viz. - memory

Art + Architecture: Diana Al-Hadid’s “Suspended After Image”

Lisa Gulesserian — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:01:16 +0000

Image Credit: Sandy Carson, taken from CultureMap Austin

For those of us interested in architectural sculpture, the last few months in Austin (especially on the UT campus) have felt like gifts from the art gods. I’ve already written about one exhibition (the recently-closed El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa show at the Blanton Museum of Art). This month ushered in a second sculptural exhibition. New York sculptor Diana Al-Hadid’s Suspended After Image, a site-specific installation at UT’s Visual Arts Center’s Vaulted Gallery, is a feat of texture and height. As a fantastic example of architectural art, Al-Hadid’s most recent work for the VAC asks viewers to circumambulate the sculpture and ponder the relationship between memory, built objects, and humanity.

Image Credit: Sandy Carson (cropped)

Memory inspired the entire installation. Al-Hadid was stirred to create her sculpture “Suspended After Image” after seeing a Gothic painting of the Visitation which featured an intricate cloak. Working with twelve UT art assistants, Al-Hadid turned her memory of a two-dimensional painting into a three-dimensional structure. “Suspended After Image” has a certain sinuousness to it—a river of faux-fabric permanently flows over more than half of the sculpture. I’m tempted to think that the sumptuous river of cardboard, wood, plaster, and metal evokes the way that memory works. Much as fabric folds and rivers flow, we remember in spurts and starts. In a recent article on Al-Hadid’s installation at the VAC, Austin blogger Michael Graupmann reviews the artist’s creation process: “images she sees often get stuck in her mind, (‘made sacred’) and stay with her until she transforms them through her work.” The curvy form of Al-Hadid’s piece seems to mimic its creation process.

Image Credit: Sandy Carson, taken from CultureMap Austin

And yet there is also a sharp jaggedness to the whole thing—paint globs create skyscraper-like structures that rise out of the ground. It’s safe to say that “Suspended After Image” is a work that mimics our built environment, as Al-Hadid’s creations often involve architectural tools and methods. For this particular piece, Al-Hadid used a 3D modeling program and CNC router to plan its structure. Intricate lattices and elaborate stairs need to be modeled, whether they are used for art or architecture.

Image Credit: Sandy Carson (cropped)

And behind every architectural design is a person. Al-Hadid’s sculpture doesn’t allow its viewers to forget the human element in architecture and art. While walking around the sculpture (which urges us to do so from multiple viewpoints, even from above in the VAC’s Mezzanine), we’re surprised that the artist planned for every angle to be seen by an ambulatory audience. The most surprising part of Al-Hadid’s “Suspended After Image” is the supple plaster body that is either disappearing into or emerging from the stairs at the bottom of the sculpture. Is the built environment oppressing this body into oblivion? Is it growing human loins? I’m unsure myself. But at least the human (in the sculpture and outside of it) isn’t forgotten.

See Diana Al-Hadid’s “Suspended After Image” yourself at the Visual Arts Center until March 10^th, when another Artist-in-Residence piece will take its place.

Coloring 9/11

Steven J LeMieux — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:25:08 +0000

(Image Credit: We Shall Never Forget 9/11)

It didn’t take long for a media storm to emerge around Really Big Coloring Books new title We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids' Book of Freedom. It was quickly and roundly criticized for its heavy-handed portrayal of Muslims. In the face of these criticisms Wayne Bell, the publisher at Really Big Coloring Books, has steadfastly argued that the book only shows the truth of what happened. It’s fairly clear though that the book slips easily into the popular narrative of freedom-hating-Muslims attacking freedom-loving-Americans because they hate our freedom. We Shall Never Forget isn’t an especially smart piece of propaganda, though. The play between the large amount of text and the inconsistent images make it hard to pin down how, exactly, its message is delivered.

In a video on their website Really Big Coloring Books reminds us that this is a pedagogical tool. And as such first we have to ask who the intended audience is. Who exactly is this book supposed to be teaching? 9/11 happened 10 years ago. I don't believe that it's unfair to state that almost anyone that can actually remember the day has outgrown coloring books. Unlike the ill-received coloring book Something Scary Happened, put together in 2003 by the Freeborn County Crisis Response Team, We Will Never Forget is ultimately intended for an audience that cannot forget in the first place because there is nothing to remember. So perhaps the audience then isn't necessarily children along but parents with young children. As such, it might be best to look at We Will Never Forget 9/11 as a textual and visual history book geared towards parents looking to teach their children a particular 9/11 history.

(Image Credit: We Shall Never Forget 9/11)

One of the more interesting aspects of this page is the extreme dissonance it presents itself with. Many of the images in this coloring book are created in a kind of realist style. There is an attention to detail that might require a colored pencil rather than the standard crayon. The bin Ladin kill shot, though, looks thoroughly cartoonish. The subject matter, though, is anything but. Coloring books are no strangers to violence. There are plenty of books featuring superheroes fighting villains in standard comic style. You'll often find the two foes frozen in mid-punch. What isn't so common, though, is the level of immediate violence presented here. This is, of course, compounded by the fact that this book attempts to present actual events rather than imaginations.

We are presented with somewhat more than a final showdown between Osama bin Ladin and the men that ultimately killed him. The first thing a viewer will notice is the armed SEAL staring down his rifle at bid Ladin and his wife. This isn't an unfamiliar image, especially to anyone who remembers the Elián González debacle in the late 90s. And while there are only so many different ways to display an armed man aiming at two unarmed people I can't help but draw a connection between the two images. Their image is, to a degree, undermined by the broad cultural memory of their audience--parents with young children. At this point it isn't too terribly different from the above mentioned super hero books. You've got the valiant hero about to take out the cartoonish bad guy. But we're not looking at a standoff.

(Image Credit: Alan Diaz)

This isn't the Elián González picture. Instead what we're seeing is the bullet as it flied toward bin Ladin, as he hides behind his wife (this human shield narrative, though, was almost immediately backed away from by the White House). So that in the end, when the full image is taken in, we're privy to not only violence, but imminent death wrapped in the worst kind of cartoon veneer all while the coloring book editorializes the event and instructs children to "ask your mother and father, your teacher, your preacher what it really means. What does it mean to be Free? Why are we a FREE people?"

(Image Credit: We Shall Never Forget 9/11)

The level of text in this book is pretty curious. It almost makes it hard to imagine exactly how this whole thing functions. Is there a combined action where the kid furiously colors burning towers while their parent plows through the text? Perhaps first they sit down to read through it--although the text is clearly directed at children as they are frequently asked to ask their parents about various issues--then, with the story in their memory they color things in. In the end it feels like this book was less intended for any real practical use and more that it is just an attempt (a successful attempt--this has been Really Big Coloring Books fasted selling book ever) at cashing in on the 9/11 anniversary with a clumsily delivered political message.

P.S. While looking for images of We Shall Never forget I stumbled across many from the above mentioned A Scary Thing happened. This one offers a particularly nice commentary on 9/11 media coverage.

(Image Credit: Something Scary Happened)

Picturing Memory: Space and Faces of Trauma

Andi — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:19:57 +0000

Image credit: Nebojsa Seric Shoba

"Battle of Waterloo. Belgium. 1815"

Lens, The New York Times

Over the past two weeks, Lens, the photography and photojournalism blog component of the New York Times, has featured two different photographic collections concerned with memory, trauma, and war. Nebojsa Seric Shoba's "Battlefields" is comprised of images of former battle sites. Shoba returned to photograph the places where the Battle of Brooklyn (1776) or the Battle of Waterloo (1815) were fought. Rather than return to earlier places, Maciek Nabrdalik took portraits of Holocaust survivors, focusing closely on the faces of his subjects as they are lit against a stark black background. Both sets of images press the viewer to consider the possibilities and failures inherent in any attempt to make memory visible.

Image credit: Nebojsa Seric Shoba

"Battle of Verdun, France. 1916"

Lens, The New York Times

While I've considered the intersections of landscape, photography, war, and memory before, Shoba's images raise additional questions for me about the way memory should or can by visualized. His images rely on juxtaposition to invoke memory--they depict empty serene spaces in contrast to what must have been earlier scenes of chaos and violence or they depict battlefields that now contain McDonald's signs or rusting trucks. In either case, these images seem to suggest that they way we are remembering war is just not quite right.

Image credit: Maciek Nabrdalik

H/T: Rachel/Lens, The New York Times

Image credit: Maciek Nabrdalik

H/T: Rachel/Lens, The New York Times

Nabrdalik's images, on the other had, remove all possibility of juxtaposing the past with the present. His minimalist portraits are devoid of context--it is almost as if there can be no present for his subjects. Moreover, these images suggest that there is only one correct way to remember the Holocaust. This is memory of the past that suggests no future; nothing beyond the initial trauma. Unlike Shoba's images which suggest that we may have forgotten the past, Nabrdalik's portraits allow for nothing but memory of the past.