theresa a anderson - A postfeminist, anthropofeminist blog on the Visual Culture

oedipal complex, stockholm syndrome, multiple consciousness

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:27:48 CST

I have been collaborating with the University of Colorado Denver, School of Public Affairs to provide visual and creative support for the Regional Conference on Domestic Violence scheduled December 7-9 at the Grand Hyatt Hyatt. I was invited by Barb Paradiso, Director, Program and Center on Domestic Violence, School of Public Affairs as my work is guided by the recontextualization of domestic violence. I am by nature an expressive, gestural painter. I have given myself sets of directions that mimics my style of play as a child and follows the lead of material and process to create and interact with space and objects (stickywater).

the stockholm syndrome

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:14:51 CST

I am currently reading a book, Colored Pictures, Race & Visual Representation by Michael D. Harris that was recommended to me by Moyo Okediji who wrote the forward. I am really stricken by the idea that this book "explores controversial images that are bred in the interstices of the color line."(xi) I don't believe that any one book can say all there is to say about this subject. In fact, most of my understanding of this book has been built by reading many other African and African American art history books as well as referencing pop culture, poetry, music, novels, etc.

This remains so fascinating to me as it is current history that is relevant in so many aspects of life, media, culture, social constructs, world history, and personally has given me words to describe what lies in my belly of knowing. How does a small girl who is and lived in a predominantly Protestant/ Catholic, Swedish/ German neighborhood describe the effect of the label and description "She's as black as a nigger" given by someone she loves dearly?

As I was reading chapter five, Color Lines, Mapping Color Consciousness, I was stricken to reread passages when I arrived at the bottom of page 182 where Harris asks, "What would explain the persistence of color consciousness among African Americans, the persistance of blacks' calling each other "nigger," and other self-deprecating behaviors that seem to duplicate the disdain that many whites have had for blacks?" Why do people have self-contradictory behavior? I also went back to the beginning of the chapter where Harris gives his anecdote on the "mutability and the impermanence of racial identity" that is dependant upon contextual clues.

Harris goes on answer his question largely with detail of the Stockholm Syndrome where the hostage identifies with the hostage taker as a means of survival. He effectively compares this situation to that of slavery and its resultant effects upon social and power constructs such as advertising, movies, school curriculum, literature, and music. I could not help but test this theory against the complex constructs of domestic violence.

Harris says "The threat of violence is a force in instilling the hostage syndrome...When survival conflicts with essential values, often those values are subordinated to survival practices...several strategies can be taken to cope with the danger and stress... mobilization of hope...defiance and active resistance...focusing on the good and minor gratifications...and "psychic alienation"...when captives begin to identify with the captor, it "causes the hostages to internalize sympathies for them and create justifications for their actions, just as children do for their parents...." After much exposure to domineering, sadistic control, the victims may assume the characteristics of their aggressors."

Autobiography: stickywater/ blackface. 2008. multi-media. 22" x 30"

deconstructing the mammy image

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:04:05 CST

Harris uses the third chapter of his book, Colored Pictures, to describe and then deconstruct the construction of the invented and thoroughly marketed image of the black mammy, servant, or as the consuming public identifies as Aunt Jemima. I grew up with this personally disconcerting memorabilia in our kitchen. My mother made a set of curtains, mammy toaster cover, and a little skirt for me out of red and white gingham.

I cannot even begin to reiterate all of the important visual, cultural links noted in this chapter as they deal with racial and gender stereotyping. Linking advertising, marketing, culture and social aspects of visual cues concerning gender, race, and I would expand to class; Harris's historical documented argument on the construction of negative signifiers has broad implications that could be scary to contemplate in the age of constant visual manipulation and bombardment through multi medias.

He also hints at the debate raging between representing oneself using stereotypical imagery (Kara Walker's work is a great example that he alludes to but doesn't name) versus counterhegemonic work of artists such as Bette Saar's, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima. I am really interested in where he will come down on this as I am reading the book. I think I know. I am wondering why he didn't address a little more forcefully (p 115) the stereotypical images of women from artists such as Donaldson. He just touches in this chapter on the issue of multiple levels of consciousness that complicate matters beyond the implications of double consciousness.

Counterhegemonic artwork often relies upon telling stories that may perpetuate myth but, the stories images, I would argue, are necessary. Do humans seek the gory, tabloid story before they can disassemble someone else's truth?

persistent imagery

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:47:00 CDT

Colored Pictures: by Michael D. Harris- chapter 2, Popular Blackness

On page 56, Harris writes that "In the nineteeth century, virtually every image of an African American pivoted around the concept of race in some way, and race, as I posited in the introduction, was a construction devised to institutionalize white over black. African Americans' blackness, not their humanity or individual qualities, was the subject. Their exotic difference was a fascination and an entertainment, but they were types and categories and rarely seen as individuals. In most cases, the black subject was a reflexive signifier of whiteness functioning like a photographic negative and reversing the prescribed norm for whites."

Harris uses this image below to describe what he terms popular blackness.

It has been very interesting for me to be able to find widespread instances of Harris' theories within media, especially the political campaigns. What really struck me about this image (versus the multitudes in the book that illustrate the mischaracterization and dehumanization of the African American body) is the persistance of the linking of African American as a monkey. 2008 and the symbol of the monkey was waved during the McCain campaigns as an attempt to discredit his opponent. Even more interesting to me is the very smart campaign that Obama ran where he personalized and emphasized his humanity through a complex grassroots media campaign akin to the accumulation of one hundred years of images- the campaign blasted through and changed the negative imagery with the positive.

Chapter two of Colored Pictures sets up the persistant use of imagery in popular cultural venues such as entertainment, art, newspapers, magazines, etc as a force to solidify and continue the racial, gender, and class divide essential to some white business owners economic survival. On page 82, Harris writes that "One was discredited for being." I see this as setting up the dichotomy of knowing that must exist before one can even start to operate from the interstices as Okediji posits in his introduction.

the new Saatchi Gallery

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 08:57:16 CDT

I just returned from a week in London for my inclusion into the Saatchi Gallery. I was invited by Charles Saatchi to send my work at his expense to his new gallery and felt that I in order to make the most of it, I should be there to research this new venture.

Walking the red carpet is a pretty mundane experience and really only sounds good in when you say it out loud. Tactile-wise don't we walk on carpets every day? Lots of champagne, glitz and glamour, and crowds without the smelly element.

I went back to Saatchi three times after the opening to see the art again and again. Each time I noticed something new and really incredible. As a figurative artist, I was really blown away by the figurative sculpture of Zang Dali, Xiang Jing, SunYuan and Peng Yu, and Cang Xin. The amount of eerily life size (or larger) pieces in this Saatchi collection is truly amazing. The first piece I happened across (communication, Cang Xin) was so life like in size, color, tactile quality, believable body figuration that I thought it was a performance piece. He could have stood up and walked away. Perhaps he did when the lights went out.

On my fourth visit, I sat in the gallery with Chinese Offspring, by Zhang Dali. Flayed, rubbed raw, pink fleshed these fifteen life-sized cast figures are signed by the artist on their backs. I couldn't help but be reminded of slavery's egoism. Lots of questions- artist's egos? god-like? Sexual slavery? Signification of the artist signing flesh like cattle?

You may enter the Saatchi Gallery online and see this work for yourselves. While you are at it- vote on my newest piece...

Graffiti Art at The Other Side Arts

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:12:13 CDT

Click here to see a pretty interesting video on Graffiti Art at The Other Side Arts.

This is an interesting story posted by Fox 31 news. I haven't heard any "spin" on it similar to what I was hearing on conservative radio, 630 am, about all the "atrocious" things democrats were doing to Denverites during the convention. Has anyone else heard about this?

I hope Jeff Ball keeps me posted on what the city does about erasing a huge piece of art.

Visual Culture and the Politics of Branding

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:20:42 CDT

This video was sent to me by a good friend. I couldn't help but link it to how the Republicans try to brand everything they do to be positive. What I find really interesting is how this is flipped, taken out the Republican marketing context and shown from another point of view, a valid point of view in my book and if you read the posts on this video, many others as well.

I am posting another thing about branding sent to me by one of my good friends, Nancy Cronk-Greenhut who has tirelessly worked for the campaign.

Subject: Different outlooks (a must read)

If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "token hire."
If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "game changer."

Black teen pregnancies? A "crisis" in black America.
White teen pregnancies? A "blessed event."

If you grow up in Hawaii, you're "exotic."
If you grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're the quintessential "American story."

If you name your kid Barack, you're "unpatriotic."
Name your kid Track, Bristol, or Trig, you're "colorful."

If a Democrat presidential candidate were to pick a VP pick without fully vetting the individual, he is "reckless."
A Republican who doesn't fully vet is "a maverick."

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organization from a staff of 1 to 13, and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced.

If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the governor of a state with relatively few people, then you've got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do so because your state is the closest state to Russia.

If you are a Democratic male candidate who is popular with millions of people you are an "arrogant celebrity".
If you are a popular Republican female candidate you are "energizing the base".

If you are a younger male candidate who thinks for himself and makes his own decisions you are "presumptuous".
If you are an older male candidate who makes last minute decisions you refuse to explain, you are "shooting from the hip" and a "maverick".

If you are a candidate with a Harvard law degree you are "an elitist-out of touch" with the real America.
If you are a legacy (dad and granddad were admirals) graduate of Anapolis, with multiple disciplinary infractions and a poor academic record, you are a hero.

If you manage a multi-million dollar nationwide campaign, you are an "empty suit".
If you are a part time mayor of a town of 7000 people, you are an "experienced executive".

If you belong to a south side Chicago African-American church, your beliefs are "extremist".
If you believe dinosaur fossils were put here by God only to test your faith, you don't believe global warming is man-made despite thousands of scientists telling you otherwise, you don't believe in making birth control available to young people, you want to start a war to get our time on Earth over with, you believe in burning classic books, and you speak in "tongues" at your church, you are "a true Christian".

If you cheated on the mother of your children who raised your kids while waiting for you to return from war, moved in with a rich young heiress while still married, and left that disfigured wife after a car accident to marry the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
If you have been married to the same woman with whom you've been wed to for 19 years and are raising 2 beautiful daughters with, you're "risky".

If you're a black single mother who cannot seek medical attention during pregnancy because you cannot afford health insurance, you're an irresponsible parent, endangering the life of your unborn child.
If you're a white married mother with four other kids who waits 22 hours after starting labor, then boards a plane to go half a continent home despite the fact you know you are carrying a baby with possibly complicated medical needs, you're "spunky".

If you're a 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton, the right-wing press calls you "First dog."
If you're a 17-year old pregnant unwed daughter of a Republican, the right-wing press calls you "beautiful" and "courageous."

If you shoot and kill an endangered species, you're an excellent hunter.
If you have an abortion while the embryo is three weeks gestation and as large as this comma, your'e not a christian, you're a murderer (even if it happened while you were date raped.)

If you teach abstinence only in sex education, you get teen parents.
If you teach responsible age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are "eroding the fiber of society".

If you're a Republican senator who solicits gay sex in an airport bathroom, then lies about it, you get to return to your job in the Senate and are encouraged to run for re-election.
If you're a popular Democratic President and you have an affair, then lie about it, you are impeached, and your political legacy is questioned forever.

If you are an assertive, well-educated, well-travelled female attorney and published author with three decades of political experience including 8 years as First Lady, and two terms as a senator from one of the most populated states (New York), after raising your child to adulthood, you are "a bitch".

If you are a woman who went to six different colleges in six years to get one Bachellor's degree, was a mayor of a very small town, then Governor of a state with relatively few people in it for less than two years, all the while letting others raise your five children, choosing to spend all your time reaching for your political ambitions rather than with your developmentally disabled newborn or your pregnant teenage daughter, you are a "firecracker".

And finally:

Quiz question for the RNC, specifically those on the Religious Right:

Who is one of the most revered, and famous community organizers in history?

......JESUS CHRIST

Does anyone get it?

construction/ deconstruction of imagery

Sat, 6 Sep 2008 09:49:18 CDT

Saturday, September 6th, 2008. I spent the day yesterday constructing my identity. Hmmm. Sent out a whole bunch of press releases about my upcoming show with Saatchi gallery. You know, that Eva Hesse said that someone has to declare that the artist is good before anyone will believe it. Page 34. Eva Hesse, Lippard, Lucy.

I was reading the rest of Chapter one of Colored Pictures, by Michael Harris this morning and thought about identity as a construction. Artists continually manipulating identity constructs especially through marketing. My mind immediately goes to Andy Warhol as the great constructor of mass identity.

Well, Chapter one is titled Constructing and Visualizing Race. My last post referenced the "political and psychological potency of images" and how that relates to the here and now of the political campaign. As I finished reading the chapter I saw how Harris makes his argument through visual metaphors with references to work by Degas, illustrations in the Scribner's Monthly, and Nathaniel Jocelyn's portrait of Cinque. The big overlying ideas is that the scientific, social, cultural, and literary monolithic derogatives of the African (American) racial identity were solidified by the visual. The images and three dimensional forms gave sight to the voice of derogatory and powerful identity constructs. The images defined the so-called universals of the African American character and look.

Harris starts to reference the fragmentation of identity within African American culture by arguing the whites do not have the same social constructs or distinction abounding within white identity with differences in different European "subidentities." He does acknowledge that class distinctions can fragment the power consolidation within the white racial identity. But, it is a more fluid identity distinction than racial identity. One seemingly cannot change racial identity. Pretty interesting considering all of the work that has been done on identity constructs by by artists such as Adrian Piper. I am really thinking back to the forward of the book by M. Okediji where he references all of the work done by artists and people who have grown up in the interstices of the color line. People who don't really fit in neatly anywhere.

I can't help but think about how criticized Kara Walker has been for her highly sexualized self portraiture of black woman. But, would we have the same conversation without that work? Isn't telling one's own story a deconstruction of racial imagery? It seems that economic power is a great disruptor of social and identity constructs. Women artists have finally taken a teensy bit of control of their own identity constructs as they have had more control over their own reproductive freedom which in the end means economic power. I do think that Harris is really correct when he lays down the foundation for the constructing of the African American identity through the historical context of slavery. I think that economic power comes as the underlying key to most of world history.

the political potency of images

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 08:53:56 CDT

Page 14 of Colored Pictures: Constructing and Visualizing Race by Michael D. Harris, he is laying the foundation for his argument concerning the importance/ relevance of the visual culture on the day to day people. If I understand correctly the powerful solidify their power through ideological visual manipulation. This argument is very powerful and at the foundation of marketing and advertising for any and all such as soap to electing our next president. As it applies to race it also applies to class, gender, sexual orientation, (dis)ability, etc.

An excerpt from the book:

a great deal of what constitutes self-concept grows out of the social images that are projected about people...One of the consequences of oppression is the loss of control over the projection of those images. As you begin to lose control of those images, then usually the oppressor, or the power holder, creates images consistent with their objectives. And their objective, of course, is usually one to keep the powerless, powerless, and to keep themselves powerful. 4

The gist of it is that images are laden with political and psychological potential and potency. They help ideological constructions like race take form in the physical world. They construct, confirm, and affirm identity. When associated with power, images can impose and reiterate social and conceptual models on others. (Imagine the potential lifelong impact on a child of derogatory characterization by a parent.) Images can affect people in realms just beyond language and below rational consciousness- harmful images imposed from power are more difficult to subvert than language. Language, after all, is available to common folk...but images are produced by the few to be consumed but seldom manipulated by the masses. 5

The democratization of images really is full blown at this minute. Take a look at this website. No longer, does the few oligarchs control the media, manipulate images to consolidate power. Hmmm, isn't that what is so egalitarian about the internet?

http://www.barackobama.com/splash/nom.html?source=SEM-register-yahoo-obama-search-national

What is scary to me right now is the idea that they are going to start charging according to bandwiths. It is the artists who can manipulate imagery on the net who really challenge power and authority.

I sent my painting to Saatchi Gallery

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:42:05 CDT

A surreal feeling it is to send off a piece of work that is at the core of my aesthetic, theory, and concept. I attached some code on the back of the piece for the curator to interpret as he may. I love the interaction that a piece can have in the gallery space specific. I will see when I go for the preview opening of the Showdown Gallery within Saatchi Gallerys new Contemporary Art Museum in Chelsea, London Wednesday, October 8th.