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Thursday, November 29, 2012
French and Italian Drawings: Renaissance through Romanticism, Part I
Maggie Hoot ’16 looks closely at a Fragonard drawing. Photography by Julie Warchol.Here at the Smith College Museum of Art, Smith students are given many amazing opportunities to be deeply involved in their collection. This semester, one such chance was given to six students who enrolled in the colloquium French and Italian Drawings: Renaissance through Romanticism, taught by Suzanne Folds McCullagh, who is this year’s Ruth and Clarence Kennedy Professor of Renaissance Studies. A Smith alumna herself (class of 1973), McCullagh is the Anne Vogt Fuller and Marion Titus Searle Chair and Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. As a specialist in French and Italian prints and drawings from the Renaissance and Baroque, she provides extensive knowledge of drawings in terms of connoisseurship, techniques, conservation, provenance, and collecting, as well as her invaluable experience as a curator at a world-renowned museum.
As an important part of the course, Professor McCullagh and her students developed an installation of French and Italian Drawings from the SCMA collection, which is on view in the Nixon gallery on the second floor of the Museum until December 16. To develop their installation, the class met here in the Cunningham Center for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, where the students acquired unique hands-on experience of working directly with these drawings. Students learned how to tell more about the history and provenance of these drawings by identifying materials, paper type, watermarks and collectors marks. Using all of this information and much outside research, students wrote their own wall labels for the installation (a selection is shown below). Professor McCullagh and her students’ installation of SCMA’s drawings also creates a dynamic conversation with our exhibition Drawn to Excellence: Renaissance to Romantic Drawings from a Private Collection, on view on the first floor until January 6.
Maddy Barker ’15 researches this Moreau le Jeune drawing with its curatorial file. Photography by Julie Warchol.
Suzanne Folds McCullagh ’73 examines two drawings by Carmontelle. Photography by Julie Warchol.__________________________________________________________________
Labels written by the French and Italian Drawings Class
Lodovico Cardi, called il Cigoli. Italian, 1559 – 1613. Study of Jacob from the painting "Jacob's Dream" (recto); Study for the painting "Jacob's Dream" (verso),
n.d. Red chalk on cream laid paper. Purchased with the Ruth and Clarence Kennedy Endowment, the Diane Allen Nixon, class of 1957, Fund, and the Josephine A. Stein, class of 1927, Fund in honor of the class of 1927. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1996:23Label written by Suzanne Folds McCullagh (B.A., Smith College ‘73; Ph.D., Harvard University ‘81), the Anne Vogt Fuller and Marion Titus Searle Chair and Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago:
Cigoli was a prolific and expressive draftsman who brought a new naturalism and clarity to his vast corpus of drawings, many of which were preparatory for paintings and espoused Counter Reformation decorum and piety.
This double-sided drawing is comprised of red chalk (recto) and pen and brown ink (verso) studies for The Dream of Jacob, one of his early masterpieces—probably the 1593 version (the painting pictured here) now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nancy.
Discovered mounted in a book in 1996 at an antiquarian book sale in Northampton, the sheet joins an impressive list of at least nine studies for that composition, which Cigoli executed several times in oil. The red chalk study is clearly drawn from a studio model in contemporary dress.
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Théodore Géricault. French, 1791 – 1824. Landscape with Stormy Sky
(recto), ca. 1817. Pen and brown (iron gall) ink with brush and ink, watercolor and gouache over graphite on cream wove paper. Purchased. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1960:92Label written by Carol Kaminsky:
Géricault’s short life spanned the rise and fall of Napoleon and the shift from rigid Classicism to the intensity of Romanticism. His short apprenticeship in the former style was followed by a period of self-study in Paris copying paintings in the Louvre and two years (1816–17) in Florence and Rome. This brooding landscape, possibly made in Italy, is transformed by sharp contrasts between light and dark. Bands of clouds race across the horizon; a glow emanates from a hidden moon and lights a crenellated tower as smoke rises to merge with the midnight blue of the sky. Landscapes are relatively rare within the artist’s drawn oeuvre, but another landscape by Géricault appears in the exhibition Drawn to Excellence on SCMA’s first floor.
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Agostino Carracci, Annibale Carracci. Italian, Agostino 1557 – 1602; Annibale 1560 – 1609. Landscape: Hillock with Trees, n.d. Pen and brown ink on cream laid paper. Purchased. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1955:30
Label written by Maggie Hoot, class of 2016:
The Carracci family of artists reformed art in late sixteenth-century Italy, moving from the sterility of Mannerism to the drama of the Baroque, emphasizing drawing from nature and living subjects. While this landscape is surely from the Carracci dynasty, it is highly debatable which family member made this small sketch. A past collector attributed it to “Antonio Caracie” (as inscribed), but most scholars believe it to be by Antonio’s father, Agostino, or his uncle Annibale. Drawings representing trees by both of these artists are featured in the exhibition Drawn to Excellence downstairs and provide an intriguing comparison and foundation for this work’s origins.
Comments
Anne K. Socolow, Cayman Islands, British West Indies
Gericault drawing "Landscape with Stormy Sky"
An extraordinary label by Carol Kaminsky - in SCMA French and Italian Drawings Class - of young Gericault's work. Her explanation of detail of chiarascuro and swirling romantic movement in this drawing prefigures Gericault's later painted oeuvre.
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Thursday, November 8, 2012
Cass Bird: I Look Just Like My…
Cass Bird. American, born 1974. I Look Just Like My Mommy,
2005. C-print. Purchased. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. © 2011 Cass Bird. SC 2011:41-1Cass Bird, who graduated from Smith College in 1999, works as both a fine art and commercial photographer in Brooklyn, NY. Her commercial work is often featured in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, the New York Times Magazine, and many others. While her magazine work sensuously portrays celebrities, models, and pop culture icons, her photographs of friends, acquaintances, and inspirational figures are far more personal, challenging, and moving. Such portraits artfully explore the subjective and amorphous nature of gender in our contemporary society.
In I Look Just Like My Mommy, acquired by SCMA in 2011, Bird depicts her friend Macaulay on the rooftop of a Williamsburg apartment building. Macaulay stands shirtless, with breasts, tattoos, and underwear exposed. The portrait is strikingly beautiful; the sun’s soft glow illuminates both the Brooklyn skyline and the subject’s skin, but it is not just about mere aesthetics. With most of Macaulay’s face covered, we are left to explore the signs which we may typically associate with normative gender identities; breasts, hairless skin, and pink underwear exist alongside defined arm musculature, tattoos of guns, a bald eagle, and “ROCK & ROLL,” as well as a trucker hat which boldly states “I LOOK JUST LIKE MY DADDY.” (Of course, this last detail is even further complicated by the title of the photograph, which states the opposite.) Bird’s portrait asks viewers to acknowledge the inconsistencies of these signifiers in order to think beyond conventional, polarized ideas of gender, and ultimately, to recognize the individual underneath the posturing.
Regarding her work, Bird claims: “The photographs portray the beauty and the positive existence of these individuals, their male and female origins overridden by their own will to define their gender, sexuality, and place in society.” Cass Bird continues to photograph individuals whose lives and appearances operate outside the traditional gender dichotomy, as can be seen in her first book, Rewilding , which was published earlier this year.
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Thursday, November 1, 2012
Student Picks: Between the Lines – Image and Prose in the 20th Century Avant-Garde
Student Picks is a SCMA program in which Smith students are given the opportunity to organize their own one-day art show using our collection of works on paper. This month’s student curator and guest blogger Leah Santorine ’13 discusses the inspiration and concepts behind her show, “Between the Lines: Image and Prose in the 20th Century Avant-Garde,” which will be on view tomorrow, Friday November 2 from 12-4 PM in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.
Max Ernst. German, 1891 – 1976. Étoile de mer, ca. 1950. Lithograph on paper. Purchased. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1953:120
All the shadow bubbles
And the sea-anemones
Come down and breathe within my thoughts- André Breton. French poet, 1896 – 1966. *
I love modern art and literature. These two worlds have always been intertwined, and in my Student Picks show I strove to create a conversation between the drawings and prints which I chose and the literature around it. Between the Lines was born by drawing parallels and making connections between these worlds. As a Comparative Literature major, I have always perceived 20th century art to be a product of literature. From my very first glimpse at the Futurist Manifesto, I was convinced. The cultural melting pot that was the European art scene in the early and mid-20th century continued to only solidify my visions of art through literature. Between the Lines is my personal and academic exploration of the literature and art of this particularly intriguing and influential time period.
Texture and color, arguably two things that cannot be portrayed in textual literature, were important to me in choosing, arranging, and creating connections between the artworks. Subsequently, the serious or silly subject matter and the geometric patterns juxtaposed with seemingly directionless lines were important in creating a balance between the different moods that the pieces evoke.
Futurism, Surrealism, and Dadaism were three movements that revolutionized art and were highly attractive to me – either through their respective manifestos or the art that the movements themselves produced. Many of the works in Between the Lines represent these different movements and show the full extent of the range of these artists. By combining each work with poems, prose, and quotes from authors from the same period, often even their peers and friends, the combined works give the viewer a new perspective on the influential and interpretive relationship between 20th century art and literature. I hope that Between the Lines illuminates both, playing with how art and literature address the ideas of conceptualizing and being.
Student Picks is a program that I had always wanted to participate in. Every year I put my name in, just once or twice, but never really expected anything. This year, I put my name in only three times. When I received the e-mail that I was selected to be a student curator, I was completely surprised and excited to have the opportunity to not only participate, but also to really kick off my senior year. It’s an incredible opportunity that I have done my best to take full advantage of. See you on Friday!
Sophie Tauber-Arp. Swiss, 1889-1943. Abstraction, n.d. Etching on paper. Gift of Priscilla Paine Van der Poel, class of 1928. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1977:32-228
the streams buck like rams in a tent.
whips crack and from the hills come the crookedly combed
shadows of the shepherds.
black eggs and fools’ bells fall from the trees.
thunder drums and kettledrums beat upon the ears of the
donkeys.
wings brush against flowers.
fountains spring up in the eyes of the wild boar.
- Hans/Jean Arp. German-French artist and poet, 1886 – 1966. **
Riccardo Licata. Italian, born 1929. Scrittura, 1954. Charcoal and pencil on white paper. Purchased. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1954:70
“Alba”
As cool as the pale wet leaves
of lily-of-the-valley
She lay beside me in the dawn.- Ezra Pound. American poet, 1885 – 1972. ***
* excerpt, "The Spectral Attitudes," in Collected Verse Translations of David Gascoyne. Edited by Robin Skelton and Alan Clodd. Oxford University Press, 1970.
** Dada poetry line: line from Arp’s poem "Der VogelSelbdritt," Hans Arp; first published in 1920; “Gesammelte GedichteI”, p. 41 (transl. Herbert Read); in Jours effeuillés: Poèmes,essaies, souvenirs, Gallimard, Paris 1966, p. 288.
*** Ezra Pound: Poems and Translations. Edited by Richard Sieburth. Library of America; First Edition (October 9, 2003).
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Thursday, October 25, 2012
Monsters
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes. Spanish, 1746-1828. Disparate de Miedo (Folly of Fear),
Plate 2 from Los Proverbios,
1864. Etching and aquatint on heavy wove paper. Purchased with the gift of Mrs. Roger Williams Bennett (Margaret Rand Goldthwait, class of 1921). Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1964:25-2My nine-year-old daughter loves Halloween. She loves the thrill of being frightened under safe conditions and, of course, the free candy. Walking past ghouls and monsters, she pinches my hand in gleeful but nervous anticipation. She is not the only one; the love of the uncanny and creepy is innate and a way of dealing with the darker side of life for many of us. Fellow Halloween-lovers can see the creatures that live within the SCMA vaults in the current Cunningham Corridor installation Monsters.
I’m personally not a big fan of horror movies, but I love a good ghost story. We all have a relationship to the monsters we create in our subconscious or the ones we find in newspaper headlines. The obsession with modern day monsters, like serial killers, has only grown and has even made it to the mainstream, as TV shows like Dexter demonstrate. Monsters have always been part of us. They are familiar and the ‘other’ at the same time. Throughout history and across all cultures monsters have found their place. They frequent our dreams and nightmares, and surface in our stories and visual arts. In ancient Greek myths, many fantastical beings were brought to life to embody the darker, internal struggles of the hero while infusing the tale with complexity and wonder.
Elliot Offner. American, 1931 - 2010. Griffin,
1974.
Woodcut printed in color on deckle edge paper. Bequest of Phyllis Williams Lehmann. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 2005:11-39Early Christianity, with its apocalyptic worldview, introduced a new visual vocabulary of monstrosities. In the course of their devout labors, monastic scribes would be ‘visited’ by grotesque and ribald creatures who were then inserted into the margins of their illuminated manuscripts. While some of these monsters appear to be light-hearted or trivial marginalia, other manifestations came to be directly equated with Satan, Hell, and the seven deadly sins. Meanwhile, in everyday life, disfiguring diseases and birth defects were taken as evidence of the sufferers’ depravity, making them seem like monsters themselves.
Non-western art was just as replete with monstrosities. Whether in early Japanese woodblock prints, Persian Mughal court painting, Inuit or African art, artists illustrated their own myths and folktales with colorful and complex demons and monsters.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Japanese, 1798 - 1861. Kuwana, Station 43
, from the series Fifty-three Pairs of the Tokaido,
n.d. Woodcut printed in color on paper. Purchased with the Winthrop Hillyer Fund. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1915:10-25The Japanese horror and anime genre has grown significantly in popularity in the West over the last twenty years. Originally an oral tradition, pre-air-conditioning Japan loved the ‘cold chills’ that came with the telling of horror or ghost stories on hot summer nights. Its roots can be found in ancient Japanese folklore which gave birth to innumerable yokai and or mononoke (strange apparitions, i.e., monsters) rivaling our western fascination with monsters.
In contrast with the interpretation of monsters in the West, which relies heavily on the Christian doctrine of Good versus Evil, the Japanese yokai have a deep connection to nature and depend on the Taoist principles of Yin-Yang (“shadow and light”). Japanese monsters are fluid and can fluctuate between being interpreted as good, bad, funny, or evil, or sometimes all of the above. They are there to remind us of the transmutability of all things uncertain and boundless. Yokai represent the imperceptible things that surround us that are given form by the boundless fears, anxieties, and contradictions in our lives.
Unknown. Japanese. Man in the Grip of a Beast,
n.d. Black ink with green, yellow, gray, and rose watercolor on paper. Purchased with the Winthrop Hillyer Fund. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1938:12-19
Chester J. Michalik. American, born 1935. Osaka Japan,
1996. Cibachrome print. Purchased. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1998:21-2Today’s more secularized monsters, such as those terrorizing audiences of Japanese anime or Hollywood horror films, retain much of their former potency. The descent into the dark underbelly of human consciousness is still not a happy journey. Our fascination with monsters has hardly waned, and artists continue to invent wonderful new abominations that both fascinate and repulse us.
Monsters is on view on the second floor of the Smith College Museum of Art until February 3, 2013.
Odilon Redon; printed by Just Becquet. French, Redon 1840 - 1916, Becquet 1829 - 1907. Le Sphinx: ... mon regard, que rien ne peut dévier...,
from Gustave Flaubert - La Tentation de St. Antoine,
ca. 1889. Lithograph printed in black on chine appliqué on heavy white wove paper. Gift of Mrs. Bertram Gabriel Jr. (Helen Cohen, class of 1948) in memory of her parents, Sadie and Sidney S. Cohen. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1989:21-3Comments
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Thursday, October 18, 2012
Romare Bearden: Brilliant Ambiguity
Romare Bearden. American, 1911-1988. Untitled,
ca. 1947. Watercolor on beige moderately thick textured paper. Gift of Yona (Donner) Hermann, class of 1957. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 2012:9Romare Bearden was a master of the art of synthesis. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in the heart of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s and 30s. He created artworks which brilliantly fused his vast array of interests and influences: Cubism, jazz, folk art, Renaissance painting, African sculpture, Social Realism, Dutch painting, classic literature, and many others. Despite the composite nature of his work, it is remarkably and distinctly his own. Part artist and part art historian, Bearden was not only a renowned painter and collagist, but he also uncovered and published scholarship on previously unknown and undervalued Afro-American artists, forging an increased sense of respect and appreciation throughout the 20th-century.
Bearden’s Untitled watercolor drawing, which entered our collection this year, was produced during a transitional moment in the artist’s career. Between 1945 and 1950, Bearden briefly broke away from his subjective paintings of his Southern youth in order to visually interpret classic works of literature like the Bible, Homer’s Iliad, and Garcia Lorca’s Lament for a Bullfighter. The watercolor drawings Bearden produced during these years were his most abstract works to date. Their fragmented treatment of space was particularly influential to his famous collages, which he began in the 1960s.
In the process of researching Untitled (ca. 1947), I was struck by its stylistic similarity to Bearden’s so-called “Iliad variations” watercolor series of sixteen works exhibited in 1948. While Bearden’s preceding biblical drawings depict distinguishable narrative moments, the Iliad watercolors are called “variations” because they lack specificity, including only vague references to warriors and the city of Troy. The watercolors often share the same bright palette with black lines delineating the forms, evoking the open, shimmering shapes of stained glass, as seen in this work or this work known to be from the series.
The static figures posed in shallow space in Untitled and in the Iliad watercolors seem to recall classical figures on ancient Greek vase paintings chronicling the Trojan War. Here, the figure on the left is greatly stylized, much like the figure of Achilles on this sixth-century vase by Exekias, with the legs shown from the side and the torso simultaneously twisted to be seen from the front. It would come as no surprise that Bearden was influenced by the work of classical vase painters, given his broad art historical knowledge and referential nature. What is surprising, however, is Bearden’s ability to veil this mythical tale beneath so many layers of visual and narrative abstraction that without a title or exact date, it now proves difficult to concretely define its relationship to the Iliad variations. It makes one wonder, is this actually a work from the series exhibited in 1948 or simply a contemporary drawing which is only related stylistically?
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Thursday, October 11, 2012
W. Eugene Smith’s “Spanish Wake”
Guest blogger Kendyll Gross was a 2012 participant in the Summer Institute in Art Museum Studies at Smith College. She also served as the 2012 Brown SIAMS Fellow with a month-long internship in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.
W. Eugene Smith. American, 1918-1978. Spanish Wake,
1951. Gelatin silver print mounted on paperboard. Purchased. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 1977:28-6.After choosing to concentrate on photojournalism, a young W. Eugene Smith remarked, “My station in life is to capture the action of life; the life of the world, its humor, its tragedy. In other words, life as it is. A true picture, unposed and real.” Humanism and social responsibility are strong themes found within Smith’s body of work. He often lived among his subjects for weeks, completely immersing himself within their everyday life. Smith passionately committed himself to capturing intimate scenes that revealed the essence of his subjects and hoped that his images would help to stir the emotions and conscience of his viewer.
The "Spanish Village" series concluded a European trip that had begun in Great Britain. On May 2, 1950, Smith crossed the Spanish border with an assistant and an interpreter. Life wanted Smith to report on problems with the food supply in Franco’s Spain. However, Smith was determined to do something with a much more political angle; the timing of the photo-story coincided with the United States’ discussion of allying themselves with Spain although the country was under fascist rule. Smith wanted to highlight the poverty and fear within Spain brought on by Francisco Franco. It took him two months of wandering all over Spain to find the village of Deleitosa, a rural town suffering from severe economic difficulties caused by the burdens of the Franco regime. An article by Gomez de la Serna in the daily paper ABC convinced him that this was where he should look for the reality of life in Spain.
The dramatic lighting in Spanish Wake complements the somber subject matter. The photograph shows an elderly man upon his deathbed surrounded by six women covered in veils and headscarves. Among these women are his wife, daughter, and granddaughter. In Spanish Wake, Smith makes compelling use of what is called chiaroscuro lighting, which dates back to Renaissance paintings. It pertains to depicting stark contrasts between light and shadow to emphasize space and depth as well as a sense of drama. The scene’s intense lighting creates a dominant mood of mourning and sadness. The deceased man’s face seems to radiate its own glow among the darkness, creating a halo effect while the distressed, pale faces of the women are clear and poignant among the setting’s shadows. The expressive contrast between light and dark intensifies the already tragic scene and immediately pulls the viewer into the emotional turmoil of the photograph.
Detail of Spanish Wake.
Although Smith sought to create “a true picture, unposed and real,” he was known to manipulate the negatives of his images. Two of the women from Spanish Wake, the wife (see detail above) and the daughter, were looking almost directly at Smith when he took the image, but Smith solved this problem in the final print. He printed their eyes almost totally black then with a fine-tipped brush applied bleach to create new whites. The result was to redirect the pupils of the two women’s eyes downward and to the side. Had Smith decided to leave the photograph as it was, the mood of the image would have changed drastically. This manipulation of the women’s eyes makes the scene more accessible as it appears the viewer is peering into an undisturbed and confidential moment. While Spanish Wake itself may not be completely honest, it channels Smith’s desire for uninhibited photography that captures the emotional reality of a situation.
Comments
Ely Pineiro
More information
i would love to know in which newspaper/magazine was published this photo for the first time?
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Thursday, October 4, 2012
Maximón Militar
Daniel Chauche. French-American, born 1951. Maximón Militar,Sololá
from La Santeria Chapina.
Negative 1989; printed 2011. Gelatin silver print. Purchased. SC 2012:19-9. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.The Maximón is obviously a complex product of the mixture, at several levels and at various times, of Maya and Roman Catholic ritual and beliefs. – Michael Mendelson, Maximón: An Iconographical Introduction (1959)
Guatemalan saints, beatos (blessed people) and deities usually represent holiness, innocence and purity of heart, yet the enigmatic Maximón, with his taste for alcohol and tobacco, is an unorthodox figure among Guatemalan congregations. Despite his unsavory character, Guatemalans’ worship of Maximón increased after 1880, especially in the highlands.
This folk saint has been venerated in a range of forms and dressed in different costumes for public rituals, especially during Holy Week, by Ladinos (people with indigenous and Spanish heritage) and indigenous people. In Chauche’s photograph, however, Maximón is wearing a military uniform and newly polished combat boots. He is holding an elongated object which appears to be a rifle and a rustic tray, which contains his favorite offerings: agua ardiente (alcohol), soda and cigarettes. Chauche only reveals the lower half of Maximón’s body. It is here where Maximón Militar – a deity, a doll, a figure, a religious hybrid – not only embraces two different religious worlds, the Maya and the Spanish, but goes a step further into a new ritual, war.
Daniel Chauche, while avoiding capturing the face of Maximón, finds a way to depict the shame and fear of the Guatemalan people and perhaps, as long term resident, his own, as well as the consequences of a long civil war that plagued the country.
Guatemala, like the majority of the countries in Latin America, gained its independence from Spain in the 1820s yet, at least for the Guatemalans, independence from European tyranny did not assure economic prosperity or peace among its people. Moreover, after independence, Guatemala had been a victim of authoritarian governments, harmful foreign interventions, and an unprecedented military coup in 1954. The coup not only established the modus operandi of foreign and domestic policy aimed at any political party that sympathized with communist or socialist ideals, but it also destabilized the country and unleashed one of the bloodiest civil wars in Latin America lasting nearly forty years.
Daniel Chauche took Maximón Militar in 1989 during the civil war in Guatemala, seven years before the peace accord between the government and rebel groups was signed. The sense of shame and fear is clear, however, questions still are unanswered. What was the real reason why Chauche omitted the upper body of Maximón? Or is perhaps the man/figure wearing the military uniform and the shiny boots not Maximón at all but is instead a member of the military force and the Maximón is depicted only by the two pictures of San Simón/Maximón placed at the feet of the military figure?
Comments
Karla Giorgio
Maximon
I just ran across this entry today. As to the question of why not the face, two reasons, the doll like face does not emanate the menace implied in the rest of the image and concentrating on the objects around the shrine was very important, so once I backed up enough to take the whole figure these objects became too small. I do have an image of the whole figure but it is not nearly as cool as this image. I do think it very important that people think about why a photographer makes the operational choices he (she) does.
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Friday, September 28, 2012
Announcing the 2012-2013 Student Picks Winners!
It’s that time of year again! Here in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, we have been gearing up for the 2012-2013 Student Picks program for the last month. In case you aren’t familiar with Student Picks, this unique program offers seven Smith students per year the opportunity to organize their own one day art show using SCMA’s collection of 16,000 works on paper! It’s always amazing for us to see what students choose to show to their fellow students, friends, family, and professors.
SCMA Director Jessica Nicoll drawing namesFor the month of September, students could enter the Student Picks lottery at ballot boxes around campus. This year, we received a whopping 629 ballots! From those entries, SCMA Director Jessica Nicoll drew the names of seven winners and two alternates. This year’s student curators are:
Nov. 2, 2012 - Leah Santorine '13
Dec. 7, 2012 - Camille Kulig '13
Feb. 1, 2013 - Yvonne Ho '16
Mar. 1, 2013 - Sharon Pamela Santana '14
April 5, 2013 - Suzu Sakai '16
April 26, 2013 - Amanda Garcia '16
Oct. 4, 2013 - Mina Zahin '15
Congratulations to this year’s Student Picks curators! The shows occur on the first Friday of every month from 12 – 4PM in the Cunningham Center. Student Picks shows are one of the few chances in which we can welcome visitors to view our collection of prints, drawings, and photographs without an appointment, so we hope you will stay tuned and come by!
The winning ballots!
The Most Creative Ballot Award goes to Jean Eisenman '14, whose name was drawn as an alternate, for including this lovely portrait on the back of her ballot entry.Speaking of approaching Student Picks exhibitions, Laila Phillips ’15 is the student curator for October. Her show, “In Felinity: The Domestic Cat as a Subject, Symbol, and Character” will be on view on Friday, October 5, from 12 – 4PM in the Cunningham Center. Laila has chosen some wonderful works by artists including Francisco Goya, Sandy Skoglund, Philippe Halsman, Richard Billingham, and others. We hope you will join us! For information, visit the event Facebook page .
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Thursday, September 20, 2012
From 'Canyon' to 'Crackerjack': What You See is What You Don’t
Guest blogger Laura Romeyn was a 201 2 participant in the Summer Institute in Art Museum Studies (SIAMS) at Smith College.
My summer as a SIAMS student provided me with a comprehensive and intensive education in museum studies. Both my time on the road and my days on campus afforded me unique opportunities to perfect my interpretive skills. Two art encounters in particular; the viewing of Robert Rauschenberg’s Canyon, and Title Sheet from Crackerjacks by artist Lorie Novak and an unidentified colleague, tested my ability to make connections between otherwise disparate works of art.
L.N./C.H. American. Title Sheet
from Crackerjacks,
1977. Photolithograph printed in color on paper. Gift of Nancy Waller Nadler, class of 1951. SC 2007:34-1b. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.Earlier this summer I learned of the controversy surrounding Rauschenberg’s ‘combine’ work, Canyon. The term ‘combine’ describes a style of collage that incorporates found materials with two-dimensional paintings on canvas. Canyon is unique in that the stuffed bird atop the canvas happens to be an eagle. Under federal laws that prohibit the traffic in bald eagles (including their remains), Rauschenberg’s Canyon cannot be legally bought or sold. Yet the IRS is demanding that the heirs of the piece’s collector pay over $40 million in taxes.
I wasn’t aware that the Metropolitan Museum of Art was housing this ‘bald eagle-turned white elephant,’(as AR T ne w s so aptly describes it), until I stumbled upon the controversial piece within the 20th-century galleries. Canyon is currently on long-term loan at the Metropolitan Museum, while my own subject of inquiry this summer, Title Sheet from Crackerjacks, permanently resides in the Smith College Museum of Art.
Fred Endsley. American. Untitled
from Crackerjacks,
1971-77. Gelatin silver print. Gift of Nancy Waller Nadler, class of 1951. SC 2007:34-1 (15). Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.
Unknown. American. Unknown
from Crackerjacks,
1977. Gelatin silver print. Gift of Nancy Waller Nadler, class of 1951. SC TR 6932.56. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.T itl e Sheet is the opening work from Crackerjacks, a 1977 graduate photography portfolio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Title Sheet appears to be a flattened Cracker Jack box framed for the wall, but in reality is a painstaking reproduction of the familiar snack box. Although Title Sheet features advertising slogans like “nobody loves a Cracker Jack box that’s empty,” the real surprise lies in the contents of the larger portfolio. The box that contains Title Sheet houses fifty-nine additional photographs. Images alluding to Sailor Jack and Bingo are presented through a pile of mangled dog fur and bone and in the photo of a woman with a buzzed head wearing a sailor suit. A single syringe taped to a sheet of white paper prefaces a Xerox color transfer of the jaunty sailor duo declaring, “gosh isn’t life fun.” This frank packaging of contemporary culture concludes with an image of a howling wolf.
Rus Gant. American. Hi there I’m a XEROX color transfer image…
from Crackerjacks,
1977. Xerox color transfer image on paper. Gift of Nancy Waller Nadler, class of 1951. SC 2007:34-1 (21). Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.
Diana Olson. American. Untitled
from Crackerjacks,
January 1977. Gelatin silver print. Gift of Nancy Waller Nadler, class of 1951. SC 2007:34-1 (41). Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.Unfortunately, immediate viewers of Title Sheet don’t have access to the accompanying works in the larger portfolio, and the implications of Title Sheet are enhanced by the additional contents. Yet situated as a single work, Title Sheet commemorates how simple desires were once contained. By recreating the box though the labor-intensive process of photolithography—a printing method using plates made after a photograph—the artists render this everyday, throwaway Cracker Jack box one-of-a-kind.
Just as it can be said of Crackerjacks, the imagery in Canyon evokes nostalgia in the viewer. Large newspaper print letters and political posters are smeared and painted-over to create a dated effect. A rusty metal box has been opened, flattened, and then collaged, encouraging inquiry into the commonplace. Rauschenberg’s eagle extends into the space of the viewer while Title Sheet takes on a thematic space greater than the constraints of its framing.
On a purely aesthetic level, these two works of art have little in common. Viewers of our SIAMS exhibition, Outside the [Box] will view Title Sheet as the introduction to a discourse on consumerist culture, and knowledge of the accompanying portfolio isn’t requisite for enjoyment. Viewers of Canyon may have no knowledge of the current tax debate surrounding this work, and perhaps that’s just as well. Both Canyon and Title Sheet position contemporary art as an invitation to interpret, and a work’s immediate aesthetic impact is often just as powerful as its external implications.
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Thursday, September 13, 2012
Tara Donovan
Tara Donovan. American, born 1969. Untitled,
2003. Ink on foam core. Gift of Tony Ganz. 2011:62-2. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe.There is an unmistakable magic in Tara Donovan’s work. Her large-scale sculptural projects transform vast quantities of a single common material, such as plastic cups, drinking straws, adding machine paper, cellophane tape, or shirt buttons, into evocative and organic-looking accumulations.
Donovan studied sculpture at the Corcoran College of Art and Design and Virginia Commonwealth University. One of her first major projects, Moiré (1999; also a recent gift to SCMA) is composed of large rolls of adding machine paper draped in sinuous patterns. Another notable piece entitled Ripple, shown in the 2000 Whitney Biennial, consisted of small sections of copper electrical cable arranged in cascading dunes on the floor.
Her drawings are similarly focused on quotidian materials and biomorphic forms, but they seem to foreground process even more. Donovan initially resisted making 2-dimensional work when she was invited by David Lasry from Two Palms Press in New York to make a print. After visiting the shop she realized that Two Palms had equipment which would allow her to use one of her sculptural arrangements as a printing matrix. Her first unique print (or drawing, as she calls them) was made using rolls of adding machine paper arranged in a tray so that the edges could be inked and printed in relief. This type of unique two-dimensional work, using materials such as stickers, rubber bands, shattered plate glass, and dressmaker’s pins as either matrices or media, has been a regular part of her art ever since.
Untitled is a fairly early experimental two-dimensional work in which Donovan used soap bubbles as drawing tool. Combining ink and soap, the artist used a straw to blow bubbles in the liquid. She then carefully transferred bubbles of different sizes and patterns onto a sheet of white foam core. The bubbles were left to either pop or dissolve, leaving a unique image that captures an ephemeral occurrence.
Tara Donovan. American, born 1969. Untitled,
2003. (detail) Ink on foam core. Gift of Tony Ganz. 2011:62-2. Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe. This work will be on view in the Targan Gallery on the SCMA lower level until November 2012.
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