Galaudet Gallery Proudly Presents
"Sense of Place: THERE"
A Group Show Including the Art of Aaron Wilder
June 18-September 2, 2019
618 South Farwell
Eau Claire, WI 54701
Sense of Place: THERE is the second year of a four year art series called Sense of Place. The first year was called Sense of Place: HERE: We Are Here which paraphrased Ed Abbey’s idea of past cultures creating rock art and leaving behind traces of their culture as a way of saying “We were here.” Sense of Place: THERE will continue this idea in making this year Sense of Place: THERE: Song of Myself in honor of Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday. Sense of Place: THERE: Song of Myself will also be continuing Galaudet Gallery’s work in our Partnership of Sight theory we founded during Sense of Place: HERE: We Are Here.
In short, the Partnership of Sight is a 21st Century way to view art which has the artist and artwork involving the viewer. There is a partnership of sight when there is a connection made between the artist and the viewer by means of the artwork. The viewer adds another layer to the artwork by infusing their presence into it because the artist creates their artwork receptive to this Partnership of Sight. This does not mean the viewer has to do anything more than view the art but the experience of viewing the art is heightened by the Partnership of Sight.
Walt Whitman is the Galaudet Gallery writer muse for 2019 and in celebration of his 200th birthday three of his poems will guide the judges and curators in developing three themes based on THERE: the Political THERE, the Future THERE and the Song of Myself THERE. The Political THERE will contain artworks with a political theme or attribution that could attempt to understand the political landscape of 2019. The Future THERE works for art which develops new laws and ways of living and making art. And the Song of Myself THERE will look to Whitman’s poem of the same title and look for art which sings a song of itself and a song of the artist/creator.
The Political THERE
The first Walt Whitman poem is When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d Memories of President Lincoln which follows Whitman as he mourns the death of Lincoln. The lilac symbolizes Whitman’s sacred acceptance of death—not only Lincoln’s but his own—freeing his soul to roam elsewhere—as well as the knowledge of the “ever returning spring trinity sure to me you bring”. The “drooping star in the west” is Lincoln whose train passes Whitman as it moves west toward Lincoln’s burial site in Illinois taking 3 weeks to make the journey since many across the nation wanted to pay their respects. And the “shy and hidden bird” is Whitman trying to make sense of the loss of a huge symbol for his life and his knowing that it would create change in this country. Whitman gives the sprig of lilac he tore from the bush by his door to the train, then sees the star in the west again before it sets knowing Lincoln’s soul is no longer on the train and distraught after the train passes Whitman runs through a swamp and into a forest filled with cedars and pines seeking solace:
Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the graybrown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,
With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
- Walt Whitman
Whitman ends this poem with a line stating "There in the fragrant pines and cedars…" because it was there at that moment that Whitman found his voice to write the poem and his voice as an artist. Due to the conflict Whitman experienced in losing a President he believed in and respected, Whitman was able to move his poetry forward into another way of being. Can the political landscape of today offer such experiences? Does our government incite artists to create art whether in approval or disapproval? What symbols are there in the political landscape of today? What do artists have to say about this landscape? Whitman created a sense of place in his poetry and most of the time the place was there, not here or everywhere, but a definite there is where this happened or there is where this will happen. How do artists create a sense of place in their work and do they have a sense of there?
The Future THERE
The next Whitman poem the curators have been discussing is For Him I Sing which asks for artists to think their art—where it comes from showing where it is going. Art that will show the Future THERE will take these two things into account. Artists were asked to think of songs their art has sung thinking of THERE as in the past and how that might impact where they are going—the future THERE. Nostalgia may come into play here since seeing where they've been as an artist is THERE also.
For him I sing,
I raise the present on the past,
(As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)
With time and pace I him dilate and fuse immortal laws,
To make himself by them the law unto himself
- Walt Whitman
For Him I Sing looks at THERE as an immediate present based in the past—a present that is just about to happen. In For Him I Sing, the curators looked at the idea of THERE in the future. For Him I Sing is an exhortation for artists to make up their own laws, make their own art. The greatest movements in art come from artists who change the rules and make a new art that has new rules. What kind of art would be made if artists were the law unto themselves? What if immortal laws of art were fused within each artist to make their art? What pieces of art show the future of art? Another line of thought curators keep in mind for Sense of Place: THERE is that it is part of a four year art series which will culminate in the fourth year with a show called Sense of Place: NOWHERE using William Morris’s book News from Nowhere as its guide. So saying all four years of Sense of Place take Morris’ thoughts and ideas into account. Morris is seen as one of the originators of the Arts and Crafts Movement which is sometimes referred to as Art Nouveau (New Art) in the U.S. when it follows the tenants of the Arts and Crafts Movement—a respect for nature and its inspirational qualities, a respect for handmade original work and a respect for the artist as a professional who is following their talents and passions in creating art and treating their actions as a profession. Galaudet Gallery is working toward a 21st Century Arts and Crafts Movement using these past ideas to produce a forward motion into the future, into the present.
The Song of Myself There
Lastly are words from Whitman’s Song of Myself. Thinking about the literal and figurative roads we have traveled as artists, those roads that have brought us to where we are today and those roads that will take us THERE—where we will be in the future.
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.
Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself
It is not far,
It is within reach
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know.
- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself 46
What work have artists made that sings a song of self? This self can be an extension of the artist, someone else or the artwork itself. Where I will be? What does an artist's current work say about where they will be? What roads have I traveled to get THERE?
Work from Aaron Wilder's "You Have the Right to Remain Silent" project is included in the exhibition. “You Have the Right to Remain Silent” is a video and installation project incorporating sound and edited footage of the burning of what appears to be a Confederate flag. The project was significantly inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King's August 1963 speech "I Have a Dream" as well as by the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement. Pointing to the South as the nexus of racism in the US avoids the underlying truth that many of America's core institutions are either founded on racist principles or perpetuate structural racism and that many outside the South benefit from this structural racism. This project is an intended break or rupture of the popularly held belief in the United States that white people outside the South don’t have any responsibility for or benefit from the structural racism against black people. This project (video and wall-mounted installation of the flag debris) presents a deeper look at some of the underlying causes of one of the most significant issues of American contemporary culture and the mentality shift that must take place for a real break-through in social progress and local race relations.
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