewing with forceful shifts of content and emotion. Just as we are luxuriating in the gentle sway of the woman's dress, he literally pees on us and says, "She's not yours to have." Again McQueen denies any political, racial, or social subtext to these shots, but what's a viewer to think when the film's director urinates on her? He's not merely appearing in the frame (as stage director Tadeusz Kantor used to do from the sidelines in his plays); his editing of these images together may easily be seen as an aggressive and even hostile act. In a not very informative interview in early 1997, McQueen was asked about the significance of this scene. The interviewer said the scene reminded her of the opening sequence of Sunset Boulevard, where the camera looks up at the body of William Holden floating in a pool; to this McQueen responded, "I wanted a situation where I was peeing while people, the audience, would be under me, as it were--the dynamics of that situation." Of course. "The dynamics of that situation." What??? And what exactly are the dynamics of that situation? And who but a movie-drenched critic would think of Sunset Boulevard, while the director of the film she is watching is peeing on her? Certainly this is a strong image (if not original, as anyone aware of the early work of Robert Whitman, Shigeko Kubota, and various Fluxus and Happenings artists is well aware), replete with interpretative and emotive possibilities of which even the director was perhaps unaware...."
Steve McQueen, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Spring, 1997
Profile link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/544419.stm



STEVE MCQUEEN
Artist Bio

Born: London, England, 1969

Education: Chelsea School of Art, London, England, 1989-90
Goldsmith College, London, England, 1990-93
Tisch School of Arts, New York University, New York, New York, 1993-94

Awards: Turner Prize, Tate Gallery, London, England, 1999
DAAD Artist in Residence, Berlin, Germany, 1999
ICA Futures Award, 1996

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2007
"For Queen and Country," A Commission by Steve McQueen, Manchester Central Library, England. 2006
"Caresses," Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Marugame, Japan.
Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris, France. 2005
“Steve McQueen,” Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy.
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

2004
South London Gallery, London
Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts 2003
"ARC/Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
Tate Egg Live," Tate Britain, London, England (one-time performance) 2002
"FOCUS: Steve McQueen," Art Institute of Chicago
"Steve McQueen: Caribs' Leap/Western Deep" ArtAngel at Lumiere, London, England; Fundacio de Serralves, Porto, Portugal; Mead Gallery, University of Warwick, England; Fundacio Tapies, Barcelona, Spain 2001
Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris, France
Vienna Kunsthalle, Vienna, Austria
Museu de Arte Moderna de S 2000
Sala Mendoza, Caracas, Venezuela
Institute for Contemporary Art, Cape Town, South Africa
'Barrage,' DAAD, Berlin
'Cold Breath', Delfina Projects, London
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, New York

1999
"Steve McQueen," Institute of Contemporary Art, London, England; Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, France

1998
"Four Projected Images," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam

1997
"Deadpan," The Museum of Modern Art, Project Room, New York, New York
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, New York
Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany
Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Institute of Visual Arts (INOVA), Milwaukee, Wisconsin

1996
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2008
" The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image," The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC 2007
52nd International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy.
"Edit! Photography and Film in the Ellipse Collection," Ellipse Foundation, Cascais, Portugal,
"Equal, That Is, To The Real Itself," Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Curated by Linda Norden,
"Electrones Libres: A Selection of Works from the Lemaître Collection," Tabacalera Donosita, San Sebastian, 2006

"The Starry Messenger: Visions of the Universe", Compton Verney

2005
Double Feature, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

2004
"Die Neue Kunsthalle III," Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
"WOW (The Work of the Work)," Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
"Faces in the Crowd, Picturing Modern Life from Manet to Today," Whitechapel, London, England 2004-03
"Fast Forward: Media Art from the Goetz Collection," ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany

2003
-"Utopia Station," Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
-"Outlook," Technopolis, Benaki Museum and The Factory, Athens, Greece
"Utopia Station Poster Project," Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
2002
Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany
"Moving Pictures," Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
"Video Acts: Single Channel work from the collection of Pamela and Richard Kramlich and the New Art Trust," P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York 2001
"Public Offerings," The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, California
"Mirror's Edge," Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy; Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland 2000
"Beauté in Fabula," Palais des Papes D'Avignon, Avignon, France
"Mirror's Edge," Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
"Unhoused," Antiquo Collegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City

1999
"Kunst mit art with architecture," Villa Merkel und Bahnwärterhaus, Esslingen, Germany
"Geschichten des Augenblicks," Lenbachhaus Kunstbau, Munich, Germany
"infra-slim spaces," Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama
"Seeing Time: Selections from the Pamela and Richard Kramlich Collection of Media Art," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
"Retrace your Steps: Remember Tomorrow," Sir John Soane's Museum, London, England
"Mirror's Edge," BildMuseet, Umea, Sweden
"Common People," Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene d'Alba
Turner Prize, Tate Gallery, London

1998
"Ironisch/Ironic," Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland
"Images," Festival of Independent Film and Video, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
"Wounds," Moderna Museet, Stockholm

1997
Documenta 10, Kassel, Germany
2nd Johannesburg Biennial, Johannesburg, South Africa

1996
"Timing," De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
"Life/Live," ARC/Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

1995
"Mirage: Enigma of Race, Difference and Desire," Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England
The British Art show 4, Manchester and tour
"X/Y," Musée National d'Art Moderne-Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

1994
"Acting Out: The Body in Video, Then and Now," Royal College of Art, London, England

©Marian Goodman Gallery

Fuzzy warmness

Books and media under review:

Isaac Julien- True North/Fantome Afrique -Kestnergesellschaft 2006
Isaac Julien- Irish Museum of Modern Art 2005
Isaac Julien- Livre numero 8- Centre Pompidou 2005
Steve Mcqueen- Speaking in Tongues- Musee d'Art Moderne De La Ville De Paris 2003
Spellbound- Art and Film- Hayward Gallery 1996
Second Arrivals- Landscape and Belonging in Contemporary Writting of the Americas- Casteel- University of Va Press 2007
Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (video) - Isaac Julien- California Newsreel- 1995
The Wretched of the Earth- Frantz Fanon- Grove Press, inc. 1963

If anyone has suggestions please feel free!

Thoughts in reveiw:
Did anyone critique your work this week? If so, what were their impressions?

• I gave a presentation of work "up until now" in studio. Impressions were mixed, generally there was empathy for the work, sympathy for it projection quality which was very poor(not bright enough). Overall I need to teach myself to speak more confidently, more decisively even when I do not feel as such. Got to get a spiel on. I obviously need to do at least one piece on race just so I can have something to say about it. I don't feel like I can try and simply recontexturalize my old work in terms of race, but I do think I need to learn how to speak about those pieces in terms of how people see race. The unfortunate thing is that people find it easy to comment on race in relation to a person of color's art but not in terms of a white (yes I said it) artist's. Is the tennant of identity laced with the other and why is the other not always the other. Furthermore is it a matter of responsibility? Responsibility to myself? To others? To a social construction? I also need to stop fearing the label of "black artist." I am so glad being a male artist isn't marginalized for I might be afraid of being one of those too!
• What was the most motivational or creative moment of the past week?
• Motivational moment: realizing I now have permission to do work on race.
  

• What do you want to achieve in next week's studio practice?
• Iron out what the most interesting of several new ideas will be and start researching.
• What did you achieve in your studio this past week?

• scheduling classes saying goodbye to summer.
  

• What has been an artistic failure this week?
• speaking like a monk. With out confidence, without certainty. Without a spine.
  

• What was the most profound thought in relation to your practice this week?
• I don't talk about race enough. If identity is what I am avoiding- meet it head on.
• I was asked "what do I fear?" last year. This is one of those fears- to get pigeonholed.
  

• If there was a visiting artist this week, what is your impression of their work and process in relation to your own?
• NA-No visiting artist. However I did attend A sculpture crit class (audit) which was very positive. It reaffirms my notion that we need more interaction between the Pollock Camp and the FAB camp.