Graphically Conscious at the Carnegie International

Drawn by friends and curiosity, the Graphic Conscience traveled to Pittsburgh this past week to see the 55th Carnegie International before it closed. I found most of this international exhibition a disappointment and example of lazy curating, as the show was basically the same as a window cruise through Chelsea. The theme, "Life on Mars," did not appear to be anything that any of the artists included were considering. There was redemption, however, as I was introduced to the work of Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander.

Neuenschwander's piece, I Wish Your Wish, is encountered by visitors just as they pay their admission to the Carnegie Museum. It is based on a tradition from the Basilica da Nosso Senhor do Bonhim in Sao Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, in which ribbons are tied around a parishioner's wrist with three knots. With each knot tied, a wish is made, and the ribbons are worn until they fall off, upon which wishes are confirmed upon the wisher. In Neuenschwander's piece, ribbons are screen printed with the wishes of participant-viewers. Each participant viewer is invited to write down a wish of their own, and in return, take a wish-ribbon of some one else and tie it around their wish. Thus creating a cycle of wish making and granting though interactions with viewer-participant/museum parishioners. Collected wishes are then printed onto new ribbons, and the cycle continues.

The wishes vary in content, from the silly to the very desperate. Some the Conscience came across are the following:

I wish my cat could talk.
I wish it was benign.
I wish I hadn't cheated on him.
I wish everyone in the world could be happy and own unicorns.
I wish my life had a soundtrack.
I wish I loved myself.
I wish guns didn't exist.

I was intrigued by both the interactivity of the piece, as well as how it creates small ritual for viewer-participants. Moreover, I was struck with the responsibility that if I had one wish that I knew would come true, what would I wish for? It seemed too selfish to simply wish for my own fortune, if such an opportunity came along, doesn't a Conscience have an obligation to wish for the benefit of humankind?

Surprisingly enough, I did not come across any wishes for world peace, which seems the obvious and most ethical wish. However, my companion did remind me of the X-Files episode in which a genie grants such a wish by erasing humankind from the planet.

The wishes of Neuenschwander's piece are like prayers or ceremonies, only by completing the rite is the wish granted. It was unclear if your wish was granted when your ribbon fell off, or if that granted the printed wish. I Wish Your Wish is more an interactive rite of focusing desire and providing an opportunity to earn deliverance rather that a service that provides a miracle. It was evident that viewer-participants must earn their happily-ever-after, but it is dependent on all viewer-participants following the forms.

News from the Fund for Women Artists - Golden Globes Continue to Ignore Women Directors

The Golden Globe Award nominations have been announced by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and once again, no women have been nominated in the category of "Best Director."

This year the omission is worse than usual. Danny Boyle was nominated for an award as "Best Director" of "Slumdog Millionaire", but his female co-director, Loveleen Tandan, was not mentioned in the awards list. "Slumdog Millionaire" has been nominated for "Best Picture, Drama", "Best Screenplay", and "Best Score", in addition to "Best Director".

Chicago film critic Jan Lisa Huttner interviewed Danny Boyle as part of her review of "Slumdog Millionaire" for The Fund for Women Artists (see here.) Huttner specifically asked Boyle if Tandan was his co-director, and he said, "Yes, she deserves it! She's a proper director." (See here)

In the 65 year history of the Golden Globe Awards, Barbra Streisand is the only woman to ever win in the Best Director category (for "Yentl" in 1983), and only two other women have ever been nominated - Jane Campion for "The Piano" in 1993, and Sofia Coppola for "Lost in Translation" in 2003. The people nominated for Golden Globe Awards are often nominated for Oscars as well. Only three women have ever been nominated for Oscars in the "Best Director" category and no women have ever won.

We think it is time to give women directors credit where credit is due. We are asking you to please send the letter below to Ms. Chantal Dinnage, the Managing Director of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to let them know that we think Loveleen Tandan should be recognized for her work on "Slumdog Millionaire."

You can cut and paste the letter below and send it to Ms. Dinnage at: info@hfpa.org Please remember to sign the letter before you send it!!

You can send a snail mail to:
Ms. Chantal Dinnage
Managing Director
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association
646 N. Robertson Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

You can also send a copy to Michael Russell, who has been the publicist for the Golden Globes for the past eleven years: MRussell@MichaelRussellGroup.com
Michael Russell, Publicist
The Michael Russell Group
1601 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 509
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

Thanks for your help with this. Please feel free to forward this message or include it in your blogs, Facebook pages, MySpace pages or elsewhere online. The people who make these nominations need to hear from us.

Martha Richards, Executive Director
The Fund for Women Arists

Jan Lisa Huttner, The Hot Pink Pen
The Fund for Women Artists

---

Dear Ms. Dinnage,

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has nominated Danny Boyle for a Golden Globe award as "Best Director" for his work on "Slumdog Millionaire." Why has the HFPA ignored Boyle's co-director, Loveleen Tandan? Since he acknowledges that she was his co-director, shouldn't she be a co-nominee for the "Best Director" award?

Boyle was recently interviewed by Chicago film critic Jan Lisa Huttner. She asked him if Loveleen Tandan was his co-director. He replied, "Yes, she deserves it! She's a proper director." (See http://www.womenarts.org/reviews/SlumdogMillionaire.htm#co_director ) Also, according to the Internet Movie Database, Danny Boyle is the director and Loveleen Tandan is the "co-director" of "Slumdog Millionaire." (See http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1010048)

In the 65 year history of the Golden Globe Awards, Barbra Streisand is the only woman to ever win in the "Best Director" category (for "Yentl" in 1983), and only two other women have ever been nominated - Jane Campion for "The Piano" in 1993, and Sofia Coppola for "Lost in Translation" in 2003.

It's time to give women directors credit where credit is due. Please include Loveleen Tandan as a co-nominee in the "Best Director" category for her work on the film "Slumdog Millionaire."

Thank you.

(insert name)

Praises for Gee's Bend!

Before my recent visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I was familiar with the stories and reproductions of the quilts of Gee's Bend. As a quilter myself, I thought I knew what I was talking about. Seeing them in reality, however, was a completely different story.

These are not traditional, geometrically symmetrical quilts that I have been exposed to in the past. These quilts have an edgy, unpredictable quality. They defy the typical logic imposed on art students in art schools because they are not the work of "art school artists." The quilters of Gee's Bend have not had the "rules" imposed on them, so their work is unhindered by any legacy or ego except their own. These quilts stand as a testament for the human need for visual expression, further evidence that art is not only something we do for baseless decoration, it is a necessary impulse of the human condition.

The patterns and shapes have an energetic, almost musical feel. Another thing to appreciate is their use, or re-use, of material. Jeans, corduroy, scraps and fragments of their lives merge into quilted narratives. In the exhibition text, several women are quoted, saying that despite their success and ability to purchase unused fabrics, they prefer to make use of material that would otherwise be thrown away. To paraphrase the exhibition text, they state that such material has a greater spirit, a sense of soul, and this presence is reborn in their quilts.

Whatever their secret is, Gee's Bend, The Architecture of the Quilt, on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art till December 14, offers viewers a chance to see magnificence. More than anything, it is a portrait of humanity. The quilts reveal to everyone our basic need to tell our stories, to express ourselves, and to transcend all logic and reason to unveil soul.

Above Photo: Blocks and Strips Quilt, 2003
Ruth Kennedy, American
Corduroy
86 x 75 inches (218.4 x 190.5 cm)
Collection of the Tinwood Alliance
Photo: Steve Pitkin, Pitkin Studio, Rockford, IL
From philamuseum.org

Philly Book Artist Thoughts on New York

Amanda D'Amico, the Philly Book Artist, recently attended the Contemporary Artist Book Conference in New York. Her post here contains some quotes, both entertaining and true, from that series of events.

Global Warming at the Icebox -- Curator Response to the Graphic Conscience

Dear GC,

I am deeply appreciative of all the effort you put into your comments and observations on our exhibition. It is very rewarding to get this kind of thoughtful response, especially since the majority of the other written commentary has been brief and fairly superficial. I also appreciate your photography, which has so far represented the best images I have seen.

You have been the only writer who has addressed the actual theme in depth. I personally share most of your views, if not all of the specific critiques. When we reviewed the submissions for the juried part of the show, we too were hoping that we would see more in the way of solutions. I think Ralf Sander's piece "World Saving Machine 2" does at least postulate a direction for a solution, even if we perceive it as more whimsical than practical. What we realized after seeing the artists' responses to the theme, was that artists are first of all, artists. That ended up meaning that as much as we would like to think that artists can solve the world's problems through our gifts of creativity and imaginative thinking, what artists are really better at is to provide diverse and unpredictable ways of seeing. From them, perhaps people will walk away with questions, new lines of thinking, and an appreciation for both the art itself and the issues that inspired it.

We did have lofty goals for this show, and in reading what you wrote, it seems like we did accomplish some of them. We had put a lot of thought into it, including commentary and possible contributions from non-artists concerned about global warming, but ultimately decided that since this was a show sponsored by Philadelphia Sculptors that we needed to focus on the art. I think we made the right decision.

Best,
Leslie Kaufman

Registration is now open for THE HYBRID BOOK

In 2009, the MFA Program in Book Arts and Printmaking will celebrate its twentieth anniversary by hosting THE HYBRID BOOK, INTERSECTION AND INTERMEDIA. This international event consists of a conference, exhibition series, and book art fair.

Registration is now open for this series of events. To find out more, visit THE HYBRID BOOK.

Global Warming at the Icebox, Final Thoughts

In fourteen days, the exhibition Global Warming at the Icebox comes to a close. I strongly urge anyone to make sure they don't miss it. Props go to Philadelphia Sculptors for putting on one of the best exhibitions in Philadelphia in 2008.

Of all the exhibitions in the Icebox Gallery, Global Warming was the best use of the space in a group exhibition that I have seen so far. Typically, group shows in this space display the artwork so that the Icebox dwarfs and overwhelms it. By breaking the space up into separate sections, the work on display was undiminished, and viewers were able to fully appreciate each individual piece.

My main criticism of this exhibition is that none of the work on display suggested any solutions for global warming. Many pieces provided evidence of climate change, some expressed the poetry of environmental issues and loss.

However, I wonder, like any exhibition, how many people left the opening, got into their cars, and went home to make changes in their lives that contribute to a resolution? Was it an exhibition only for believers? It is clear now that there is no single solution to climate change; the way this problem will be resolved will be through multiple approaches, small changes made by large numbers of people. We do not just need artists to raise awareness of the issue; we need artists to reveal to others how simple it can be to reduce their carbon footprint.

To end this thread, I suggest to all readers to consider changing a light bulb. If 110 million Americans switched out one sixty watt bulb in their homes with a compact florescent bulb (at an approximate cost of $3), it will be the equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads (source: EnergyStar). Like I said, simple changes, when magnified by millions, have a powerful affect.