Body Politic Essay

Identity/History

by

Amze Emmons

Associate Professor of Printmaking

Tyler School of Art,

Temple University

The widening of the cultural discourse in the 1960’s and 70’s made more space for people whose voices the academic and societal establishment had long ignored.

Negotiations of difference and agency within a pluralistic society with uneven distributions of power remain as relevant now as in the past. Artists have taken this thread in generatively complicating directions, such as, close readings of cultural signiViers and investigations of unprecedented cross-‐cultural experiences.

Many of the artists in this exhibition continue to push this area of research and self-‐discovery, like, David Jones uses analogy and juxtaposition, mining visual and material culture for evidence of how power and control can be exerted through depictions of racial stereotypes embodied in the most mundane objects, like a child’s doll. And Evan Gardener’s rigorous confessional investigation of identity and gender dysphoria seems to be inventing new visual languages to address newly illuminated forms of alienation. Jenny Sanzaro-‐Nishimura’s diverse body of work investigates the shifting constructions of both history and identity in visual culture.

While others are troubling the construction of our so-‐called History by mining the archives that contain the artifacts and documents of our shared past, for example, Judy Watson’s archival research and beautiful appropriation of historic documents pointing towards aspects of Australia’s history of troubled institutionalized racism (not all that different from ours here in the U.S.)

Jonathan Tse similarly makes books and collaged prints, drawing from a trove of immigration papers relating to his own experience as an Asian-‐Australian. Ryan Presley takes the move one step further, creating his own invented Aboriginal currency; generating documentary evidence of a world in which he would like to live.

A frontispiece is meant to illustrate the ideas embodied in a text, this ranging exhibition can be said to embody, if not illustrate, many striking ideas. And like a book, the connective tissue that holds this body of work together is the printed mark. Each artist in this exhibition is leveraging the graphic signature of the print in some way, whether they are using a traditional process and/or a new media matrix to capture and translate their gesture, or mining historic printed documents to create a collage vocabulary. All of the artists in this exhibition proceed with an understanding that their chosen process changes and adds meaning to the images and objects they create, and they evidence a visible faith that the stories we share deVine our relationships to one another. Collectively they form the silhouette of a new Australian body politic.

Amze Emmons

Associate Professor of Printmaking

Tyler School of Art,

Temple University

http://www.cranearts.com/icebox

Identity/History