A Study of Engaging Art
Political art is a tricky thing; one can cross the line from clever criticism to heavy-handed vitriol with a quick stroke of the brush. American University’s Katzen Art Center provides a daring look at the many facets of this genre with Visual Politics: The Art of Engagement, a collection on tour from the San Jose Museum of Art in California. The show is a mixed bag of subject matter, media, and style, but each piece attempts to reach out and shake you, whether it's through outrage, sorrow, indignation, or pleas for help. It might be easy to come away simply worn-out by the experience; however, taking a small step back from the specific issues tackled in the collection will give you a fascinating overview of modern approaches to political engagement in art.
First, a hat tip to the Katzen for their integration of technology and art. Not only does Director and Curator Jack Rasmussen write a blog, but visitors to the Katzen can pick up an iPod that features a series of podcasts, including an introduction to the Visual Politics exhibit and short discussions of about fifteen of the major pieces in the show (you can even download them yourself here before you make the trip). Cheers to that.
As you approach the art center you’ll notice that the Katzen has been the victim of a midnight TP-ing session. Except it’s not a teenage prank so much as Helène Aylon’s Bridge of Knots II, an installation of ropes of knotted pillowcases strung along the outside of the building. Aylon traveled to locations that symbolize the nuclear war era – Hiroshima and Nagasaki among them – and asked women to write their dreams and nightmares onto these pillowcases. The piece, while somewhat baffling from afar, is actually a perfect introduction to the show, since in a way it touches on all four of the broad subjects into which the exhibition is divided: war and violence, racism and identity, the environment, and contemporary politics.
Walking around the two floors of the exhibition, it’s easy to get sucked in by the artist’s political views (No Nukes! Capitalism Corrupts! Gay and Proud!), and in a way, you want to – after all, how else can we see if it works as engaging art? However, the show works best as a study of how political art does, in fact, engage. Some artists intended to rally the troops, like Salvador Roberto Torres’ painting Viva La Raza! Long Live Humanity that uses symbols of the United Farm Workers’ flag to embolden the late 1960’s Chicano movement. Some hope to reveal insincere or hypocritical actions by mocking the establishment, like Robert Arneson’s sculpture Colonel Hyena, a Cold War official with an absurd, missile-shaped nose and wickedly-laughing mouth. Others sought to relieve the pain of their involvement or helplessness and use those experiences as a warning to others, such as Irving Norman’s Rebellions and Revolutions, provoked by the 1970 Kent State shootings and Norman’s own experiences as a machine-gunner in the military.
Many of the better pieces in the show are those that take on less mainstream subjects. The war, immigrant relations, and gender discrimination works are much more likely to tip over into in-your-face protest pieces simply due to the passion with which people approach these problems today. Of course that doesn’t make these pieces wrong or unnecessary, but one has to wonder where the line is drawn between a piece of art, however one might define it, and political propaganda that speaks only to our simplistic and immediate feelings. One of these pieces that works subtly, forcing the viewer to look beyond its glossy surface, is Sandow Birk’s San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, CA. This gorgeous oil and acrylic painting of a quiet inlet disguises the darker reality hiding in the background. The prison, bathed in sunlight but occupying just a tiny fraction of the large canvas, peaks out from behind the trees, mocking the romantic California image with a share of the state’s hundreds of thousands of out-of-sight, out-of-mind inmates it houses.
The Katzen Art Center at American University is located at 4400 Massachusetts Ave., on the north corner of Ward Circle. The museum is open 11am to 4pm Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and 11am to 7pm Friday and Saturday. Visual Politics runs until July 30.