Alison Saar: Still at the David C. Driskell Center

Alison Saar, Hankerin' Heart

Last Thursday, I drove across town in rush hour traffic as a spectacular downpour sent huge streaks of lightening flashing across the sky. I was trying to get from my office to the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts of African Americans and the African Diaspora in time to hear Alison Saar talk about the extraordinary, enigmatic, moving, works in her exhibition, Still. Rushing up the back stairs nearly an hour after the reception was scheduled to start, I was sure that I was too late. So I was delighted to her her amplified voice as I walked into the spacious gallery, which was filled with so many visitors that it was hard to see either the artist or the art.

Alison Saar, Black Lightening

As I was to soon discover, Saar had just begun to talk about the eleven sculptures that were scattered around the room, filling it with their energetic presence. The first, near the entrance, was a strange-looking contraption consisting of a mop; a low stool; a bucket, two boxing gloves made out of glass; and an assortment of wires, pipes, and machinery, including a hand-operated pump. The boxing gloves were filled with water that had been dyed red, to resemble blood. As the artist demonstrated, working the pump causes some of the red fluid that is in the bucket to move up through the pipes into the boxing gloves, so that it spills out over the wrists and falls back into the bucket. As Saar pointed out, Black Lightening uses the images of boxing gloves and blood to evoke the violence of many professional sports; while the closed circuit of red fluid suggests the limited and limiting choices between entertainer and janitor that society offers to the young, Black men who are given little education and less hope. This does not, of course, exhaust all the possible interpretations of this piece -- the artist's thoughts are only the beginning of the conversation.

Alison Saar, Weight

Young, Black women are often similarly limited in their life choices. In Weight, Saar balances the sculpted figure of a young, nude, Black woman sitting on a swing against shackles, boxing gloves, pots and pans, a scythe, and other objects suggesting domestic labor or work in the fields. In describing her process of working on this piece, Saar mentioned that she has been criticized for insisting on making images about the injustices suffered by African-Americans, since she looks as though she is a White woman of privilege. What these critics seem to ignore is that Saar, herself, is a person of mixed race. And even if she were not herself of African heritage, Saar feels keenly that injustice to one is injustice to all.

Alison Saar, Hankerin' Heart (detail)

Justice, however, is not Saar’s only issue. The awkward, leggy cast bronze sculptures called, collectively, Hankerin’ Heart are three meditations on the universal desire to feel loved.  Mosey, Hincty, and Gimpty (I never quite figured out which is which) are variations on the theme of having one’s heart exposed, naked, vulnerable. Each one is about the size of a human being, if that human being were reduced to nothing but nerves, blood vessels, and longing. At certain angles, the torn, scarred, sewn-together hearts resemble faces, scrunched down between hunched shoulders, yet peering out hopefully. Haven’t we all felt like that sometimes?

Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion, part 2

Cynthia Angeles, "Grief", oil on linen, 31" x 25"

A few days ago, I attended the opening reception for the Watergate Gallery portion of Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion. Owner and Curator Dale Johnson showed the work of 33 artists. Of course, Cynthia Farrell Johnson and Helen Zughaib, as the instigating spirits of the show, were represented, but since their work is so familiar to me, I spent most of my time looking at works by artists who are new to me.

Nancy Frankel, "Lemmings", paint and toy cars, 54" x 60"

As is true at the Dadian Gallery, a group show like this one shows many different, idiosyncratic interpretations of the theme. Some works, like Nancy Frankel's whimsical, yet insightful, "Lemmings", reflect stressful situations or the multiple demands of everyday life. Others, like Cynthia Angeles's balanced, harmonious, luminous, yet somber "Grief,"respond to the image of "Our Lady" with images of women weighed down by burdens named and un-named. Still others, like Alfredo Ratinoff's "42 Icons for the Relief of Exhaustion," offer respite in references to the past, suggesting that it is not only modern life that drives us to the brink of giving up. As Ratinoff writes,

Alfredo Ratinoff, "42 Icons for the Relief of Exhaustion",
glass and litho transfer

The idea of the 42 icons for exhaustion relief was conceived with many of the stories that I have used all my years as an artist: Romeo and Juliet, Helen of Troy, Adam and Eve, Aphrodite, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Turandot, Tristan and Isolde, Aida, and others. These are not icons in the traditional religious sense, but are icons in their own right in that they represent various literary, epic, and historical themes that over the course of human history have brought us respite when we have felt exhausted or were on the verge of giving up. They remind us of the best in ourselves. I believe that icons have a very strong spiritual power that can help to bring us back to ourselves. However, even icons need inspiration and often were spurred on through the influence of a muse. Interspersed in this collection are a series of muses, exemplifying their positive relationships with these icons. In the midst of all of these characters and stories lies Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion, her life a thread that has run through the course of each of these tales and in the story of each of our lives.

Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion is one exhibition in two venues. With nearly sixty works by almost as many artists, this collaborative effort probably increased the fatigue level of its curators by a considerable amount. By inviting so many artists and audience members to think about the same subject, it also increased the sense of community and mutual support, reminding us all that, no matter how exhausted we may be, we are all in this strange and wonderful world together.

Towards Ontario

Jeffrey Lewis, Towards Ontario/mirus caelum I,
encaustic on linen, 1998

Christ Pantocrater
encaustic, 6th century. Sinai

In 2004, Jeffrey Lewis spent a few months in the Center for the Arts and Religion studio, patiently laying tiny dabs of hot, colored wax onto a stretched, linen canvas. In his quiet, patient presence, time seemed to stretch into eternity. Even when I stood watching for what seemed like a very long time, nothing much seemed to change on the canvas. Yet, when I came back the next day, or after a weekend away, the image would be transformed.

Mummy portrait of a young woman,
encaustic, 3rd century, Louvre

The technical name of Lewis’s favored medium is “encaustic.” This slow, demanding way of working has its origins deep in the past. Some of the earliest icons that have been preserved at St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai, like the much-reproduced icon of Christ Pantocrater, were made in this way. Art historians link such images to the even earlier portraits made in Egypt from the first century BCE through the third century CE. Often called Fayum mummy portraits, they were painted on boards that were attached to the linen wrappings covering the faces of the deceased.

The works that Lewis made in our studio are not portraits, however, but skyscapes. An earlier piece, titled Towards Ontario/mirus caelum I, hangs just outside my office, where I see it every time I come in or go out.

Jeffrey Lewis, Towards Ontario/Matins, encaustic, 1998

Although Lewis used photographs as reference materials, these paintings are not copies of any particular photograph, nor records of any particular moment in time. Rather, they are built up from memory and imagination. These delicate evocations of sky and land glow with an inner light. Their deeply textured surfaces reveal meticulous observation coupled with a keen sense of abstract relationships, creating a sense of mystery and of deep familiarity. In looking northwards, towards Ontario, Lewis invites us into a meditation on color and form, and to join him in wonder as he contemplates the vastness of God’s creation.