 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Curator's Statement
Introduction
Last and Universal: the Semantics of Judgment
Thought Through Images
Seduced by Freedom of Thought
Art in the Age of Short-Term Memory
A Call to Artists and Audience
Seventeen Modern Tales
Pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Seventeen Modern Tales, pt. 7
Ed
Pien, Eric Webster Brown, and Cathy McClure re-contextualize symbols: they
reposition symbols in contexts that subvert the symbols’ traditional
associations, and address the ways in which prejudice saturates objects and
actions with meaning within a culture.
Their works refer to collective imagery that we normally
take to be immediately accessible to interpretation. However, as we get caught
up in the narrative, an emotional and intellectual displacement occurs; a
deeper analysis of the images reveals false and often dangerous assumptions.
Ed
Pien’s multi-layered ink drawings deal with how prejudice
overturns one of the basic standards of western culture: the intimate
relationship between exterior beauty (kalòs) and inner beauty (agathòs).
In A Mixing of Dreams: Snake Goddesses, “two snake-like
figures float ominously above a scene of strife, with figures tumbling
out of control. They appear to be frightful but they are benevolent beings.
Who and what is the cause of this devastation? We ponder this question
while watching two headless figures wrestle to the far right. I was once
told as a child that some benevolent Taiwanese gods that are terrifying
looking are actually good. Their frightful appearance is meant to scare
away evil spirits.” The image destabilizes our prejudiced approach
by playing on our inner fears (the reptile) and mythologies (the snake
as symbol of evil). A Mixing of Dreams: Snake Goddesses shows a mysterious,
unnamed land, waiting to be explored in the recesses of its unveiled beauty.
It is a journey beyond the aesthetic and ethical foundations of western
cultures.
Made of three 48 x 96-inch wooden arches hanging in
line from the ceiling and two slightly smaller pieces hanging off center,
Consequence by Eric
Webster Brown hovers over the heads of viewers while it symbolically
guides them inside the exhibition room. The vision is disturbing because
we must bear the physical presence and the psychological action of the
piece, which eerily transmutes eagles into B-17 bombardiers. Consequence
questions assumptions implicit in symbols for America, and, by suggesting
different meanings, undermines the very principles that give substance
to those symbols.
To construct What If?, Cathy
McClure deconstructed president George W. Bush’s speech
in which he announced to the nation the imminent war with Iraq. Mounted
on a cylindrical structure, the speech is handwritten in childish scrawl
on wide-ruled paper, scattered over many sheets and reassembled without
sequential order. Single words – war, chaos, violence – emerge,
now freed from interpretation and restored to their original impact. As
in a hypertext, several symbols – including an oil well –
are projected in the background, interfering with the words and calling
our attention to more “important” values. McClure creates
a new visual context that transcends the original dismantled one. In so
doing, she poses questions about the double role of information and education
as elements of growth and vehicles of prejudice and injustice. The irregular
writing asserts more than what the words outline; it speaks of malleable
minds that learn by emulation.
