Thanks for your responses yesterday. We are developing a rhythm of posts. And that's how the class works--"I" language and posting observations, questions, comments, etc.
A few notes about yesterday's posts. Lisa posted about the truth in photography. I always assumed a photo couldn't lie. Everything about a photo seems to be more about the taker than the taken. Melanie, thanks for the extended alphabet. Wow-creating an alphabet could be an example of a personal or professional semester project. (I will always be tossing out project ideas in the first two weeks.) I will say one thing about the histories I've read so far--they really come alive. I am interested as I read. History is made dull for so many people but these two writers have ways of engaging me. If you go back to yesterday's blog, you will see "Post marker" endings to sections. That's for me just in case someone posts make up posts not in the current day--I can quickly located them. Melanie referred to gangs. can country clubs be considered gang like? Andrea questioned about administrators with Turkish backgrounds. Lots of art history in Turkey--architecture, murals, mosques, churches, ruins…lots of cultural tourism. Maybe an art unit on contemporary Turkey? Historic Turkey? Andrea, yes I visited the Uprising Museum for an entire afternoon. I also got to see the remnant of the Warsaw Ghetto Wall and other surprising things. My hotel was ten feet from the Presidential Palace. Space is different in Europe. Poland is emerging as a country and still trying to find itself. Culturally and religiously it is very conservative.
A reminder about the readings. Next week our pattern continues--ten pages from radar's book and two chapters from Lampert's. But the following week it's just ten pages from Rader's book and one chapter from Lampert. That should give you plenty of time to think about a blogger project. By blogger I mean you will upload your project to blogger. All of us will be reading each other's projects (unless your project is extremely personal and you only want me to view it--otherwise, we will all look at each other's and comment on them as part of the final.
Chapter 5 The Battleground over Public Memory
ReplyDeleteThe title of this chapter would make a great semester project. I found it disheartening that this is one of a few memorials that actually advocates for the Civil War being about freedom from slavery. I had never heard of the phrase the "lost cause." I can not think about the Civil War without thinking about Black soldiers, slavery, etc. I do not know my US history and Presidents all that well either. I always felt sorry for President Johnson because of his impeachment. But to find out that he was an avowed white supremacist in one way turns everything upside down and yet just makes sense--yes, there are plenty supremacists around today. Think about creating a semester project about a historic issue in your school or community. Think about how Rader documents the photos in Chapter 1. Your reactions to the histories of how this memorial was thought about, artists reviewed and the final product?
I heard Caro, LBJ's biographer, speak last year for the 50th anniversary remembering JFK's death. Caro did not seem to like LBJ much. He believed that only LBJ could pressure the politicians in the South to pass Civil Rights.
DeleteHe was a bad guy but that legislation changed our world.
http://www.robertcaro.com/
DeleteHe won the pulitzer. I enjoyed hearing him.
Reading about the bravery of the men in the Shaw Memorial was inspiring. I wanted to ask if they were forced into battle or if they came freely. As I further read about the recruiting process, I realized the influence of the power of those words from the poster Men of Color, to Arms! The poster is just words with different ones larger and some bolder. This raises a good question, is a layout of an advertisement or a column in a magazine considered art? Word art is a form of art by the placement of words to make either an image or a design. Would the poster be more powerful if it had some imagery?
DeleteThe power of the Shaw's family through the decision making of the monument is interesting. I did not expect a family to have so much influence on the art making from a war. I was impressed that they were able to reject ideas for the way the men and Shaw was represented.
I have to say my eyes have been completely opened and I am seeing all of this in a completely new manner. Either I have never heard of half of this and learning something completely new or what I was taught is completely different or told slightly differently! So sad that we were told so many lies growing up! Why was it hidden from us? Why would they not want the truth told from the beggining? I definitely have enjoyed reading and learning so much more about our country.
DeleteBlair I agree with the way the Shaw family had say in the artwork and what the memorial stood for and would represent! I was a little shocked that the family was ok with their son being buried with the common soldier but to me it only goes to show what good people they must have been. It's people like that, that we need more of in this country!!!
DeleteI appreciate how the artists keyed Shaw's family on the decision making of the art work. Judging by how humble his family sounds, I believe their input helped the artists to reapply their new ideas. The idea that they compromised goes with how the United States should be rebuilding, rejoining, and working together to reform into a united nation after the Civil War.
DeleteI loved reading about the May 31, 1897 dedication ceremony. The two perspectives represented by the speakers William James and Booker T. Washington illustrates just how painful and fractured the post-Civil War period must have been. This chapter shows how public art – in this case a memorial – can inspire the lives of the public long after they are created. I can only imagine how powerful the march down Beacon Street must have been, especially with “John Brown’s Body” being played.
Deletehttp://youtu.be/bSSn3NddwFQ
Pot marker.
DeletePost marker.
DeleteI liked how Shaw's family had input on the memorial. I think if we included the opinions on the people/families of people being memorialized we might get a truer sense of the truth.
DeleteChapter 6 Photographing the Past During the Present
ReplyDeleteLampert's chapter titles are wonderfully appealing to me. He writes that we should not take any photographic image at face value. That there is context an histories involved. We read about the histories of two photographers and how they created histories and their lives. What stands out to you as significant in these histories?Can it simply be broken down to insider vs. outsider? What about the staged photo on page 56?
Intent matters. Whether you are an insider or an outsider, profit driven or not, intent matters.
DeleteBoth these photographers were working sympathetically with the Indians as subjects. Neither appear to be demeaning the Indians.
In kind of a larger cultural theme, the 18-19th century was full a sense of the sublime and the picturesque. It had the be dramatic and lonely.
Both of these photographers reminded me of Catlin paintings.
I worked in a place with Catlin and Moran Paintings. Catlin was the first person to paint the Plains Tribes in their native territory. He was interested in the "natural man". He was horrified by the movement of the Indians off their native land.
Chapter 6: Photographing the Past During the Present
DeleteI had feelings of discomfort reading through how Edward Curtis made his photographs. These photos are representing a piece of history and should be natural. I believe this misrepresents the history of that time. I appreciate them more not knowing how he took his photos of the Indians. Even with Richard Throssel, how he staged the Indians to look more westernized then they really are is dishonest, " to discouraged traditional living habits that were thought to be one of the main reasons behind the spread if diseases" (Lampert, 57). The power of manipulation through images started. Sometimes this makes me believe our government is capable of this very thing. Advertisements of product is suppose to make believe we need that object to get us to buy it. The whole idea of staging is uneasy.
I thought his process was rather interesting... I liked that he was not afraid to go back in and add clouds or take away the modernism. Isn't that what we do when we use our technology to crop, fix, change, take away or add in things to our own photos now? Thinking on intent or looking at the history of our photos made me think about a photo I just recently saw of my grandpa Ragan, he was killed by a drunk driver when my mom was 18 and I never had the pleasure of meeting him. I looked at that photo in a different light, I wanted to know more about him, who he was as a person how we would have been as a grandfather, how old he would have lived if he was killed, would my grandparents still be married now? My youngest brother looks just like him in my opinion and answers a lot of questions as to who we look like and where we get some of our traits from. It was very revealing to finally see a picture of someone I have always wondered about. I think photos can tell us very little or can reveal more than we expect.
DeleteCurtis' images are like a modern day photoshop. Most images I see winning prizes have added backgrounds or intense lighting and shadows. I still respect his images for the emotional response they are given by setting the mood. It still takes conscious effort and intent to add the feel to the image and heighten the subject. I think it helps connect the viewer to what the subject may feel.
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DeleteIt makes me sad that what started with good intentions got so twisted in the end. Both Curtis and Throssel were documenting with the best intentions I think. They wanted to show what life was like as a Native American. But the ethnographic veracity got lost in the staging. I was surprised to learn that today outsiders are not permitted to take photographs on reservations and in pueblos. I wonder if this is because of the old philosophies regarding cameras and staging (and it's the tradition so people still do it) or if it's current concern for the way a photo can show inaccurate content...
DeleteRader pp. 31-40
ReplyDeleteLots of images to peruse. Have you ever read a chapter in a book that was just a series of photographs with no text? What might that be like? (Could be a method for constructing a semester project.) What does documentary photography do differently than proclamations and poetry? Any photos stand out?
A series of photos that stands out is when I looked through Dorthea Lange's Dust Bowl images in a photography class. Through history you learn about what the Depression era looked like and visualize the run down, hard-working people, but once you see an image, it connects the pieces all together and makes it more personal. Sometimes you may even see a person who reminds of someone you know or a place you have been.
DeletePeering through Rader's images, I get the same affect. We have been reading about the protests and the people, and the photos help to connect how it looks and how the weather sets the tone of the place feels. The people painting are young and not intimidating. Their handwriting isn't of anything that provokes aggression. My favorite image is on page 35. Looking at the image of the writing on the water tower, I agree with the author when he describes this scene. Rader states, "anyone who has lived in or visited a small American town knows how common it is to paint the local water tower with either the town's name, or...identifying information", pg 35. The Native American's connected with that automatically by identifying their own 'town' as theirs by painting "peace and freedom," and "Home of the free, Indian Land," to identify and welcome whoever sees Alcatraz.
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DeleteSarah--she took those in like a 10 day period--so unusual for a woman to have that role as a photographer for the government--And
Deletethe people Lange photographed, The famous Mom -she was 32. Hard living. Hard life.
I love photos. When looking at them historically, I am reminded of a couple of things. I need to be conscious of what where the customs and culture of the time. I try to read a lot, see a lot, listen a lot. Sometimes it’s difficult not to filter through “what I know”.
When I read about the Native Americans in the 70s, I try and put it in a framework of what the times were like. I tried to think about what the civil rights were like in the South to help with my framework.
Recently, I read a book by Malcolm Gladwell called David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. (Bias: It’s the kind of book I like to read. It ties complicated things together but makes them very personal like Keen’s Disappearing Spoon or Kluth’s Hannibel and Me: What Great Military Strategists Can Teach Us about Success and Failure. These are books-- I read for pleasure.)
Gladwell devotes a chapter to photos and history: to Civil Rights and to the Irish Troubles. He talks about What stories are told in the photos from the times.
I had to look up the pivotal pictorial moment in the Civil Rights movement. It was a photo of a black teenager being attacked by a police dog. It was put on the front pages of newspapers around the country and gave Civil Rights the momentum it needed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Birmingham_campaign_dogs.jpg
Gladwell likes to reinterpret and analyze things. He explains that this galvanizing civil rights photo isn’t what it seems. When you look closely, you see the policeman is pulling the dog away and the boy is leaning in. Gladwell says, It’s a horrible scene but they were trying to get the dog off the boy.(Why there were attack dogs present against protestors , whole different discussion). Gladwell, then describes the contemporary sculpture created from this image. Its reinterpreting the photo and it doesn’t convey it to me http://jetsytravels.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/dsc5365a.jpg
Civil rights—I feel it when I look at the sculpture of lunging dogs-- you have to walk through a passage of lunging dogs. That captures the moment for me more than a modern reinterpreting of a photo
http://birminghammom.com/files/dogs-at-Kelly-Ingram-Park1.jpg
Photos can be great resources but they can be tricky to interpret and reinterpret.
Rader pp 31-40
DeleteReading about the role of water towers sparked my interest. Growing up in the DFW metroplex, I remember noticing the water towers in the towns. Some representing their school district with mascots, some having just the name of the town, and some having neat designs on them. The other interesting thing was the different forms they come in, some either more cylinder or some more round. I like the idea of the "message of peace and welcome" (Rader, 35).
The watertower stuck out to me as well being from a small town outside Austin I remember friends talking about going to the watertower to hang out.. The movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" Was filmed in Manor and one scene has the watertower in it where Leonardo DeCaprio climbs it. The small town I taught in for the first 5 yrs had their state championship years for football on there..
DeleteAnother photo that really stood out was on page 36 and a more recent photo on page 37 where the entrance is and where you can still see where they painted "Indians Welcome" and "Indian Land" I think it's so powerful that those word still mark the buildings today, they may be faded but that that part of history is still with us. Makes me want to travel there just to see it in person and stand where such a huge part of history took place.
Wow, the story of the occupation of Alcatraz continues to fascinate and excite me. I feel embarrassingly ignorant for not having known about this. Does anyone else feel similar? I spoke to my parents over the weekend and asked them if they had any memory of this when it was happening (they were college students at the time). My mother especially remembered it as an exciting time and was surprised I didn’t know about it.
DeleteSomething that really stands out to me about these images is the constant appropriation/re-appropriation of Americana. Figure 1.12 on page 36, for example, shows how the Indians transformed the practical, bureaucratic “United States Property” into a beautifully poetic welcoming sign to “United Indian Property”. I love how the appropriated signs walked the line between welcoming and warning. “…the Indian version embodies the dialogic nature of the occupation: welcome (engagement) and assertion (resistance).” (37) I found this layered communication, the complex intended meaning by the activists to be especially powerful.
I thought another smart use of appropriation was with Woody Guthrie’s “this land is my land.” I’m sure everyone is familiar with this song. Guthrie has long been an important figure to me; I’ve been a fan of his music, books, and general mythos for years. He actually used activist imagery in much of his art, his guitar was famously painted with the phrase “This Machine Kills Fascists”. http://thispresskillsfascists.com/images/woodyGuthrie01.gif
I found it interesting that the Indians claimed the refrain from a white folk singer to support their plight. I went back and read the full lyrics to the song and found this verse to be especially relevant:
“As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.”
http://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/This_Land.htm
Two more quick things on the appropriation of the Indian activists. The borrowed use of “Red Power” from the “Black Power” movement shows that not all of this reformatted language/imagery stems form a white American source. I found it cool that they showed some solidarity with another disenfranchised group fighting for civil rights and made it their own. Lastly, the complex symbol of occupying Alcatraz – essentially a prison island – was not lost on me. Yes, claiming their own piece of land liberates these activists, but they are still aware that they are quarantined from a continent of white American occupants. Perhaps “quarantined” is not the best term, but these people had been forced into a decided place (reservations) and then voluntarily isolate themselves on a place of their choosing (Alcatraz).
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DeleteThere's a book called The Arrival by Shaun Tan that documents an immigrant's journey. Just sketches, no words. It's really interesting!
Deletehttp://www.amazon.com/The-Arrival-Shaun-Tan/dp/0439895294/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406398448&sr=8-1&keywords=immigration+graphic+novel
Any initial questions or concerns about the semester project? remember I have asked that you lay out images and text on a blog site. Blogger uses templates that are quite manageable. What are some initial ideas that someone has? I am Assuming that as we read through the books, ideas will occur to you. Your project ideas can be historic or contemporary. Your project does not have to be about the books. The books are catalysts for us to think about our own issues and ideas. What are you interested in?
ReplyDeleteThank you for a good first week. The next 3 1/2 weeks will breeze past quickly. I hope you are enjoying the books. I am.
BTW, check out the Movie Smoke Signals of The Business of Fancy Dancing if you can on Netflix or other places online. They will be talked about in Rader's book. Fascinating to watch a movie made by Natives as opposed to Hollywood.
Thank you so much. I am very much enjoying the books. Some books are like adding decorations to a mobile, when you add a new piece the whole thing changes and it jiggles the rest of the sculpture for a long while.
DeleteI am enjoying these books as well. I especially love learning about the mis- representive art pieces compared to the actual story in history.
DeleteAs far as the project goes, I need more time to think about what I am going to do.
Is the blog we create about a historic issue that we show imagery and comment about?
DeleteI am enjoying the books! Loving the use of art throughout history to help us tie in the importance in future art lessons.
I as well have learned so many new things and am enjoying the images. I like seeing their interprations and what the Native Americans did.
DeleteI am thinking about the bust I made while in Junction and maybe making a bust in papier-mâché that has to do with maybe my family history or something along those lines... But still thinking on it.
The books are fantastic. I'm learning so many cool new things.
DeleteJust to be clear, we will create another blog for our project? Also, could I create/post videos in addition to images and text?
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