Number: NinetySeven an independent arts journal/spring 2019/relics numberinc.org @numberinc numberinc @numberincmagazine Editorial 97: Relics Screen Shot of James 03 Christine Bespalec-Davis Tyson’s Coverage of Support those who Bree Newsome, Charlotte, Regional Updates: support the Arts: Cover: NC, June 27, 2015 Listings for Artists, Galleries, Organizations, Editorial 97: Relics 04 Memphis / Tennessee Northwest Arkansas / Atlanta and Businesses that Make Art Happen Objects and images, preserved in archives, or im- all over again. I still have those things and a few other the vanishing point of a rainy street in Paris and the Pulse material and memorialized in the annals of memory: cherished items she had set aside for me. They are velvet blackness of a man’s umbrella in contrast to a 06 Gloria Ballard Memphis, TN Nashville, TN these are Relics. They are evocative, even provocative, heirlooms that will go to my children when I am gone. woman’s red lips. I would sneak away from my parents Art Center Building No.9 1636 Union Avenue 57 Arcade and, through miraculous belief, these cultural traces After my grandmother died, though, what I re- to stand too close to Picasso, positioning myself so One Can Indeed Not Account Memphis, TN 38104 Nashville, TN 901.276.6321 615.983.0400 and markers of personal identity persevere. They member actually wanting was something completely there was just enough glare to see the eye and jawline Bailey Romaine artcentermemphis.com Contact: Peter Fleming 07 [email protected] channel people, places, events, and ideas from the re- different: a piece of wallpaper in her only bathroom. of the woman and nursing child at her breast in the Art Museum of the bldno9.com University of Memphis cent and distant past. They can be incredibly specific, When I visited her, I tried on her perfume, fumbling underpainting of the blue guitarist.  Little Happy Teeth Around the World 3750 Norriswood Avenue LOCATE Arts Rylan Thompson Memphis, TN 38152 Brian R Jobe & Carri Jobe, Co-Founders affecting individuals, or transcending culture and class, through a drawer of treasures: safety pins, miniature The Renaissance and school of Caravaggio were 08 901. 678.2224 locatearts.org memphis.edu/amum impacting communities both local and global. Charged Tennessee Arts Commission metal scissors with a bird on the handle, clippers, a my favorites. I never tired of staring at them, seek-  Passing ArtistsLink Inc. 401 Charlotte Avenue by collective belief systems or personal significance, cloth measuring tape, a red, plastic, beaded rosary ing out every last detail, marveling at the stories they Phyllis Boger, President 615.741.1701 Adrienne Brown-David artistslink.org arts.state.tn.us these items are honored through display and safe- and the ever-present Carmex no one used but me. Her told of gods and goddesses, thick-fleshed heroes and 10 deity Beauty Shop Restaurant Johnson City, TN keeping. In reliquaries, places of worship, and museum wallpaper was cream, woven linen featuring a gold, beauties with deep shadows and rich color. Just past Mary K. VanGieson 966 South Cooper Street Witch Bottles & Satellites Memphis, TN 38104 Slocumb Galleries vitrines, or locked away in vaults and sock drawers, embossed trompe l’oeil pattern of children playing them, I was struck by the contrast of the medieval Jesse Ring 901.272.7111 232 Sherrod Drive 11 patrons thebeautyshoprestaurant.com Johnson City, TN 37614 their presence is embodied in ritual and custom. amidst islands of bush trees with slender branches period, so stylistically different but full of serpents, 423 483 3179 Your Name Here! Beverly + Sam Ross Gallery [email protected] Christian Brothers University etsu/cas/art/galleries and pools of reflective water surrounded by cattails gold-leafed halos and disproportioned, wiry-limbed Interview: Mike Stasny 2455 Avery Avenue Maria McDowell numerati Memphis, TN 38112 Cleveland, MS Relic #1 and long-necked swans. The section I wanted most saints and apostles. Off in a vitrine in the corner of 12 Peter Fleming Cat Pena, Director 901.321.3243 Delta State University I don’t remember my grandmother’s funeral, but was a scene of a small girl, tenderly holding the swan’s the room was an elaborately detailed Gothic church Janice & Pinkney Herbert [email protected] Wright Art Center Gallery cbu.edu Casus for Marshall Arts 1003 W. Sunflower Road after she died there was an estate sale. Amidst my face while a young boy placed a crown on its head. on a tiny pedestal with an object embedded in crystal Stephanie DeMer Susan Hugel Crosstown Arts 662.846.4720 confusion and attempt to comprehend the magnitude What did it mean? I would stare at these scenes dur- in its center. I was drawn to it, straining to see inside. 13 1350 Concourse Avenue, Suite 280 dsuart.com Ashif Jahan Memphis, TN 38104 of my first broken heart, I remember being told I could ing bath time, imagining the games they were playing A small scroll, a bit of string, and...a tooth? I jumped Interview: Mel Ziegler Katie Maish 901.507.8030 Oxford, MS Lacy Mitcham crosstownarts.org pick out a few things to remember her by. As I wandered or the grand ceremony they were pretending to enact. back — why? Reading the panel nearby: Reliquary Sara Lee Burd The University of Mississippi 14 Carl E. Moore Eclectic Eye Department of Art and Art History around a room awkwardly filled with the folding tables I was not allowed to cut a piece out. But I remember Monstrance with a Tooth of Saint John the Baptist. 242 South Cooper Street Meek Hall , Gallery 130 Toni Roberts Memphis, TN 38104 662.915.7193 Transmutations: I was baptized Carol Sams 901.276.3937 art.olemiss.edu on which we had played cards - now strewn about with it exactly. Date: 1433. I have visited it every time since. eclectic-eye.com in a bathtub with glitter Jennifer Sargent University of Mississippi piles of books and old costume jewelry — I rifled through An understanding. A revelation. An object becomes 16 Frame Corner Museum and Historic Houses Liz Clayton Scofield 5035 Park Avenue University Ave & 5th Street and picked out a few rhinestone pins and silver clip-on Relic #2 precious through its implications and its symbolism as friends Memphis, TN 38117 Oxford, MS Sharon Grinspan 901.682.9901 662.915.7073 earrings I thought I remembered seeing her wear or Wandering through the curved halls off of the well as the stories attached to it. Since the beginning, framecornermemphis.com museum.olemiss.edu Warped Dolph & Jessie Smith [email protected] that I knew she would like. I snatched up an old hand- grand staircase at the Art Institute of Chicago, I was we collect and cherish objects we assign meaning to. Talia Moscovitz Ralston Fox Smith 50 Otherlands Coffee Bar held camera my dad said my grandpa used to film home always struck by the size and sheer impact of gi- We pilgrimage. We stash away. We hold dear. 18 641 Cooper Street Number: Sponsors Number: Cary Wilkins Memphis, TN 38104 movies when he was a kid; accidentally exposing an ant canvases on display there as I walked toward Taurus crockettensis: 901. 278. 4994 otherlandscoffeebar.com 20 A Tennessee Relic unfinished reel of film caused my heart to get crushed them, stretching up to see as far as possible into Beauvais Lyons

The Sun Never Sets: 22 Mapping Digital-Colonialism Audrey Molloy

Sildes & Relics board of directors Jennifer Sargent, Chair Kerr Houston 24 Toni Roberts, Vice Chair Mike Calway-Fagen, Co-editor Interview: Andrew O’Brien & Katie Maish, Co-editor 26 Brooks Dierdorff Carl Moore, Webmaster Andrew O’Brien & Brooks Dierdorff Shelley Madison, Treasurer Lacy Mitcham, Secretary Shaun Giles Hunter Invitational IV Caroline Gikas 28 Hunter Museum of American Art Ashif Jahan Casey Fletcher Jason Miller Michael Mitchell Carol Sams It Takes a While to Figure Out Donna Woodley 29 Who You Really Are Lump staff Ash Eliza-Smith David Thompson, Designer

office John Martin’s Toolbox po box 11008 30 Institute 193 1B memphis, tn 38111-0008 Chase Martinn All published material is protected under this copyright; however, all Trinitron Mixtape rights and ownership remain Living Arts of Tulsa with the contributor. Published 31 by Number: Incorporated, a non- Jessica Borusky profit 501(c)(3) organization. The focus of Number: is on the Massu Lemu: The Sea Hums contemporary visual arts in the South. Opinions expressed 32 Bearing Strange Gifts herein are those of the writers Oakwood Arts and do not necessarily reflect Chase Westfall those of the publishers. Con- tents in whole or in part may not be reproduced without written

Lessons on How to Be a Incorporated Number: 2019 © permission. 33 More Interesting Woman Gallery 72

Number: 97 Spring 2019 VOLUME XXX, NO. 1 Catherine Rush cutline cutline

Christine Bespalec-Davis is an artist and museum professional currently living and working in Chattanooga, TN. 3 Regional Update: Memphis Regional Update: Tennessee Regional Update: Northwest Arkansas Regional Update: Atlanta

The biggest news for Memphis in 2019 is the celebration of the Bicentennial of both the city and Today we live in a global village with technology at our fingertips, and it appears that our access The surge of art programming in Northwest Arkansas is not news to the region’s residents. A thousand tomorrows, the Atlanta Biennial, showing at Atlanta Contemporary January 17 to county. Rather than sticking with the tradition of honoring a different foreign country each year, the to contemporary art is only accelerating. It’s hard to deny the abundance of opportunity that this Since the opening of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in 2011, visitors and residents April 7, 2019, showcases the work of 20 artists all working in the southeastern United States. The Memphis in May International Festival will salute the city of Memphis in 2019. Another change is that momentum opens up for Tennessee artists in 2019 and beyond. So, when Mineral House Media have enjoyed access to world-class art and artists across a broad range of public platforms. show was a dual effort of curating by Phillip March Jones, Curator-at-Large at Institute 193, Lexing- the Memphis in May organization is hosting an open call for all local artists to submit an original work was asked, “What is happening with the art scene in Tennessee?” we immediately sought to pinpoint Alice Walton, of Walmart fame, has made bringing the visual arts to Northwest Arkansas her ton, KY, and Daniel Fuller, Curator, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA. A thousand tomorrows seems based on their interpretation of the city rather than commissioning a local artist to design the poster. what exactly is shifting in our landscape and where the most fertile ground between digital and physi- life’s work. Most recently, The Walmart Foundation donated $120 million to establish The School of acutely concerned with the here and now. The works, which include visual arts, television, music, and The public will decide which artwork will become the 2019 Fine Arts Poster beginning February 1; this cal growth lies. Art at the University of Arkansas. Artist, Curator & Director of Exhibitions Marc Mitchell, who took sound, have a sheen of freshness that prioritize the present and reinforce the idea that the best way may be the year to purchase a print. The Benjamin Hooks Central Library kicks off their year-long We find that artists across the South are stepping out of their traditional solitary practices and the helm of the University of Arkansas’s Fine Art Gallery in 2015, has put the funding to incredible use, to prepare for tomorrow is to have a good handle on today. program with Birth of the Bluff on January 26. Bring Your Soul (mem200.com) is a good place to fol- exploring the gaps between online media platforms and traditional gallery space. They are creating bringing in weekly visiting artists like Trenton Doyle Hancock and Dana Frankfort. Artists generally I look forward to the opening of Louder than Words at the Zuckerman Museum of Art, curated low for happenings as they emerge. their own opportunities to merge unique voices into projects that aim to enrich the community with give public lectures or performances in addition to studio visits with the university’s MFA students. by Theresa Bramlette Reeves. Bringing together 17 artists, including Yoko Ono, Nick Cave, and John If you’ll miss Memphis in May’s practice of honoring a foreign country, start your cultural experi- grit and passion. DIY curatorial collectives and interactive projects are pushing a conversation that Crystal Bridges’ upcoming exhibition, Men of Steel, Women of Wonder, explores our national Cage, the work in Louder than Words looks to the communication often muted, mistranslated, or in- ence April 17 through 21 with the 33rd annual Africa In April on Beale Street and Robert R. Church centers around collaboration and invites viewers to be part of the creative experience. One such proj- beguilement with superheroes. Featuring over 70 artists, the exhibition explores American val- tentionally overlooked. In a time when information is so readily available, having your attention drawn Park in downtown Memphis. This year, the Republic of Nigeria is the country saluted. ect, recently launched in Nashville, is The Crappy Magic Experience, which fuses filmmaking with ues as portrayed through the superhero. Assistant curator for the museum, Alejo Benedetti, who to these gaps of communication is a welcome sight. Louder than Words opens February 2 and runs L. Ross Gallery has a new owner, but the gallery will keep its existing name. Laurie Brown took object-based play in a uniquely purposeful “dialogue around how value is assigned” to the experience spearheaded the exhibition says, “This is the first show of its kind—the first to look at the art world through May 5, 2019. over at the end of 2018 and former owner Linda will continue to consult for the gallery. Laurie Brown, of contemporary art. Another exciting project, The Otherworld Encounter, creates a delightful response to these two iconic superhero characters. This show looks at how artists use Superman and The Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University has brought the show DO or DIE: Affect, a glass artist, was at the Washington Glass School before taking on the gallery in Memphis. It will be and transformative space, inviting viewers to enter into a digital dream alongside friends and family. Wonder Woman to talk about social politics, American identity and humanity itself. And we know all Ritual, Resistance by Dr. Fahamu Pecou. Originally shown at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary interesting to see what changes occur in this contemporary venue. There has already been a move to When we draw communities out of their comfort zones and ask them to interact and move with art, these characters from out daily lives, so the show is widely accessible, but will provide a lot of new Art at The College of Charleston, this show is a collaboration between the two schools. On view are a different suite in the same building. we start to break ground on communication, conversation, and creative discourse. ways for visitors to engage with these characters.” The exhibition runs February 9 to April 22. Pecou’s photographs, large-scale paintings, drawings, and videos that survey intersections between The Metal Museum is celebrating 40 years of collecting with Crafting A Legacy from Febru- Where many see disparity between digital connectivity and the real world, others see an op- The museum also offers exceptional ongoing programs for the community, including lectures, African-based spiritual traditions and the political and societal violence against black male bodies ary 3-May 12. The exhibition features work from the Master Metalsmith and Tributaries Collections, portunity to build bridges and pipelines. Locate Arts is established in Tennessee as the most useful performances, classes, and continuing education for K-12 teachers. Music lovers are treated to sea- in the United States. Visible Man, the accompanying catalog, expands on these themes and their supplemented with loans from artists currently underrepresented in the Permanent Collection. Each tool for navigating current and future exhibitions by locale, providing a map for artists, collectors, sonal concert series, which takes place on the museum’s extensive grounds. A stage dropped into the context within Pecou’s oeuvre and is available at the museum bookshop. DO or DIE is on view from artist is represented by one piece. The Metal Museum is the only institution in the United States col- and art lovers alike. By connecting people, galleries, and unique projects, we can navigate our artistic middle of a fairy-tale wood and lit with twinkling lights is the perfect place to spend a summer’s eve. January 19 through April 28, 2019. lecting and interpreting the art of fine metalwork. resources with ease. The museum also offers the Amazeum to its visitors, a state-of-the-art children’s museum. Of course, the Atlanta exhibition seeing the most foot traffic is Yayoi Kusama: INFINITY MIR- The pairing of artists Justin Bowles and Melissa Wilkinson caught my attention when reviewing When observing a landscape, we are drawn to its landmarks. The most notable creative markers A shady path to Bentonville’s City Square connects museumgoers to The 21C Museum Hotel RORS on view now through February 17, 2019, at the High Museum of Art. Tickets to the show have the yearly schedule at The Beverly and Sam Ross Gallery at Christian Brothers University. The are often galleries both new and established, which keep a steady finger on the pulse of contempo- Bentonville. The museum-hotel’s exhibition, The Future is Female, will be on view through September long been sold out, but the museum does sell 100 walk-up tickets on a first come, first serve basis show isn’t until August 7-September 11, so the artists are probably still figuring out what they will do. rary conversation and provide a meeting place for artists and the community. In Knoxville, we are ex- of 2019. The show brings together a broad range of female artists from around the globe. A standout (the line usually forms hours before the box office opens). Fingers crossed, there is a High Museum But I went to both of their websites and I predict a wildly colorful show of flora and fauna. cited about the newly established Bad Water Gallery, and always recommend keeping Fluorescent of the show is Zoe Buckman’s Champ, 2016—a neon sculpture of the uterus featuring boxing gloves Parking Lot documentary in the works. Orange Mound is buzzing with a new mural on the Park Avenue wall of the shopping center Gallery’s exhibitions in your calendar. Another Knoxville gem to catch is C for Courtside. In Chat- for ovaries. After walking through the exhibition, guests can step across the lobby and enjoy cocktails Last, I would be remiss if I did not comment on the recent success of two Atlanta-based artists, where Orange Mound Gallery (OMG) is located. As of January 1, 2019, ArtUp transferred the lease tanooga, we are continually impressed by the work coming from Versa Gallery, which resides in an at The Hive. The restaurant features a beehive-inspired installation, Buzzkill, by artist Johnston Foster; Krista Clark and William Downs. Both Clark and Downs were 2018 recipients of the Atlanta Artadia for and management of Orange Mound Gallery to the newly formed Orange Mound Arts Council. old community church and is run by a collective of artists and curators. Stoveworks of Chattanooga, Executive Chef Matthew McClure was a James Beard Award semi-finalist in 2018. Awards; each will receive an unrestricted sum of $10,000. While there is no guaranteed exhibition ac- Tonight, I’ll be attending the grand opening of The Collective’s new exhibition and studio space, many of its driving elements already underway, is an anticipated force to be reckoned with upon its Fayetteville’s Town Square is equally lively. Weekly farmers markets and Thursday night art walks companying the award, I believe both artists will use this as an opportunity to expand on their already CMPLX, next door to OMG. While The Collective has been active for four years, CMPLX is the non- completion. In Nashville, we are staying tuned for the new museum of contemporary art, MOCAN. are mainstays of Fayetteville life. Businesses and galleries stay open late the first Thursday of every intriguing work. Look for both to keep us excited as the year moves forward. To see their work, visit profit organization’s first home. The African-American art group consists of creatives from all genres. month to exhibit and show off local art and eateries. Art Ventures, one such gallery, also offers public kristaclark.com and williamedowns.com, respectively. The group has funding for a professional development series that will take place once they are up and live-drawing classes and affordable studio rentals. running. Connecting visual art with music and performance is an exciting component of their mission. Claire Bloomfield, Brianna Bass, and Jayme Hartness of Mineral House Media. Northwest Arkansas seems well on its way to becoming a top vacation destination for art lovers Jack Deese is an artist and writer born and based in small-town Georgia. He currently teaches at The Uni- and - with companies like Art Space investigating moving into the area - it’s only getting better for versity of Tennessee Chattanooga. Judith Dierkes is a visual artist currently working in Memphis, TN. residents as well.

Alli Lemon is an artist living and working in Northwest Arkansas.

Press image for Crafting a Legacy: 40 Years of Collecting & Exhibiting at the Metal Museum. Photo by Otherworld Encounter, 2019. Photo Credit: Sharyn Bachelda. Zoe Buckman, Champ, 2016, neon, glass, and leather. Photo courtesy of Alli Lemon. View of Mike Goodlett’s, Untitled, part of A thousand tomorrows at Atlanta Contemporary in Atlanta, GA on Houston Cofield. January 17, 2019. Image courtesy of Jack Deese. 4 NUMBER:97 5 Pulse (Five ways of looking One Can Indeed Not Account “...there are many difficulties to be reckoned with in you see in movies – where people lose consciousness from the gill towards the oral tentacle is labeled cere- the recollection of things.” and have violent spasms on the floor while foaming at bral. at my grandfather’s dog tags - W.G. Sebald 1 the mouth. In the months and now years since, I have When I was a teenager, a kinesiologist I was seeing had regular MRIs to track the progression of a vague told me that the word sincere is derived from the Latin The California sea hare, a variety of sea slug, lives spot in the left hippocampus of my brain. The hippo- sin cerae, meaning without wax. With her hands cradling in the intertidal zone – the strip where land and sea campus is located in the temporal lobe of the human my wrists, she explained this was a reference to the raw from the Great War) meet. When the tide goes out the sea hare moves gela- brain and is widely understood to be correlated with state of marble statuary, before the finishing wax had tinously along the waterline, its rubbery pinkish-brown memory functions. In Alzheimer’s patients, it is the been applied, glossing over the many small imperfections Treasure. In a back corner of a drawer of a desk taught…. For some reason I felt inspired to investigate body blending easily with the kelp and algae on which first part of the brain that begins to deteriorate. in the stone. Over a decade later I found out this is a that had come from my father’s parents’ house, there the teachings of the Catholic Church after I had become it feeds. Underwater it is light and graceful, its frilled The first words doctors used to describe this spot commonly spread false etymology. Still, I like it – maybe was a small cardboard box, gritty with dust from years non-denominational. The teachings of the church ap- fins dancing. I know this from watching videos online. were: fuzzy, blurred, indistinct. More recent MRIs show even more so because it’s not true – and I think about of waiting idly, untouched. Inside the box were two pealed to me more than any other faith I had heard I find myself returning to these clips often, the sea that the area has expanded, the fuzziness settled it often in my studio; the way I try to fit things together military dog tags tied together on a stained, brown before then.” hare swimming through clear shallow water, its stiff into scar tissue. I’ve been told human brains can take without obscuring how it is done, the materials them- cord. The dull aluminum discs were stamped on one In September, 1936, my grandfather received awkward body in stark contrast to the rippling wings months to fully heal. Sometimes I imagine I can feel it, selves rough, unfinished, and cheap. Other people’s side with my grandfather’s name, William A. Ballard the sacraments of baptism and penance. His that propel it in undulating folds, like a slimy, inflated a quiet denseness at the base of my neck, tucked up scraps and discards. There is something in the materi- USA, and No 2966373 on the other. eleven-year-old son Bernard, who would grow up butterfly. Another video shows a sea hare crawling somewhere deep inside. I imagine it hovering neatly als being themselves. Perhaps this is naive or idealistic, My grandfather served in World War I, inducted on to be my father, was baptized the same day. taking a position through sandy shallows. When a stick from behind the near the top of my spine, a blurry, soft fruit. but it’s something I keep coming back to. Through a April 29, 1918, at age 25, was discharged in April, 1919, The Catholic Church venerates the relics of saints. where we found camera sharply prods the sea hare it pulls itself into a The name hippocampus comes from the Greek collective misremembering of language, we can agree and fought in France. Having the artifacts he left, we The saint’s power, the Church believes, is in every part was a very busy protective ball and releases a puff of vibrant purple ink. word for sea horse – a reference to its long, curved that there is something honest about the raw state know he was with the 92nd Infantry Division (Buffalo of the body and in objects that had been in contact place dodging The first time I saw an image of my brain, the grainy shape. Sea horse, sea hare; perhaps searching for simi- of things. I wrap my right hand around my left wrist, Soldiers), 351st Machine Gun Battalion, Company B. with it. The dog tags that now rest in the sunlight on bullets. Our screen showed in high detail skull, eye sockets, spine, ear larities to the familiar helps taxonomists ease the utter fingertips gently but firmly pressed against the bluish At a genealogy workshop, I once talked with a man my desk, each about the size of a communion wafer, lieutenant told us there lobes even, framing the still inscrutable innards. I recog- strangeness of underwater life. And yet, when naming underside, the way I remember the kinesiologist holding who was the keeper of his family’s old letters, pictures, hold a complex but diminished power. My grandfa- were supposed to be nized it from countless like it seen in science magazines or the deepest and most mysterious parts of our inside, me as she felt for my body tapping out messages. books, artifacts, scribbled notes on scraps of paper – ther wore them near his heart into a church in France, some German machine anatomy books and yet, this one was mine – this splayed I suppose the scale of strangeness shifts; we name In my studio several weeks ago, as I prepared to everything handed down until it is too old to be useful, where a spiritual spark flashed. Years later, he passed gun nests just ahead, so by mass of curled grayish lumps, its image magnetically fragments of brain after sea creatures and study them leave for a month-long residency, I was sifting through yet too precious to throw away. “In the end, what can the flame to his young son, who later shared it with his this time we were very anxious to take extracted in millimeters-thin slices from behind the pro- in our search for memory. my pile of construction grade pine, bits of carpet, frag- you do with all this,” the man said, spreading his arms daughter-in-law, and later still, two granddaughters them, but we were not allowed until orders came. tective barrier of skull. The neurologist gave me a print- Much of modern neuroscience seeks to locate where ments of trim and molding, some of them dotted with wide to take in the enormity of the task. “It is a trea- who, in time, abandoned it to follow their own spiritual “That afternoon, late, we started our advance, but out of one of these many slices and circled the area of memory is physically stored. This yet unproven physical small patches of paint or crossed by faint pencil lines. sure, and it’s a burden.” paths. the Germans directed an artillery barrage on us, so we concern with a red pen. I was given a CD with the images memory trace, called the engram, was first theorized and They pile up in my studio, some never used. When I I remembered this as I uncovered my grandfather’s Keepsake. Along with the dog tags, the small, dusty had to take cover in a muddy trench until this ceased. burned onto it so that I could scroll through at my con- named in the early 20th century; scientists have been start to forget where they came from they draw me dog tags, his name and service number that identi- box held two well-worn French dix centimes – coins When we did start the enemy going, they retreated, venience; bottom to top, side to side, front to back. searching for it ever since. While most currently agree back in. They need this sort of curing time. Anticipat- fied him as a soldier in the U.S. Army. In the collection with an image of Napoleon III, one struck in 1856 and but there were some moments that they would offer I keep the marked-up print-out and CD filed with my other memory is somehow stored in the synaptic connections ing being gone from them for a month, I feel a bit lost. of important and useless ephemera that clutters our the other so worn that the date is unreadable. The cool so much resistance that I would have to wonder which important documents: tax forms, diplomas, my passport. within the brain, the transplant of the sea hare’s mem- How will I make it without them? Even when I am not home, another treasure, a small key to unlock another bronze discs are dark with age and, I imagine, with the minute might be my last.” The sea hare is capable of fairly complex learning ory demonstrates an alternate theory that dramatically using them they are there, reassuring in their castoff- door into our family’s past. Also, another burden. years of being rubbed between my grandfather’s thumb The aluminum tags on their ancient sweat-stained considering the simplicity of its central nervous system shifts the scale and depth of encoded memories into ness, their mere matter and the tiny histories marked Relic. One evening, burrowing into an old file and forefinger, a fidget tool in the pocket of his suit pants. cord clack together when I put them back on the table, that is composed of relatively few, large neurons. the nuclei of the sensory neurons themselves. into them – histories largely unknown to me – a cabinet in our mother’s basement, we uncovered a What purpose did these coins serve after the and the room is quiet. For this reason it is often the lab animal of choice for In her book For the Time Being, Annie Dillard writes comforting presence. Sitting here now, far away at my dusty accounting book, repurposed as a journal by our soldier returned from the World War? Did he track Taps. We gathered at my grandfather’s open scientists doing research on memory function and that at any given moment the surface area of waves residency, I try to remember them all as I slowly gather father’s father, who had begun writing what he called the circle in his pocket with his thumb during idle gravesite on a bright fall day in 1964 and grew quiet as storage. A study published this past spring describes breaking against the shore is roughly the size of North a new, much smaller pile of scraps; small, light bits of his “autobiography.” moments, or to focus his thoughts, or calm nervous veterans from the local American Legion post lifted the how researchers used wires implanted into sea hares’ America.3 She writes that there are nine galaxies in the pine and plywood that are the negative space of things He was a meticulous keeper of the tiniest details: energy? Did he clutch them in his pocket while he and flag from the casket. I covered my young ears as the tails to deliver electric shocks, training them to curl up universe for every person on Earth.4 She writes that already done, things I will never see. “Began to write Nov. 1, 1944,” he penciled in the his bride Alberta waited to say their vows? Did he drop three volleys were fired. A bugler blew “Taps,” and the into a defensive ball at even the slightest touch.2 When fourteen thousand distinct soils have been identified 1 W.G. Sebald, A Place in the Country (New York: Modern Library, margin at the top of the first page. His handwriting, them into his pocket each morning as he dressed for 5 flag was folded into a tidy triangle and laid gently in my RNA was extracted from these trained sea hares and by geologists. I write that the California sea hare has 2015), 6. in blue ink, was slow and careful, a teacher’s penman- work, and return them to the top of the chest in his father’s hands. injected into untrained ones, they took on the learned 10,000 neurons while humans have around 100 billion. 2 David L. Glanzman et al., “RNA from Trained Aplysia Can Induce ship. After the war, he had become a teacher, and later bedroom each night? an Epigenetic Engram for Long-Term Sensitization in Untrained In the decades that followed, I have gotten to know behavior of the trained sea hares. The memory of the A search for images of a sea hare’s anatomy turns the principal of the city’s Colored school, as well as The treasure my grandfather left us also contains Aplysia.” eNeuro 2018; 0.1523/ENEURO.0038-18.2018. my grandfather through the letters, books, pictures, electric shocks had been transferred. up a cartoonish diagram with arrows identifying each 3 Anne Dillard, For the Time Being (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, a lifelong student. Tuskegee University in Alabama, the steel helmet that deflected shrapnel from a young household goods, receipts, his own life story – the A bit over two years ago I suffered a tonic-clonic fleshy zone, rendered in various shades of pink: mantle, 1999), 108. Philander-Smith College in Little Rock, and Voorhees soldier’s brain and the grotesque mask that kept mus- 4 Dillard, 72. burden that he carried, and then left for us to find. He seizure. This is the full-blown kind of seizure – like what siphon, parapodia. A simple gray daisy chain looping 5 Dillard, 129. College in Denmark, S.C., all claim him as an alumnus, tard gas from reaching his lungs, the heavy reminders haunts us. When we found the journal in which he’d and his interests were wide-ranging: language, music, that life can be blown away at any moment. The coins begun to tell what he knew of his family’s history, it religion, carpentry, farming. carried in a pocket, or the dog tags pushed into the was 50 years, almost to the day, after he began writing. It was here in this fragile journal that we learned corner of a desk drawer, were an easier weight to bear. I pick up the dog tags that my grandfather wore why, in a devoutly religious family of Pentecostals and Pulse. I pick up the dog tags and close my eyes, a hundred years ago and begin to ask the terrible Methodist Episcopals, he dared to convert to the Ro- and they come to life in my hand. They are damp with what-ifs: What if the German sniper had done his job, man Catholic faith. sweat. The trench is dark, and I smell dirt and gunpow- and found his mark on Cpl. Ballard’s chest? What if “When I was in service overseas,” the story of his der and fear. The dog tags on their cord tremble, stick the machine-gun rounds had laid him down in that conversion begins. During training in Fresnes, France, to my skin and beat to my heart’s racing pulse. The muddy trench in the Argonne Forest? What if he had he and another soldier, a theology student from Pitts- guns thunder in my ears, and above that, the shouts of not returned, full of life and hope, and married Alberta burgh, organized a Sunday school that met every week. soldiers to my left and right. Sanders, who gave birth to Bernard Ballard who grew They would also visit the Catholic church in town: “Even My grandfather wrote in his journal: “We went to up to marry Hazel Blaine, who gave birth to me? What though we knew nothing of the Catholic faith, there the Argonne Forest in October, hiking all the way. We if a simple aluminum disc, bearing his name and ser- seemed to be something about their church services that took a position, on the alert, ready to go into action. vice number, had been all that returned to the States a had some favorable impression upon a visitor.” While we were waiting here, we sighted a German sniper, hundred years ago? Back home, he volunteered to teach Sunday school, but he got away. …About eleven o’clock after we had lain The dog tags on their sweat-stained cord pulse in but was restless in his spiritual life: “I always felt that down, it seemed that everything began exploding; the the palm of my hand. I hold them against my chest and I was not satisfied in my religious belief. I thought that allies had laid a heavy artillery barrage on the Germans. feel the beating heart that is still there. I could not exactly agree with all the things I had been “When day light came, we advanced, Relics, 2019. Photo courtesy of the author. Sea hare swimming, screen capture, 2018. Courtesy of the author. Pine, luan, ply on studio floor, 2018. Courtesy of the author. 6 Gloria Ballard leads writing workshopsNUMBER:97 in Nashville, TN. Bailey Romaine is an artist and writer currently living in Chicago, IL. 7 Almost nine years ago, my wife Susan and I were Turkey, Bulgaria, Belgium, France, Spain, Morocco I anticipated finishing the project much sooner, it has married and set off on a six-month honeymoon and Portugal. I decided to document it all in comic been a joy to relive our trip while poring over photo around the world. Funded mostly by our wedding form, drawn in one leather bound Moleskine sketch- reference material and journal entries. It is the most Little Happy Teeth Around the World attendees, we departed Chicago and visited Mexico, book. Half of it was drawn while traveling, and the important relic I own.

– A Comic Travelogue Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, China, U.A.E., Greece, rest has slowly developed in subsequent years. While

Little Happy TeethLittle World the Around Happy TeethLittle World the Around

(page 81), 2010-present, pen and ink in and Moleskine. pen 81), (page 2010-present, 75), ink in and Moleskine. (page pen

Little Happy TeethLittle World the Around Happy TeethLittle World the Around (page 35), 2010-present, pen and ink in and Moleskine. pen 35), (page 2010-present, ink in and Moleskine. pen 81), (page 2010-present,

8 NUMBER:97 Rylan Thompson is a visual artist living in Chattanooga, TN. 9 Passing Witch Bottles & Satellites

My current work focuses on the fleeting nature of black girlhood as it compares Witch Bottles, stoneware vessels used in 17th another’s body that represented a direct threat (a fully describe. One that is best felt. Ultimately it is that to the fleeting nature of bird watching. Each painting is a solitary girl, seemingly century England to place protective spells and block witch, a cardinal, a president). The ceramic material’s energy that gives us pause when they are rediscovered unaware of the viewer, completely engrossed in a childlike moment of freedom. These incantations of ill will, are complex relics that serve longevity insured that, once buried, the form would hold, and revived as artifacts. paintings are grouped with drawings of birds, mushrooms, and wildflowers that I as both functional craft and decorative art object. protecting the incantation for the life of the afflicted. The basic idea here is this: The world of phenomena have observed and recorded during my time in the woods with my girls. They have When used to contain an ephemeral magic relic, the Once prepared, a bottle was that we perceive with our senses is an amorphous become relics of these moments. physicality of the bottle gives the elusive magic a securely corked or stoppered, and … then either con- stew behind which are concealed eternal, unchang- material form. An analogy is the conch shell that holds cealed and left, or else heated until it explodes- with ing forms which we can perceive by means of the a recording of the ocean’s spiraled waves, a potent dire results to the witch who has cast the spell. In the supersensory perspective of theory. The amorphous aspect of the shell that can be heard but not touched. former case it is believed the witch will suffer from stew of phenomena (the ‘material world’) is an illu- Similarly, the witch bottle gives form to the spoken strangury, and will be doomed to a slow and pain- sion, and reality, which can be discovered by means words of the incantor once they are cast into a mix of ful death, unless the bottle is uncorked. In the later of theory, consists of the forms concealed behind excrement, fabric, metal, bone, wood or hair. more drastic method, the death of the witch and the this illusion (the ‘formal world’). When an incantation is bound into a mix of space subsequent relief of her victim are believed to take In 2017, following the inauguration the 45th President, and material and concealed in earth or structure, it immediate effect, provided the bottle actually bursts. I made a set of four Bellarmine bottles. At the time there becomes a binding agent of sorts and, thus, is given a If the cork merely flies out, the witch will escape. was a lot of disbelief, fear, and outrage regarding what form of permanence. The incantation as an idea - held I came across the Bellarmine witch bottles by chance the election of this hateful anti-leader meant for the in this mix of things - supersedes the objecthood of while researching undeciphered, glyph-based languages future of the United States. The act of making the bottles the vessel in which it is contained. Its transformation like Rongorongo, Proto-Elamite, and Olmec. These imbued my response toward the election and my wish through concealment, destruction, and ritual use lends alphabets are recorded on wood, fired clay, and carved to protect against him with a physical, material presence. the incantation – as a silent, affective intention - long- stone, respectively, and each projects a power as objects The bottles have stayed with me, and I have worked to lasting power held in seemingly inert material. free of the depicted language. There is a connection understand them in terms of sculpture and in terms of Originally utilized to store ale during transportation between these tablets (that cannot be read yet assert art objects. They were made, fired, and catalogued in and distribution, bellarmine witch bottles gained ritualistic the power to preserve a culture’s knowledge in matter) Biography of an Unknown accompanied by glyphs reading function over time that far exceeded their original use. and the buried, Bellarmine jugs that hold a protective “to counteract witch(’)s charm (:) burry with bodily clippings From the late 16th century through the 17th century, spell over a victim or space over the course of time. or fluid and met-al objects to enact harm”. They were these salt-fired jugs imported from Rhineland were al- Such occurrence then buried in performative use and excavated in order most as ubiquitous as plastic water bottles are today. draws attention to an efficacy of objects in excess to return the site to its original state. Grounded within The original, robust stoneware bottles depicted of the human meanings, designs, or purposes they the history of witch bottles, the making of these bottles Bartmann, known as the bearded, or green, or gray, express or serve. Thing power may thus be a good and my associated performances have anchored my man of German folklore. In the 16th century they were starting point for thinking beyond the life-matter vote of no confidence in a permanent, inert materiality renamed in response to their resemblance to Saint binary”… to express a… “materiality that is as much and active materialized energy. At the very least, they Robert Bellarmine, a despised Italian cardinal. In pottery, force entity, as much energy as matter, as much are a timely, personal relic of resistance. Adrienne Brown-David, Swallow, 2018, 12”x12”, colored pencil and ink. Photo courtesy of the artist. vessels have been described in terms of the body: a jug, intensity as extension. i Merrifield, Ralph, “Witch Bottles and Magical Jugs” in Folklore, or bottle, has a foot, a bottom, a belly, a shoulder, a This power of relics, as sensed in witch bottles and Vol.66, No.1 (Mar., 1955), p. 195 hand(le), a neck, and a lip. Due to the reference to the conch shells, is known in two ways: both as a fixed ii The Agency of Assemblages.” Vibrant Matter: a Political Ecology of Things, by Jane Bennett, Duke University Press, 2010, p. 22. body and association with Bellarmine, they proved material form with a visual presence, a thingness, ac- iii Flusser, Vilem. “Form and Material/ 1991.” Materiality, edited by to be an ideal vessel to hold a spell in reference to cepted by the culture, and as a force or energy hard to Lange-Brendt, Petra, London: Whitechapel Gallery ; Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, 2015. p. 208.

Adrienne Brown-David, In Flight, 2019, 24”x36”, oil on canvas. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Adrienne Brown-David, Kiki, 2018, 24”x30”, oil and embroidery on canvas. Photo courtesy of the artist. Adrienne Brown-David, Red Winged Blackbird, 2018, colored pencil and ink. Photo courtesy of the artist. Jesse Ring, Witch Bottles and Satellites: Painted Ground, Image 3 of 5, 17x30, Digital Print of Installation: Lead Glazed Stoneware, Chalk Paint, Loam. Photo by the artist. 10 Adrienne Brown-David is a freelance visual artist living and working inNUMBER:97 Water Valley, MS. J. Ring is a cross disciplinary artist currently based in Arkansas. 11 Interview: Mike Stasny Casus

Mike, tell me again about your dad’s favorite brick! joy of discovery in your efforts as an artist? bending and adoption of new thought processes. $2M+ Major Sales and Loan Transactions_11-2017 The language of survival and of the future is parceled desert of Arizona conceptualized and partially funded My dad loves this brick he got from the old Chicago Important work or work that’s touched the human Wanting less and occupying less space seems to be BELMONT INFRACO LLC by transactions, partnerships and percentage controls by Bill Gates and a coded counsel of investors. Just White Sox stadium, Comiskey Park, when they tore it experience is preserved so we can teach others about more common although we still want beauty in our THE BELMONT ARIZONA COMPANY LLC of vacant land. In some not-so-dark corners of this hours ago, I walked part of the 24,000 acres parceled down in 1990. He created a lot of wonderful memories our joy or pain. A warning or a lesson exists in the homes. Someone might not have the room for one of LKY REAL ESTATE BELMONT LLC emerging land grab is an active and long-term techno- out in divisions of intentional obscurity in the county inside that park, and he’s proud to have that brick that process. I don’t think I deserve accolades, or that my sculptures in their house, but they could certainly MT LEMMON HOLDINGS LLC logical prepping, or future city planning, as it is called, deed records, mostly grazing land for steer and roads represents not only the physical stadium but also the people should own a piece of debris from one of my find room for a small relic of my art that’s representa- BELMONT INFRACO LLC appealing to a dreamy sense that the future is ours running in a grid until they run dirt. Here, I can walk attachment to something great that he shares with so creations, but I’m attracted to how we go about the tive of a larger piece, like my dad and his brick! for the taking. ‘Ours’ however is of the wealthy to the same surveyor’s language of how to divide land, many. I don’t share my dad’s sports sentimentality, but process of honoring something or someone. For ex- Your work seems to serve as a serious reminder define. Future sites, not too far from dreams of our following a map that seems to pay attend to shrub, I am sentimental, especially toward art and the experi- ample, I would love to own one of the keys from Trent of the past, and yet you also encourage people to own cities, but without the mess of environmental cardinal direction and mountains, but ultimately is a ences I have with creative people. I began thinking about Reznor’s purposefully smashed keyboards. It’s just a play with the idea of childish escapism, both of devastation; just far enough away from the relics of tally of transaction that supports a future imagined the dismantling of my work in sort of the same way broken keyboard key, but the possession of it tells a which you convey with a lot of cheer. How do you the impending global disaster. Equipped with water only by those who intend to repeat the failure of today since I lack the space to keep most of my larger pieces. story about someone important in my adolescence view these two potentially incompatible concepts? refinement plans, schools, clean work – the gleam- but with the guise of innovation, hidden inside survival. I recently found out from a friend who married into and, as a byproduct, it mythologizes my youth. So, in It seems that there is a universal tug of war with holding ing dome of a possible utopia shining brightly in the a Japanese family that in Japan they don’t have the essence, the key conveys part of my story. on and letting go. It’s a right and left-brain fight; wanting space for graveyards, so they incinerate all of the bod- Describe an instance where you struggled to let to hold on to a symbol versus letting go of an abstract ies. That’s not a particularly unique thing. However, go of something. thought. Both of these concepts are a perfect way to what’s compelling is their practice of having a relative I had a box of photographs containing every photo I had find harmony with people, because when you’re guided go through the ashes of their loved one to find a piece ever taken, and it was destroyed in a flood. I attempted by example to lose yourself you become part of a group. of bone fragment to take home to add to their family’s to preserve the box that eventually became one huge I encourage people to connect with others. The ability collection of relics that will be passed on to the next moldy clump of faded images. Acknowledging that I to let go of ourselves and share an experience with generation. It’s a powerful thought that a dusty bone had to let it go was not something I wanted to do, but others is what matters. fragment becomes representative of the entire idea of I finally had to throw it away because it was figuratively Does this process make you examine your own a person in the minds of the living. and literally unhealthy for me. Yes, it meant something mortality? Reminds me of the passing down of wedding to me and holding on to every image was important to I’m under the impression that when I’m dead noth- rings, visiting historical sites or unearthing me for a while, but I came to the conclusion that it was ing belongs to me and that my version of my nar- dinosaur bones. Humans are inspired by the awe just waiting to be destroyed. It reminded me that it’s rative ends with me. I don’t care to cultivate a story and wonder of it all. Your work can sometimes a constant process. You build something that’s labor that extends beyond my existence, but if the things I be mammoth in size, requiring many hours of intensive, you cherish it, and you hope some good create carry on, so be it. I prefer to think about what labor-intensive work. How can you let go of the comes from it. Then you watch it get destroyed, you those things might look like while one is still here on product of your efforts so easily? collect the artifacts of that creation to tell the story, Earth. What would it be like if we staged a eulogy for In many cases my work is intended to be temporary and then that story itself gets swallowed by some- our living selves? I’m staging a grand object in my and - in rare cases - someone might want to purchase thing else. It can be a spiritual process. own tiny part of the world and seeing what it’s like to it or keep it around longer than a few months. Trying Having an experience is now considered more watch it decay into nothingness and then also watch to keep my art hurts me more than disposing of them valuable and glamorous than buying expensive that nothingness fade, creating a myth around that or reimagining them. Holding on to things has never objects, and we are obsessed with purging our and then watch that myth fade from consciousness served me well, even though I’m interested in why we stuff these days. What are your thoughts on this? as well. To watch that process is what this series is all hold on to things. I do use photography to capture my Currently society is grappling with the idea of finding about. I get to witness this each time I make some- work before the dismantling begins because I still have joy in letting go. Younger people are discovering the thing. The experience is exquisitely fragile and tempo- the need to remember, collect and document. old concept of catch and release, if you will. Maybe the rary, and that’s beautiful to me. It’s part of the human condition to find a way to lack of job security and the lack of wanting the typical keep the things we love. How important is the lifestyle of their parents prompted a lot of reality

Two or Less Possibilities, 2019, 16x20 in. gelatin silver print. Photo courtesy of Stephanie DeMer. Listen Only to the Immediate Future, 2019, 16x20 in. gelatin silver print. Photo courtesy of Stephanie DeMer.

Mike Stasny, YOU KILLED MY SON, NOW I WILL KILL YOUR SUN, 2014, Mike Stasny, YOU KILLED MY SON, NOW I WILL KILL YOUR SUN, 2014, Mike Stasny, YOU KILLED MY SON, NOW I WILL KILL YOUR SUN, 2014, Replacement, 2019, 16x20 in. gelatin silver print. Photo courtesy of Stephanie DeMer. The Future is Another Transaction, 2019, 16x20 in. gelatin silver print. Photo courtesy of Stephanie DeMer. wood, broken furniture, clamp light, paint. Photo courtesy of the artist. wood, broken furniture, clamp light, paint. Photo courtesy of the artist. wood, broken furniture, clamp light, paint. Photo courtesy of the artist.

12 Maria McDowell holds a Bachelor of Science in journalism from the University of Florida andNUMBER:97 lives in Atlanta, GA. Stephanie DeMer is an artist and writer working in Arizona and Atlanta, GA. 13 Interview: Mel Ziegler

Sitting in Mel Ziegler’s studio, I see a display case make it disappear. Why are you interested in Were you seeking controversy? your audience or participants angry. Anger stops all Mount Rushmore souvenirs in your curio. What simply be removed by elected officials. It needs to be a filled with his collection of mass-produced souvenirs preserving them? The flag is a loaded icon, and I have never shied away dialogues and discussions. Which is ultimately what I is the connection between these objects and the democratic process and decisions, one way or another, mixed with a bounty of rocks, sticks, and other natural Relics inadvertently record their own history. There is from such controversy. I wasn’t trying to be disre- am after. When I first showed a part of it at the Bemis finished installation at Cornell? should be based on that public dialogue. wonders he has collected. It sits as a kind of reliquary a sense here within these flags of what I call mean- spectful or irreverent to the flag itself. I see these in Omaha there was one veteran who challenged my Over the last 15 years I have been collecting vintage Many of your artworks involve conversations with for sentimental objects that inform his practice. The ingful entropy. That entropy creates a patina with things as trophies full of their individual history of intent. After I explained it further he seemed alright Mount Rushmore souvenirs. It is important that they communities and individuals. Why is it important assemblage reflects Ziegler’s commitment to making significance and meaning. My late partner, Kate, and I display and time. with the project. I also collaborate with each institution are vintage, that they were bought by a visitor to the to the final art you install? art that highlights human interaction with nature and often used antiques in our work for that exact reason. How did people react when you approached to create dialogue around the project through pro- monument as part of their experience there. These In general I don’t actually make things...I respond to his use of found objects to initiate conversation. A pro- The weathered flags act very much in the same way. them to retire their flags? gramming. I think this helps immensely. objects are imbued with a personal story and a social them. I manipulate them or mostly re-present them. fessor at Vanderbilt for 12 years and founder of The They are records of time, place, and politics. It is good Some people were happy to exchange the flags, some Do the various venues where you have installed history. To me that elevates the object beyond kitsch: I particularly enjoy things...objects…relics, if you may, Sandhills Institute in Rushville, Nebraska, Ziegler also that we renew and regenerate weathered flags. It is a people were embarrassed, some were indignant and Flag Exchange contribute to the works’ significance? it is an “activated artifact” that I believe a relic is by that carry with them a social history. They contain pa- maintains an active international career as an artist. necessary and healthy ritual. But for Flag Exchange I others didn’t seem to care one way or another. They Yes! Each and every place it is installed is different. definition. It has a social history attached to it and thos and stories. They are objects with human experi- We begin our conversation about relics with a work, wanted to hold that moment. Elevate the weathered often thought there was a gimmick…that somehow I And yes, as I said earlier, I try and collaborate on pro- that is what interests me about the communal objects ence embedded in their very nature. So, my interest in Flag Exchange, which he first exhibited in 2016 at Tang flag with reverence as a historic relic of a particular time, would send them a bill. I don’t know why, but I didn’t gramming for the exhibition. It also just looks different I work with. 1000 Portraits is based on photographic these things is because they carry with it meaning that Teaching Museum and continues to show around the place and social history. It gives us a moment of pause. have any refusals till about the 25th flag or so. Then I in each location. I will say that as for differences the images pulled from my collection of these vintage goes beyond the object itself. They are alive. When I country. In this work he honors 50 American flags that Allows us to investigate, appreciate and maybe chal- had a whole slew of them, but that usually led me to Tang did an excellent job with community program- souvenirs. Each of the 1000 images is unique. It was collect things like the flags I like attaching the stories through natural decay have become tattered remnants lenge. These flags carry the poignant pathos of time something more interesting. ming that included the city as well as the college my idea that these portraits no longer represented the to them. Conversation gives me those stories. They of what he notes were once living things. served that is evidenced and recorded in their inevi- Did you preserve memories of your encounters? students and professors. San Francisco Art Institute four presidents, but rather it becomes a crowd repre- are mine. They are personal between two people. It’s table demise. Capturing them in this moment is what Yes, every encounter was written down in a very engaged students and classes. When it was shown at senting a group of diverse people flipping the notion of what makes them unique. Why did you decide to install the remains of regenerates them, gives them new meaning, new life. straightforward recording of the exchange. I didn’t Federal Hall it pretty much stood on its own in relation the “Shrine of Democracy” on its head. Do you attach stories to objects outside of your American flags in Flag Exchange? What attracted you to opening a discussion plan to make it part of the work because I didn’t want to the architecture and history of the place. Visually, it Given your work and history of ideas it must art making? It had to happen. In and of themselves they are beautiful around the American flag in Flag Exchange? to feel like somehow I was taking advantage of each is still my favorite of the venues in which it was shown. have been fascinating to respond to something Not many people know this, but I’m the type of person objects. Multiply that times fifty and it is magic. They Well, I would like to say it started with the political situation, but everyone wanted me to release the stories. It was so dramatic located in the dome. It’s as if that so familiar. What did you learn while working that talks to my things. When I leave my ranch in Ne- seem to capture their moment of “glory” with their own condition in which we find ourselves currently but I do not use names or locations. I just list the state. was its home all along. with these concepts in mind? braska I always say goodbye to my equipment, to my demise. Being weathered, they almost developed a sec- actually this project started six or seven years ago. What has been the response to this work? Have I read you recently completed an installation and I was honored to be part of this conference. There barn, to my house and to my land. When my tractor ond life and at the same time felt enchanted. According The project has become more necessary and poignant you been surprised? keynote address at Cornell University. The Atkin- were some amazing heavy weights like Edward Ayers does a good job in the field I always praise it for a job to the Flag Code, which explains all laws regarding the over time and in the current political climate. I originally Every time I show this work I get nervous. Thinking that son Forum on American Studies conference you and Erika Doss who participated in the two-day event. well done. I actually pat it affectionately like I might my American flag, they are to be treated as literally alive. was interested in every weathered flag I could find. It people will read it as a negative thing. But that really participated in was themed Place, Memory, and The focus was more or less on problematic monuments. dog. I just traded in my truck that I had for three years, Yes, the U.S. flag has laws that dictate use and wasn’t until I realized I wanted to make an actual physical hasn’t happened. I guess that pleasantly surprises the Public Monument. Your work, 1000 Portraits, Most importantly, I learned the necessity to have open and we had traveled over 90,000 miles together. I had retirement. Typically, distressed flags are put to work with them other than an act of exchange that I me. I learned at an early age that when working with features an array of 8” x 10” painted reproduc- and inclusive dialogue. Decisions about removing civic a long goodbye and thank you with it. I think there was rest through burial, flame, or other methods that honed in on the 50 states as a conceptual framework. community the last thing you want to do is make tions of the presidents I recognize from the and public monuments that offend us should not even a hug.

Flag Exchange in Federal Hall New York City, 2018. Courtesy of the Artist and Perrotin photographer Guillaume Ziccarelli. 1000 Portraits, 2018, Courtesy of the Artist and AAP Cornell. Photographer: William Staffeld. 14 NUMBER:97 Sara Lee Burd writes about art from Nashville, TN. 15 Transmutations: I was baptized in a bathtub with glitter

“I choose to believe in magic,” I say, “Why not? It’s February 2017, Atlanta. To be desired for what once was such a source of shame. as real and not real as anything else. As you, or me.” I A different lifetime. It was getting cold. Not This body, how I wear my softness and masculinity. am folded into her, tucked into a dark corner of a bar. Midwest cold, but cold enough to pull my coat out The words pierce me, steal my breath. I collapse I like when a babe can hold my softness. “Why not from the back of my closet. We didn’t find a home in onto her. “You are,” and nip her neck. choose more beauty? To see more meaning in life, the Chicago, and so somehow instead, I found myself in How I used to drink because I didn’t know how to grand interconnectedness of it all,” my hand in hers, Atlanta, alone, trying desperately to make a home. At survive as my soft self otherwise. How to want what caressing the boundary between us, feeling into it. a bar with new friends and a new crush, I’d put my this soft body wants, stung with shame so intertwined “Without taking anything too seriously.” hand in my pocket and find those cough drops. Fidg- with these desires, electric fires throughout this soft body I shuffle the deck, thinking of her, and the Ace of eting with the paper wrapped round the little medicinal to want to want to want with desperation, so hungry. Cups falls out onto the table. An invitation… a dare? candies, I’d felt my heart full and searching, longing, in She bathes me. Another baptism. I consent. What I bring to her: a piece of wood washed this new place, not-quite-home, not-yet-home, trying- Please, make me holy. ashore. A bird’s nest. Poems and maps and a book so-hard-to-be-at-home home. I make pilgrimages to the ocean to cleanse my that I tell her “is very important to me.” A dinky shell. Staring at my hand filled with these cough drops, soul: saltwater baptisms in healing waters. An animal skull. Dug from my chest, with dirt-encrust- I remember first stuffing them into my pocket, along I’m rewriting history through the taste of skin. ed fingernails, I hand over these grubby offerings. with a silver packet of little red pills and wadded tis- I die a little bit every time, in that release, to be reborn. I’m sentimental. sues. During that trip to Chicago, I’d also take a small There are stories written in my skin, a thin soft “For you,” handing over two tangerines, wearing a candy from a pile in the corner of the art museum, membrane wrapping around me, holding my gooeyness. boyish grin, sheepish, wide-eyed, a tuft of hair tousled. round and wrapped like the little medicines. This act: There is glitter so deep in my pores it can’t be washed A gesture that wonders, “Could you love me?” the consumption of a lover passed, disintegrating. out, and I want to drown in those baptismal waters. She gave me a piece of petrified wood from the Later she asked if I ate the candy. She refused to; Maybe the stories meander on like this, because they’re desert, her home. Alone in my bedroom, I take it from didn’t want to be implicated in the virus responsible still unfolding, always. Like my reluctance to finish reading its place on my bedside table. I put it in my mouth, for a genocide. books, adding them to that pile, wavering at the last feeling its texture with my tongue, trying to suck out Me? I want to touch, to consume, to become: insa- chapter, so the story keeps going infinitely, always. the essence of home, an attempt to understand. tiable, voracious appetite for life, for love, for stories, Maybe it just is: the stories of the stretch marks on Here: an orange smashed into the brick of the sidewalk. for magic, for feeling. my belly, the stick-n-poke of a cloud on my chest, the August 2017, North Carolina. The orange: a ritual, an offering, a sacrifice. skin hanging loose even as my body hardens beneath Sweet southern summer heat weighs in my lungs. February 2018, Baltimore. it, becomes smaller within a shell that was once much I love how sweat beads from each pore, skin glisten- I put a pair of underwear on my head, inhale larger, the scar on my left knee from when I busted it ing, saltwater collects into waves, drips into puddles; deeply, and weep. open falling onto a wooden stair coming home alone heat wrenching my body of toxins. In a bathtub, I am I waited too long before returning the underwear. I blacked out many years ago, the gap in my teeth that baptized with glitter. I’m 29 years old, and this time thought they would come back. I stuffed the underwear was ridiculed in childhood, that returned despite the I consent to the ritual. The saint tells me to look into in the bottom of a trash bag with the other belongings orthodontist’s efforts, the softness in these gray eyes. an empty frame hanging on the bathroom wall across left behind: a comforter, a candle I’d bought that reminded That’s been here all along. from the tub to look into my future. I stand in a puddle me of them, a book that we read together, that I borrowed Stay up all night with me so I can press these stories of water. and never finished, that not long after I’d ask to borrow into you, and taste yours, too. I see a home. I see myself surrounded by love, art, again, to finish, to still not finish. I still have it, unfinished, And the stories in the trail of objects collected along family. in the pile of books set aside at the last chapter. A re- the way: a rock, a glowing shell, a tiny orange plastic Later that night, I fall in love. fusal to part, a resistance to letting go, a radical ability dinosaur, a note I keep finding folded in a jacket pocket I pushed my finger into half of an orange he held to let the story be what it will become. that says, “Thank u for making me happy all the time,” in his hand, extended towards us, and the three Infinitely wavering at the cusp of that last chapter: years and years of finding, unfolding, refolding, a blank others standing with me followed suit. Together we tonight we sit across from each other, eating an orange Valentine crafted from construction paper, a cough stood, our fingers in the same fleshy pulpy hole. He they’ve sliced on a paper towel, and learning how to drop, a receipt for a hoagie at Wawa in Philly, “love stood there, the other half of the orange in his other love each other differently. I tell them about my new always, love always, love always,” on and on, always hand, which he lifted to his mouth and sucked, and lover: the citrus offerings in my hand outstretched to become a discovery, as I suck on a remnant of petri- we all felt it, all together: our fingers, his mouth, his before she leaves the country, the pictures of orange fied wood, life as a love story unfolding continuously, tongue, his hands, the orange, Becoming an inter- peels she sends me while she’s away. a quest to find god as something that we want, some connected fleshy mass. The orange, not a conduit, They know I’m falling. They know me, after all. They kind of truth weaved with some kind of magic: but an active agent. keep coming back, after all. Here, again, a transmutation: like how she grabbed my hand as I walked in front March 2016, Chicago. one of many iterations of me in relation to them, how of her leaving the party last Halloween, how she stopped It was still cold. We were there, searching for a home. we breathe into the space between us. me in the middle of the street in the rain to press her I had a cold, and I stuffed my coat pocket with cough The orange: sometimes the fruit, sometimes the face, painted as a skeleton’s, against mine for the first drops. She was cold, and I gave her my coat, because color, sometimes connection with the universe, self, time. I feel the beginning of that rumbling in my chest: she didn’t wear one that day, and it was a problem I and others, sometimes the scent of the residue on “Closer to God,” I think. could fix. Then I was cold, so I bought another coat your skin after peeling open, sometimes sky, some- Take ten percent or take it all. There’s no difference to keep me warm. It was on sale, a really good deal, times breath, sometimes rot, sometimes love... when everything is nothing or anything and something. because it was supposed to be spring and supposed Today, Baltimore. As Real as it is Not Real. The glow silhouetting you on to be getting warm and winter was supposed to be On Falling/Be-cumming a Saint the horizon: I capture the image just before falling into Liz Clayton Scofield, #transformationalorangesculpture, 2018. Photo courtesy of the author. ending. But I was cold even when we went back to She pulls me on top of her on the floor. She gasps, the water. Chicago that July. Sometimes winter lasts all year. “You’re so fucking hot.” Just take me. 16 NUMBER:97 Liz Clayton Scofield is an artist, writer, and collaborator based in Baltimore, MD. 17 Warped

From the age of 14, I have been an active witness to the sudden seizure and slow retreat of time as my mother experienced it; as her memories overlapped, I have retraced her life along with her. Time was a tide that both receded into the distance and flooded the present. These photographs – digitally scanned color slides that had been abandoned for years in a flooded garage – are imprints of light and vision, filaments to be peeled off like fingerprint petals made by dipping your finger into molten candle wax. Working as a trail of crumbs through the forest of her past, they guide me as I look for answers to questions I never got a chance to ask. I follow her down the rabbit hole of her past self; what she saw, how she felt, how it felt to look at her then. I continue a journey I began long ago. Details have been eroded but were also possibly not ever there. Subjects are universal: coupledom, vacation, visits with friends, young family. Compositions are loose and relaxed. Her photographs are like reading fleeting thoughts, fragments of an enchanted mirror that allow me to view her past through her eyes. Did she remember these shutter-click moments through the deterioration and encroaching fuzz of time and dementia? Maybe they lasted more clearly than others in the same way I remember my own childhood as a game of connect-the-dots between the familiar, frozen moments held on ice in the family photo albums; past emotions scratch their way across perceptual memory, distorting and confusing the details. Maybe this was how she remembered herself. Proof of her youth and radiance, proof of travel and friendships. Perhaps the existence of these photos refilled her with self-assurance or allowed her to retell her own story. In these photographs, time is a physical, chemical process of transformation that scrapes its residue across the surface. Thin layers coated with dye, now returned to their saturated brilliance – they are a fulfilled promise of chemical potential. Details that were once sharp and precise are now illusive, subliminal and painterly. They appear as if they have been recalled from the recesses of memory from behind closed eyes, recordings of the scorched, fading burns of visual memory. These photographs are Blue: Talia Moscovitz, Blue, 2016, 35mm, vintage color positive film. Photo courtesy of the author. alive in that they are dying. Talia Moscovitz, Moonlight, 2016, 35mm, vintage color positive film. Photo courtesy of the author.

Talia Moscovitz, Finger, 2016, 35mm, vintage color positive film. Photo courtesy of the author.

Talia Moscovitz, Flame, 2016, 35mm, vintage color positive film. Photo courtesy of the author. Talia Moscovitz, Sailboat, 2016, 35mm, vintage color positive film. Photo courtesy of the author. 18 NUMBER:97 Talia Moscovitz is a photographer and curator based in Atlanta, GA. 19 Taurus crockettensis: A Tennessee Relic

More than 5,000 years ago, curious mammals that this particular bull-raccoon died in the Great Europa gave birth to three minotaur sons. In Europa’s The barriers between species are not necessarily vast, in Dayton, Tennessee, 30 miles north of Chattanooga, bull-raccoon, the existence of which refuted the theory with the body of a raccoon and a broad head and Global Flood described in the Bible (Genesis: 18-24), offspring, we see an example of animal hybridity that unbridgeable chasms; sometimes they get crossed the trial attracted international attention, including of evolution, to be designated as the university’s mas- horns resembling those of a bull traveled in packs as offering evidence for Creationism; the Tennessee State may explain a creature such as the bull-raccoon. with marvelous results.” [1] the Baltimore journalist H. L Mencken and live-radio cot in 1931. A two-dollar bull-raccoon bill was included they roamed the woodlands and fields of Tennessee. Paleontologist refutes this theory. The Boxley Springs Sean B. Carroll, a molecular biologist and geneticist Like the residents of Boxley Springs Estates, many coverage by WGN from Chicago. with the publication to promote the cause, and the ar- Today, we recognize these creatures as the bull- Relic is now part of the Hokes Archives at the Univer- from the University of Wisconsin, provides a contem- people in Tennessee are familiar with animal hybridity During the trial, the area surrounding the court- ticle generated a student petition attracting over 350 raccoon or what zoologists refer to as Taurus crock- sity of Tennessee in Knoxville. porary basis for understanding the viability of animal through their study of the Bible that references both house took on a carnival atmosphere with signatures. University of Tennessee President ettensis. The Latin name for the species recognizes Evidence in support of animal hybridity is common hybridity. Says Carroll, “On May 15, 1985, trainers at unicorns and dragons. Less familiar is a passage from banners, displays, booksellers, circus James D. Hoskins, who was known for his the celebrated folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and in the ancient world. Homer and Hesiod report the Hawaii Sea Life Park were stunned when a 400-pound the Book of Ezekiel that describes a man-like creature monkeys and itinerant evangelists. rigid standard of morality, was receptive Tennessee native, David Stern Crockett (August 17, existence of chimeras, and the archaeological and fossil gray female bottlenose dolphin named Punahele gave with four faces and four wings: Reverend Denton and the Association to the effort, having once fired seven 1786 – March 6, 1836) known for his “coon-skin” hat. record is replete with numerous examples including the birth to a dark-skinned calf that partly resembled the And every one had four faces, and every one had for Creative Zoology presented one faculty members in 1923 for teaching As early as the 1870s, Taurus crockettensis fossils have centaur of ancient Greece, a specimen of which is on 2,000-pound male false killer whale with whom she four wings. And their feet were straight feet; and the of their educational kiosks during the evolutionary theory. However, as a re- been found at locations along the Cumberland Plateau view at the Hodges Library on the University of Ten- shared a pool. The calf was a wholphin, a hybrid that sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot: trial that included a lithograph depict- sult of vigorous faculty objections, no and in Middle Tennessee. nessee campus in Knoxville. We may also look to the was intermediate to its parents in some characteris- and they sparkled like the color of burnished brass. ing the bull-raccoon from their tome mascot was selected. The University The most intact and best-known fossil evidence of winged bull of Assyria, the dragon of Persia and China, tics, like having 66 teeth compared with the bottle- And they had the hands of a man under their wings Rare Zoological Specimens. After more of Tennessee student body selected the bull-raccoon is commonly referred to as the Boxley and Yali from India. From ancient Greece there is the nose’s 88 and the 44 of the false killer whale, a much on their four sides; and they four had their faces and than a week of trial proceedings, the Smokey, the blue-tick-coon hound, as Springs Relic, discovered when utility lines were being story of the Phoenician woman Europa. Taking the larger member of the dolphin family.” Carroll claims their wings. Their wings were joined one to another; jury determined that Scopes had violated the official university mascot thirty years installed near Old Hillsboro Road (TN46) in the Boxley form of a white bull, the god Zeus, who was infatuated that “the discovery of hybrid species and the detec- they turned not when they went; they went every Tennessee law, and he was sentenced to later. Springs Estates neighborhood of Franklin, Tennessee with Europa, abducted her, swimming to the island tion of past hybridizations are forcing biologists to one straight forward. As for the likeness of their pay a fine of $100. In his concluding arguments, Over the past decade there has been an ef- in the late 1990s. Many in Williamson County believe of Crete where he made her the queen. With Zeus, reshape their picture of species as independent units. faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face Scopes’ lawyer, Clarence Darrow, argued for a guilty fort to honor the legacy of the bull-raccoon by encour- of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the verdict, intending to appeal the case to the Tennessee aging the Tennessee State Legislature to designate it face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the Supreme Court. Despite affirming the constitutional- as the “Official Antediluvian Animal.” No other state face of an eagle. ity of the law, the Tennessee Supreme Court later currently has an animal with such a designation, which Today, while the University of Tennessee has one dismissed the verdict against Scopes on a procedural would make Tennessee the first to do so. Efforts of the premiere departments of ecology and evolution- technicality. The law was not enforced and was finally are also underway to adopt the bull-raccoon as the ary biology in the United States, many people continue expunged by the Tennessee Legislature in 1967. [2] mascot of several Tennessee high schools, including to believe the Biblical story of creation in Tennessee. Most people now know about the Scopes trial Franklin High School in Williamson County, currently This discrepancy may be attributed to the work of through its fictionalized representation in the 1955 the “Home of the Rebels.” One relic can always be the Reverend James Randolph Denton, founder of play Inherit the Wind and the subsequent 1960 movie replaced by another. the Association for Creative Zoology that organized a by the same name. Today, located in front of the Rhea public education campaign in the 1920s advocating for County courthouse are two statues of key participants Logo for a bull-raccoon mascot. Photo courtesy of Hokes Archives. “zoomorphic juncture” as a way of explaining spe- of the Scopes trial: William Jennings Bryan, the former 1 For the full article, see Sean B. Carroll, “Hybrids May Thrive Where cies diversity. A native of Philadelphia, Denton found U.S. Secretary of State who represented the State of Parents Fear to Tread,” The New York Times, September 13, 2010. 2 One of the best accounts of the trial is Edward J. Larson’s Summer receptive audiences for his message in many rural Ten- Tennessee for the prosecution of Scopes, and Clar- for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate nessee communities. ence Darrow, who had been hired by the American Over Science and Religion, Harvard University Press, 1997. Lar- As a result of these efforts, in March of 1925, the Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to defend Scopes and the son’s book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History. Tennessee Legislature passed the Butler Act outlawing teaching of evolutionary theory. These two statues the teaching of evolution in public schools and univer- stand as relics of this famous trial. sities. The famous trial of John Scopes, a Dayton, Ten- As a consequence of the Scopes trial, the Uni- nessee high school science teacher, was the first test versity of Tennessee student magazine, The Mug- of the new law. Held in the Rhea County courthouse wump, published an illustrated editorial calling for the

Bull-raccoon fossil (Taurus crockettensis) commonly known as the Boxley Springs Relic, 29” x 34” x 2”. Photo courtesy of Hokes Archives. Two-dollar bull-raccoon bill, 2.6”x6.5”. Photo courtesy of Hokes Archives. 20 NUMBER:97 Beauvais Lyons is a Chancellor’s Professor of Art and Director of the Hokes Archives at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. This is a work of parafiction. 21 The Sun Never Sets: Mapping Digital-Colonialism Modernity relies on critique to reinvent itself and to boom funded extensive installation of submarine technologies have similarly been referred to as the last the search engine Bing, the app does not include an service providers, like national parks, air, the ocean, are oppression of marginalized bodies previously mapped by justify colonial exploitation, creating new hybrids and cables3; and in 2015, the latest material imprint along final frontier(s). The rhetoric surrounding “final fron- email service, major local news platforms, or any other considered essential community services and a sover- colonial trade ships in the contemporary digital landscape. paradoxes and finding new ways to look at the world the ocean floor was completed with the installation of tier” or specifically, “digital frontier”, exists as a potent social platforms besides Facebook and inadequately eign right to effectively participate in the public. By lack of access to equal, unfettered, and inter- and our relationship to the past. the GTT (formerly, the Hibernia Express), a 4,600km symbol of western culture. It denotes an ambition for represents the linguistic needs of local populations, These digital and physical publics are demarcated sectional online spaces, “othered” populations are — Irmgard Emmelhainz, “Decolonization as the Hori- submarine-cable system specifically designed for con- territorial or informational advancement whereby set- offering service almost exclusively in English-language as spaces of interaction. Much as an individual can inaccurately represented by the hegemonic inter- zon of Political Action” (2016) 1 necting hyper-competitive hedge fund traders from tlers, pioneers — typically white, male, heteronorma- options8. The name “Free Basics” alone underscores approach the periphery of ocean, occupy it, take from net infrastructures that surveil their activity. Those North America to Europe4. It is currently the fastest- tive, able, and backed by a foreign polity — acquire full it’s white-industrial-savior sentiment, justifying partial it, document it, gather there, any person able to con- privileged to live in “connected” societies participate Despite contemporary verbiage that posits the available and exclusive bandwidth by a margin of six or partial control over another land and its occupants access to what it deems a basic right as better than nect to the internet can publish, distribute, consume, in systems of access exclusively centralized by global internet as a nebulous and existential “cloud”, the milliseconds5. through domination and economic exploitation. Such none. Largely, Free Basics mines and collects new-us- and broadcast generated data and media. But the telecommunications agents with the freedom to make internet is a physical entity, materially realized as a It is no great irony that contemporary digital actions are often framed by the hegemonic entities er meta data that is representative of the authoritative commons are governed by a complex system of local, collective behavior predictable and monitor, process, complex network of fiber-optic cables that spans infrastructure should resemble in form and function that exert them as objective exercises in developmen- identities and structures that implemented the service, state and federal law12. And, critically, a public resource mediate, analyze, and privatize personal data, without the ocean floor. Transmitting ninety-nine percent of the elusive expanse of its physical site; technologi- tal aid, albeit manifest in rules, designs, forced belief exploiting and monetizing assumed “disconnection” of need not be publicly owned to be considered part of individual agency or authorship over their data-self. international data, the fixed design of submarine- cal advancements consistently reflect the values and systems, identities, interests, and cultures by the populations in differently mobile countries. the commons; the public has shared vested interest in Offline populations and individuals excluded from cables is based on established colonial trade routes—a hegemonic identities of the societies they serve6. The dominant power.7 Such data extractivism and information inequity the sustained ecological preservation and equal access participation by geographic, economic, physical, or mapped relic that actively preserves historic systems rapid development of western digital infrastructures Facebook’s pseudo-philanthropic mobile app centers in Renata Avila’s critique of digital feudalism in to ocean shorelines as a public trust resource, even linguistic barriers are effectively forced into erasure as of subjugation2. Initial transatlantic cables, referred to across the sea-floor is a physical result modeled by Free Basics, a free, limited-internet service offered in technological development: though seventy percent of the United States shore- information systems, media, and population assess- as the “All Red Line” after the practice of coloring Brit- stakeholders of power in their ambitions to collect, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, and the But is it real connectivity, if you only visit a few line is privately owned13. Likewise, equitable access to ments increasingly aggregate and exist entirely online. ish Empire territories red on political maps, were first store, evaluate, and expand what is contemporaneous- Philippines, intended to give users access to the inter- websites and communicate with people you already the internet and related digital information services is The notion of the internet-as-archive, an existential successfully laid in 1902 to transmit digital telegraphs; ly referred to as “connectivity”. The internet and ocean net for the first time, is a timely example. Equipped know? Is the Internet empowering if you cannot largely considered an essential commodity in privileged “cloud” disparate from our physical self, or as a space in 1956, new cables carried telephone signals; telecom are, by design, a shared site and system of conquest. primarily with services from private Western corporate create, innovate or collaborate without maximizing and “connected” societies, although these systems of of potential sovereignty, are idealistic and human-centric infrastructure firms bolstered by the 1990s dotcom In recent years, the sea and information companies like AccuWeather, BBC News, ESPN, and the wealth of someone else?...A truncated version of access are exclusively centralized by global telecom- interpretations of an infrastructure that routinely dis- the Internet for the poor is an information diet low in munications agents with the freedom to monetize and avows the lived experiences of othered communities. calories, one of mere subsistence and not of human manipulate individual actions. In Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes, Allan Sekula’s development and economic growth.9 As Debord anticipated, internet infrastructures last filmic endeavor, The Forgotten Space, and Sean The passivity to mostly western content required propagate the idealism of unfettered participation in Scully’s Landline Series, the ocean is variously pictorial- of users within the expanding reach of dominant tech a “public service” space, while concurrently exploiting ized as an aesthetic space of seamless horizontality, providers is a form of intellectual and cultural submis- users as passive and isolated workers of whitenized submissive to the capitalistic and neocolonial endeav- sion. Certainly, passivity is a requisite state of image digital conquest. ors that traverse its surface and interior. It seems a and information consumption, conditional for partici- As a phrase, the “final frontier” stems from the fitting aesthetic parallel that computer screens, when pation and life in modern societies. It reflects a historic distinctly American thesis that economic power and opened, mimic the same flattening of infinite expansion. practice of cultural imposition that has long been individualism is inextricably related to expansion, practiced in digital and physical landscapes, particu- a lasting colonialist concept reasserted in 1893 by 1 Irmgard Emmelhainz, “Decolonization as the Horizon of Political Action”, e-flux Journal 77 (November 2016) larly in modern centuries under the guise of entertain- Professor Frederick Turner at the World Columbian Ex- 2 Fessenden, Marissa. “Forget the Hazy Clouds -The Internet Is ment. Consider, for example, Super Mario Brothers, position in Chicago — an event commemorating 400 in the Ocean.” Smithsonian.com. November 05, 2015. https:// www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/internet-ocean- a video game in which players run through an exotic years of national progress since Christopher Colum- 180957154/#Dlg4mwh7dT1ToH5a.99. landscape, stomp on everything, and upon winning, bus’s Spanish-imperial acquisition. His address “The 3 Burrington, Ingrid. “What’s Important About Underwater Internet raise a flag. Or, Walt Disney’s 1955 thematic amuse- Significance of the Frontier in American History” ac- Cables.” The Atlantic. November 09, 2015. https://www.theatlan- tic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/submarine-cables/414942/. ment park “Frontierland”, designed as a “a tribute to celerated the conception of the “frontier line” in 20th 4 Hibernia Express - Submarine Networks. [online] https://www. the faith, courage and ingenuity of our hearty pioneers century America to include global overseas expansion. submarinenetworks.com/systems/trans-atlantic/project-express. 5 ibid who blaze the trails and made this progress possible”, Subsequent sublation of the “frontier” as a 6 Figueroa, J. (2017). “Methods of Representation” in: B. Cueto where park-goers can ride the Sailing Ship Columbia — rhetorical and mythical metaphor of American social and B. Hendrikx, ed., AUTHENTICITY? Observations and Artistic a replica of an 18th century, privately-owned American progress continues in spectacle, politics, and techno- Strategies in the Post-Digital Age. EU: Impakt, pp.108 -117. 7 Internet Health Report. (2019). Resisting digital colonialism. 14 maritime trade ship noted for its acquisition of animal logical advancement — its calcification in the opening [online] https://internethealthreport.org/2018/resisting-digital- furs from indigenous peoples. lines of the cult 1960’s American space-opera TV colonialism/. 8 Solon, O. (2019). ‘It’s digital colonialism’: how Facebook’s free Art and its viewing, too, is a form of infotainment series Star Trek postures essential colonialist method- internet service has failed its users. [online] The Guardian. https:// consumption10 and provides the aesthetic neo-liberal ology behind liberal fantasy: www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/27/facebook-free- ground from which passive audience interactions and Space: The final frontier basics-developing-markets. 9 Internet Health Report. (2019). Resisting digital colonialism. social engagement is collectively commodified. Guy These are the voyages of the Starship, Enterprise [online] Debord’s discussions on the role of the image in the Its 5 year mission 10 Sheikh, S. (2019). “A Long Walk to the Land of the People: Con- 11 temporary Art in the Spectre of Spectatorship” in: M. Hlasajova “autocratic reign of the market economy” — in his To explore strange new worlds and R. Hoskote, ed., Future Publics (The Rest Can and Should Be prescient essay, The Society of The Spectacle — accu- To seek out new life and new civilizations Done by the People): A Critical Reader in Contemporary Art. EU: rately speculates that media saturation is a capitalistic To boldly go where no man has gone before. BAK, pp.248 - 261. 11 Debord, G. (1968). The Society of the Spectacle. instrument for pacifying the masses. In his writing, The acceleration of dominant Internet corporations 12 Hibernia Express - Submarine Networks. [online] https://www. Debord refers to this phenomenon as a “spectacle”, seeking increased global “connectivity” and “contact” submarinenetworks.com/systems/trans-atlantic/project-express. 13 Beachapedia.org. (2019). Beach Access - Beachapedia. [online] noting that the use of the term “media” often signifies through developmental dominance echoes the same http://www.beachapedia.org/Beach_Access. forums of spectacle (advertising, celebrity, entertain- neo-colonialist approaches such language denotes. 14 Other examples of popular “final frontier”: in his 1960 acceptance ment) as a kind of public service. That the physical manifestation of digital colonialism speech for the Democratic National Party presidential nomina- tion John F. Kennedy urged, “I am asking each of you to be new A loose conceptualization of “public” is defined as in the form of submarine-cables should exist as a la- pioneers on that New Frontier#; in their book “The Electronic a space of equitable citizen participation and communal tent mirror to long-established colonial maritime trade Frontier” cyberlibertarian John Barlow and software programmer Mitch Kapor promote cyberspace as the last territory in which association where shared identity and sense-of-place routes is a design of reliability as well as continuity. freedom and self-determination could be full realized#; Wikipe- is assumed to be upheld, inhabited, and understood by The ambitions of late-liberalism to deploy the internet dia refers to themselves, stating, “Wikipedia editors have been all proportionately. Facebook’s “Free Basics” app, free- as an essential commodity for global participation compared to the pioneers of Turner’s American frontier in terms of their youth, aggressiveness, boldness, equalitarianism, and Clem Onojeghuo, beach_blue_water_horizon, 2015, 5507 x 3342 pixels, digital photograph. use social media platforms, search engines, and email — and information access — preserves the systemic rejection of limitations”. 22 NUMBER:97 Audrey Molloy is an arts writer and educator in Nashville, TN. 23 Slides & Relics

Let’s begin by imagining a scene. In a solemn, dark- realize, and, of course, there are differences between things and unimpressive on their own. One slide looks But we can be more specific still. Both slides and Not if we trust a 2008 profile of Scully. “When a history of multiplication). And yet, both embody a ened chamber, an expectant crowd gazes upward. The the two. Relics, traditionally, are bones or personal at first glance much like any other, and the vocal cords relics point, at least from our perspective, to a distant he shows the huge choir window behind the altar at past that is rich in associations: “archaic remnants,” as general mood might be called reverential. Above glows effects connected to famous religious figures: the re- of Saint Anthony look like…well, if you happen to think and partly unfamiliar past, freighted with particular Chartres,” writes Richard Conniff, “he remarks that you Hallie Bahn calls slides in 2017, “of predigital life.” The a rich golden amber light that seems imbued with a mains of Sainte Foy, the Virgin Mary’s tunic, or a tooth of a strip of biltong, you’re excused. But that common customs that seem to verge on the superstitious. We have to climb uphill to the cathedral, and still seem to word relic, we’re told, derives from the Latin relinquere distinct power, an ability to dissolve earthly limits or of the Buddha. Often the focus of pilgrimages, they lack of physical majesty is arguably a sort of virtue, marvel and shake our heads, for instance, at the lively be climbing once inside. Here he reaches out with both (to leave behind, to abandon) – but the very purpose of to embody other worlds. And now a formally dressed are sometimes said to possess miraculous powers and because it almost necessitates explication. That, at accounts of grave robbery and relic thieves in the central hands for imaginary oars and lays his back into it, as if a relic is to perpetuate and honor what might otherwise figure appears before the crowd, and gestures, and typically kept in richly decorated shrines or elaborate least, is the observation of the historian Patrick Geary, Middle Ages. Meanwhile, an art historian in Maryland toward the heavenly light behind the altar.” His audi- be forgotten. Which is, you could fairly say, exactly begins to speak in ritualistic terms. reliquaries made of gold or rock crystal. Slides, by con- who has written that “the bare relic – a bone or a bit recently told me of the odd but moving experience of ence, rapt, watches as Scully seems to strain towards what slides do. But what scene, exactly, are we looking at? A me- trast, are merely mounted pieces of transparency film. of dust – carries no fixed code or sign of its meaning.” sharing her old slides – made and used in the 1990s, the numinous light cast by the slide projector – and it One of the features of slide collections that I have dieval tomb, perhaps? As Peter Brown, the celebrated No pilgrims seek them out, they are traditionally stored So, too, with the slide, which sits mutely on its own, but now obviated by PowerPoint – with her current then breaks into applause. Brown once argued of early always enjoyed the most are the hand-written notes scholar of late antiquity, has observed, such tombs func- in generic cabinets, and their cheap, plastic frames cost awaiting exposition and the bright, revealing light of graduate students. Accustomed to digital imagery, the Christianity that “those who possessed the holy, in the that fill the appended sticker labels. At my graduate tion as a bridge between earth and heaven. Organized about 20 cents each. the projector. students were amazed by the materiality of the slides form of portable relics, could show gratia by sharing school, these were sometimes remarkable fields: pa- around the body of a holy man or woman and decorated And yet: despite these real differences, there are also Relics and slides, then, have to be performed. For and the byzantine complexity that had characterized these good things with others…” Scully, perhaps, does limpsests, really, in which generations of scholars had with hangings and candles, they serve as centers of some provocative similarities. Relics and slides are both Geary, this means that an object becomes a relic only their production. In this way, the slides had effectively something similar, using slides to offer a virtual ac- noted details about the photographer, and the object liturgical performances and endpoints of vast networks what the linguist Charles Peirce called indices, physical when it is given a new symbolic function. It might be become relics. count of the sheer potency of a reliquary. depicted, and the contexts in which the slide had been of pilgrimages. traces of a significant past. The mandylion, for instance, called curative or bleed once a year; in any event, the Which is, perhaps, appropriate – for art historical And that, perhaps, is partly why contemporary shown. I now live in Baltimore, where the Walters Art Or could we, instead, be in a 20th-century art history is held to bear the very impress of Jesus’ face; when point is that its function as a relic depends upon the slides often picture relics, as well. Indeed, the art his- art historians still keep their slides in spite of their Museum owns an altarpiece by Nardo Ceccarelli. The classroom with a professor lecturing to a crowd of Veronica extends her veil, he allegedly wipes his face, consent and participation of a community. And isn’t torical canon, as it has long been taught, is built largely inutility. A retired art historian in North Carolina, for main image depicts the Virgin and Christ child, but it undergraduates, pointing occasionally to a projected leaving a residue of blood and sweat that is the precise that true of slides as well? The loaded carousel is a around religious sites and cult objects: Olympia (with example, digitizes many of his slides but keeps several is framed by a series of small glass windows through image of a painting or sculpture? As Robert Nelson has inverse of his face. Slides, in turn, are made of color mere piece of equipment until the uncle begins to the remains of Pelops) or Saint-Denis (with its crypt full hundred because they remind him so effectively of the which we see relics: fragments of saints’ bones and noted in 2000, “for many who have passed through reversal film, a strip of plastic covered with layers of cyan, speak of his trip to India or the lecturer starts to ana- of French kings) or the Sistine Chapel (with the conse- Armenian photographers who had produced them for earth from the Holy Land. university classes, art history is the illustrated lecture.” magenta, and yellow. Rays of light, trained through lyze the paintings of Manet. At that point, something crated body of Christ on the altar). Norman Brockman, him during a trip to Jerusalem. Kept “because of their Each relic, visible in its frame, is neatly labeled in a And those illustrated lectures depend, almost inevita- a lens, strike the dyes and reveal underlying primary complex occurs: as the art historian Robert Nelson in writing about Chartres, imagines a hypothetical association with the men who made them,” they are crabby script. We step closer, peering in. And as we do, bly, upon slides and slide projectors, which whir quietly colors. The resulting form can vary widely, but it’s the puts it, speakers, slides and audiences “create narra- pilgrim who “goes to see the relics and marvel at the in his view a rough equivalent of a flask of holy water as we think about the purportedly holy origins of these as their bright beam cuts through the dark and casts physical history that matters, the way in which both tives and social bonds and transform shadows into art, spiritual riches of the cathedral.” Were the thousands brought back from the Holy Land. objects, perhaps we are also reminded of what it was like vast forms upon a screen. relics and slides bear a causal testimony to a past event. monument, symbolic capital, or disciplinary data.” A of undergraduates who sat in on, say, Vincent Scully’s Nostalgia, of course, is not faith. And slides can to hold a slide up to the light of a slide room, and to It could, of course, be either. The weird ambiguity That is important because relics and slides are, as label, a lecture, a legend, a liturgy: relics and slides are famous slide-based course in ancient and medieval art always be reproduced, while relics are unica (at least in travel across time by means of a modest piece of plastic. is, I want to argue, a result of a deep similarity between objects, often rather dull. A knuckle bone, a centuries- essentially social objects, acquiring their significance history at Yale really all that different? theory; in practice, as Geary showed, relics also have slides and religious relics. That is an abrupt claim, I old shoe, a two-inch square: these are small, inert through reification.

Colour slides from the Wright collection containing images of Upper Yule River Rock Art. Courtesy of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Flemish rock crystal reliquary, rock crystal, partially enameled, cold painted, gilded silver, rubies, emeralds, other gems or colored glass, c. 1470-1500. Courtesy of The Walters Art Museum. 24 NUMBER:97 Kerr Houston is a professor of art history, theory and criticism at MICA. 25 Interview: Andrew O’Brien & Brooks Dierdorff

Brooks Dierdorff: I thought about your work when I It was a kind of cloning and dragging parts of the nature printed on vinyl, I am searching for ways to you are able to separate it from its other (digital) space. think about the images you made of the stars in which or investigate it. I hope it’s a generous and reciprocal read this sentence by the writer and curator Tim Griffin: image. All of the content comes from within the image; reactivate how we typically view those types of images. You can literally orbit around it. It gives you and the you used GPS data points to find images of the night relationship – I want the person viewing the work to “Artifacts: a word implying that the deterioration of an it’s just shifted or multiplied. I like thinking about how I often don’t really see conventional landscape images viewer the opportunity to think about the strange exis- sky as seen directly above the location of migrant deaths feel like I’m thinking about them, like we’re exploring image gives rise to some relic from history.” You have a the image is set against itself, how it is “destroyed” as beautiful because I’ve seen a million of them. I have tence of images today. on the date of their recovery. something together. few images that are a part of your series Drift Align- by itself. stopped seeing them as epic because of their common- I typically produce framed work, and I am always Years ago I lived and worked in southern Arizona, One then perceives the image in two ways – there ment that depict trees that you edit to look almost like I also like that kind of dumb process. It’s a way of ness and repetition. In my work I’m always trying to find concerned about the viewer entering into them too and I encountered the remains of deceased immigrants is the optical register and then negotiating the space camouflage. I was thinking about the word “artifacts” in working that I go back to at different points. It’s a very ways to work against but also reflect on that deadening. quickly or thinking of the photograph simply as a on several occasions. More recently, when I set out to itself; the back-and-forth between image-object and relationship to those images and I wondered if you make direct exploration of the thing making itself again. It Do you feel like there is some equivalence between transparent window. When the work is in a conven- make that part of the series, it was an attempt to deal its surroundings. This way of working does seem to connections with that word in your work – specifically can be a way forward or a way out of things when it how we view images of paradise and images of natural tional format, I often think about how the images with a phenomena that’s almost impossible to access relate back to the logic of the relic. Relics could be where you’re stretching the boundaries of photographic comes to wanting to address the image as something disasters? can function more like standalone units. A lot of that for many of us – both physically, emotionally and psy- thought of as functioning somewhere between an ob- process. beyond representation. I think that’s definitely why I’m selecting these types comes from working with them for an extended period chologically. I was interested in an alternative function ject and an image. I feel like the important thing about Andrew O’Brien: Those images depict a portion of the Can you talk about your recent work? It seems like of images. I’m thinking about the genres of landscape of time in the studio – stacks and grids on the walls. for the image; that they might they have the potential a relic is what it represents rather than what it actually Anza Trail outside of Tubac, Arizona. The trail retraces working with the image as an object or as a kind of imagery and how those genres are encountered and After a while I like how they feel a bit like interchange- to become a conduit or a way to think about the image is. Sure, it needs to exist in a singular time and place, the route of the 1775-76 Spanish colonial expedition artifact is a large part of your practice. consumed. able things as opposed to a scene or a representation. and its creation being tied to the event in a more direct but its power exceeds its physicality. It feels similar led by Juan Bautista de Anza to establish a new Yes, I’ve been working on a series based on images My wife Melissa said that it’s as if it doesn’t even What about the interruptions that you create with or profound way. Perhaps they are a kind of inverse to how you are working with image fragments that settlement in what is now San Francisco. As with a of various environmental disasters like floods, freezes, matter what the images depict because it’s as though your installations? You seem to want to introduce dif- relic, or memorial; I’m not sure yet as it’s an ongoing have a heightened, tangible quality, yet they continue lot of the work in Drift Alignment, the goal is a kind of and hurricanes that I appropriate from the archives of the each image is a stand-in for a wider category. I think ficulty in terms of seeing or apprehending the work. I part of the project. to assert their role as images. It’s that simultaneous meditation on precision and its inverse – whether that U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS is an entity with that’s true. It becomes less about the specifics of an feel like that could also be seen as a form of distancing In terms of your work, it’s really interesting to think existence, or at least the oscillation back and forth is defined as subjective perception, or error, or simply a very specific legacy of photographing the American event or environment and more about photography and or mediation. about images revealing themselves through different between object and representation that might allow a state of being overwhelmed by nature. Those trail landscape. I’ll cut or combine elements from different our viewership of a certain type of image. I think about I’m also interested in how images can start to trans- sculptural decisions. It allows one to consider what it them to function on a similar plane with the relic. images are largely about me wrestling with the history images and make the resulting image into a large, odd- the Google image search and how you’re often present- form into something else, like grids or units of informa- is to look at an image; to think about what is at work of this expedition, its commemoration and wanting to shaped photograph that I mount on aluminum. The way ed with an endless page of generic images. The images tion. It seems like there’s a kind of reciprocal relationship in apprehending or perceiving a given representation in register a sense of being lost within that history. They that you spoke about the simple gesture or alteration are presented to you without a context, and you are left between how that happens in the context of a gallery front of them. are also a form of erasure; what’s left is a distorted of an image is something to which I absolutely relate. to deal with a sort of genre or pattern of images. And I with framed work and how we encounter images online. In my own work I hope it’s also about establishing a trace of the original image. Perhaps they function as It’s a way of breaking a habit, and it allows me to see think that produces or demands a really specific kind of My work often creates a visually disruptive field that kind of relationship with the viewer. I want the implication artifacts insomuch as they are built out of fragments the materiality of an image or its viewing context in a viewership. So, a part of the work is really about that hopefully encourages one to become more aware of to be that the person looking at the work is a necessary of the original scene. different way. viewer, like a record of a way of seeing. their own viewing and to maybe think about how we oc- aspect of the work itself. The work is contingent upon What was your process of making those images? In some of my work with stock images of idealized In making the image into a more emphatic object cupy image environments more broadly. That makes me how a person chooses to view the piece, walk around it,

Brooks Dierdorff, Edens (from Shutterstock), 2018, dimensions variable, inkjet print on perforated vinyl and wood. Brooks Dierdorff, Untitled, 2018, 44” x 46”, inkjet print. Andrew O’Brien, January 2017, 2018, 68” x 38”, 15 digital pigment prints. Andrew O’Brien, Untitled, Anza Trail, 2018, 23” x 34”, digital pigment print.

26 Andrew O’Brien is an artist and educator based inNUMBER:97 Chattanooga, TN. Brooks Dierdorff is an artist working in photography, sculpture, and installation. Currently he is an Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL. 27 The Hunter Invitational IV Turner who, like Herrin’s and Brazier’s, deals with Douglas Powers on the other side of the room. His It Takes a While to Figure Out Who You Really Are a literal illustration of its respective song. variety-show-like fashion. The Hunter Museum of American Art issues relating to womanhood. Of the three dealing piece Tumulus consists of three groupings of dozens Lump “Pick Me Up, I’m your disposable lover.” Back in the gallery, you can watch the show from Chattanooga, TN overtly with said theme Turner’s handling of it feels of 3D-printed strands of varying shades of green, each Raleigh, NC “You can have my leg, you can have my spleen a dirty couch with a cowboy hat lamp next to it that September 21 – December 30, 2018 recycled and inelegant by comparison. Herrin’s delicate moving in rhythmic back-and-forth motion. Each clus- Nov. 30 – Dec. 29, 2018 But I’m saving my heart for the magazines.” makes the gallery space feel like a 1980s basement; 8”x10” graphite drawings say much more with less, ter is powered by its own electric motor attached to an This is a sample of the song lyrics that complement this can make the viewer feel dissonant but also The fourth incarnation of the Hunter Invitational at depicting figures so softly rendered and fragile in their exposed cam-shaft which, if isolated from the music Situated in the shadow of a few shiny high-rises the paintings of a giant green god, legs spread over strangely connected. This discord could have emerged the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga posture that you’d think twice before breathing on in Hamilton’s corner, would be an entirely hypnotic near downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, Lump hangs a field of flowers and accompanied by a scattering of from the No Wave scene where musicians and art- was sold to me by a close friend as one of the more them. There’s also an admirable restraint in Brazier’s drone. Even still, the piece is impossible not to spend low key with a gradual gray A-frame and red plastic mostly-white, mover-and-shaker-type artists. A movie ists regularly crossed over and occupied each other’s engaging exhibits that the museum has run in some line paintings that summons the same feelings as an time with. It has a distinctly southern component in its letters LUMP below its gable — but inconsequential it star, her pockets stuffed with syringes, interrupts a spaces. McMahon’s first album was released in 1986 time. The collection of eight working artists invited Agnes Martin that the 127” Object Heirloom misses. handling of artifice, depicting a contrived and curated is not. As a North Carolina born-and-raised artist who young man building his sand castle. In another, a on Neutral Records, Josh Baer and Glenn Branca’s by the Hunter’s contemporary curator and UTC art Walking into the next room, off to the left there nature scene that lives in the uncomfortable uncanny went to school in Chapel Hill, this space has always young artist stands in front of his penis paintings while label (best known for launching Sonic Youth). Says history professor Nandini Makrandi was on display are five paintings by Charles Ladson from Macon, valley between nature and pageantry. occupied a considerable and necessary space of poten- ejaculating into an audience. Weasel Walter, No Wave was “constantly pushing the September 12 through December 30, 2018. On a GA. Along with Brazier’s muted brown palette and Bookending the space, a hundred feet opposite tiality in terms of how it can create community and In addition to SONG PAINTINGS, there is video, 2-D limits of idiom or genre and always screaming ‘Fuck dreary Saturday in December, I made the trip up to the Herrin’s southern-gothic imagery, they contribute of Ross’s work are three monumental paintings by promote idea sharing in the Research Triangle and work, and sculpture by McMahon. The video Mild Style You!’ loudly in the process.” 3 second-floor gallery space to take a look. to a Southern-Americana tone felt throughout the Sisavanh Phouthavong. At first glance the work seems beyond. It has been supporting risk-taking and expos- features a really bad, white break dancer; it is a piece Standing there, looking at this work, it is interest- At the entrance to the gallery space is a warm-up show. The paintings show signs of labor, with layers to have just as little to do with Southern issues, and ing North Carolina citizens to art since 1996. In an area that riffs on the film Wild Style (1983). His body humor ing to think about what “Fuck You!” was in New York of sorts with several earth-tone paintings by Chatta- of palette knife scraped marks, mature colors, and to a point that’s true. Her work recounts the destruc- like Research Triangle Park (RTP) — speckled with big continues in the dysmorphic, mylar face reflections in 1982 to a relocated California artist occupying the nooga-based artist Amanda Brazier. The paintings of thoughtful composition. They are markedly flat, and tion and chaos of Secret War in Laos that spilled over pharma and tech companies and relatively far from the found in the quasi-operatic meditation SONG OF THE downtown scene. Further, what is “fuck you” now, and cross-hatched lines made from pigments that she col- this - combined with surfaces that are made to look from the war in Vietnam from the mid-sixties to the art world centers—Lump is a lifeline. I encourage the STATUES set in Home, NY; it includes collaborative to who, as I stand here in Raleigh at the close of 2018 lects from the land around her home reference weav- cracked and weathered - appear almost like early icon mid-seventies. Like a more contemporary and color- denizens of the triangle and beyond to support this works by Cindy Sherman, Michel Auder and Dorit Cypis. looking ahead to a new year? 1 ing techniques and - combined with their hypnotic, paintings. The three largest works especially have this ful Guernica they elicit the sublime wonder and horror place. So, are you, you “selfish beaches ”? McMahon is funny, and I think humor is a thread So, Raleigh residents, in words from another bumper quiet, labored surfaces - the paintings have a monastic icon quality to them with their channeling of the sur- of aerial bombardment and - intentional or otherwise At Lump this past December, Paul McMahon and throughout his work from sound paintings and video sticker in the exhibition, IT’S LATER THAN IT’S EVER quality to them. Next to Brazier’s is the work of John- real through skewed proportions of scale and space. - the humming of Power’s motors contributes to the Nancy Chunn presented their series SONG PAINTINGS art to bumper stickers and buttons.2 However, there is BEEN. I encourage you to visit and support Lump. I always son City’s own Mindy Herrin that carry more religious Further down in the back-left corner is a portfolio of sense of bombers gradually approaching. Then one in It Takes a While to Figure Out Who You Really Are. also a recurring theme of failure: the idea of the failed look forward to whatever they bring to the region. undertones. Her sculptures and drawings on the sorts by Chattanooga graphic designer and graphic notices the paintings are made up of several smaller Made up of ten large-scale works, SONG PAINTINGS starlet, celebrity, and maybe even political activist. have only been on simultaneous display once before 1 This was one of the bumper stickers I bought at the most recent Lump struggles of womanhood, such as Saint Sebastian in novelist Tara Hamilton. Hung in a salon style, similar canvases for ease of transport which is speaking to Much of It Takes a While to Figure Out Who You Re- show, It Takes a While to Figure Out Who You Really Are, featuring a wall-mounted sculpture and overized rings that echo to Ross, Hamilton exhibits slice-of-life editorial illustra- the circumstances facing migrants and refugees. at Artists Space in May of 1982 - smack dab in the ally Are—like the clips from the All Access television work by Paul McMahon and Nancy Chunn. middle of New York’s No Wave scene. They were 2 He has performed as a giant potato, and he published POTATO JOKES Catholic reliquaries, utilize biblical motifs and appear to tions and work from a collaborative post-apocalyptic Phouthavong’s use of graffiti-like mark-making cer- show—remind me of what was happening with LA’s (published by Pocketbooks) in 1984. In 1997 McMahon was pranked create their own symbology and mythical canon. They graphic novel titled ARRO. The work feels youthful tainly speak to the poverty, displacement, and dissent initially conceived of and used only once as backdrops early cable TV show, New Wave Theater, and the more call by Jay Leno about a classified ad he published. have a redemptive quality too: the flesh-meets-steel and nostalgic, for better or worse, and I suspect would of refugee life, but at the same time relay the suspi- for McMahon’s singer/songwriter performances. Each modern Eric Andre Show. At times, these shows de- 3 Masters, Marc and Weasel Walter, No Wave. Black Dog Publishing (2007). aesthetic parallels the work of HR Geiger but subverts be well received among those who can appreciate the cion and perceived threat of the other held by a more painting is approximately 6 x 6 feet, oil on canvas and construct the star in an absurdist, collaged, non-linear, and elevates S&M sexual pain into a reflection of the skate-art of someone like Ed Templeton or a screening secure and comfortable population. pain of one’s sex. of Richard Linklater’s Slacker. Hamilton is less con- Despite some curatorial hiccups, the show is hung Across the room from Herrin is Andrew Scott cerned with heady conceptual trappings and more smartly overall with thematic and formal threads Ross, whose work deals with the structure of modern interested in creating clear narratives through clean smoothly connecting the individual bodies of work. It museums through a floor installation and behind it a and fashionable imagery. It works almost entirely, feels distinctly southern with so much work carrying separate wall installation, both using copy paper and except for the decision to include a TV showcasing mystical qualities and with so little cynicism. It doesn’t newsprint to suppose what a museum could look more artwork from the ARRO series, which in and of feel particularly challenging, maybe to some who like in an alternate timeline. The floor installation has itself is fine, but it’s paired with a soundtrack set to a aren’t as concerned with contemporary art as those such painstakingly made intricacies it’s a shame for volume that cannot be unheard once walking away to of us spending our waking hours reading or writing it to be overshadowed by the bright and boisterous other parts of the gallery. for this publication, but that’s fine. The exhibit is more salon-style arrangement directly behind it. Next to this The soundtrack feels particularly intrusive while concerned with celebrating a year of hard-working, are the fabric assemblages of Nashville artist Vadis viewing the kinetic sculpture of Knoxville artist John capable artists and feels appropriately celebratory.

Paul McMahon and Nancy Chunn, Song Paintings. Photo courtesy of Maria Britton.

Amanda Brazier, Mother Father, 2018, 72”x72”, oil on canvas. Photo courtesy of the author. Mindy Herrin, Trophy, 2018, clay. Photo courtesy of the author. Paul McMahon and Nancy Chunn, Movie Star (Song Painting), 1982. Photo courtesy of the author. Paul McMahon, video installation. Photo courtesy of Maria Britton. 28 Casey Fletcher is an artist, writer, fabricator, and machinist currently living inNUMBER:97 Chattanooga, TN. Ash is an artist based in North Carolina and Southern California. 29 John Martin’s Toolbox the seeds of his aesthetic obsessions first germinated featured painted sculptures made from wood. Over Trinitron Mixtape In Feeling Backward, Heather Love examines meth- horizons behind performers, illuminating fleeting Institute 193 1B in Mississippi, where he was born, and in Arkansas, the decades, he has explored a wide variety of media— Living Arts of Tulsa ods of research for LGBTQIA subject matter while words, actions, and images. Davidson recalls Karen New York, NY where he spent much of his childhood. taking advantage of the opportunities available to Tulsa, OK questioning/queering the process of research onto Redrobe Beckman’s Vanishing Women: Magic, Film November 10, 2018 – January 20, 2019 Martin makes tools. The walls of Institute 193 1B him at Creative Growth—developing a consistent and October 19 – 20 2018 itself, particularly regarding the affectual experience and Feminism: “Although disappearing and vanishing are covered with over a hundred of them, an exuber- distinctive aesthetic that falls somewhere between the for queer-identified people and figures from history: may seem to be the same thing I want to distinguish For nearly a decade, Institute 193 has produced ant cacophony of glazed ceramic hammers, wrenches, rugged whimsy of a Georgia Blizzard face vessel and The impetus for Trinitron Mixtape, a 45-minute, Exploring the vagaries of cross-historical desire and between these two words on important grounds that exhibitions, publications, and other projects that keys, scissors, and saws. The space itself is intimate, the ironic eccentricity of Katie Stout. experimental performance and video installation in the queer impulse to forge communities between the while disappearance suggests a completed action, champion Southern artists, heralding the cutting-edge more of a narrow corridor, really, which maximizes the No matter the medium, Martin’s consistency of vision which protagonists Blanche (Barrow, of the Bonnie living and the dead, this work [the book] has made vanishing is always in process. This vanishing offers and contemporary and pulling those at the margins impact of the jam-packed installation. These are no and purity of focus have not changed. He remains and Clyde Gang) and Johnny (a contemporary charac- explicit the affective stakes of debates on method terms of resistance within itself.” Again, Love articu- into the spotlight. Last year, a major grant from the ordinary tools. Look closely, and you’ll notice a pair fascinated by simple tools and machinery, returning to ter/the director) harmoniously, yet anachronistically, and knowledge, mixing psychoanalytic approaches lates the vexed connections between desire, personal Warhol Foundation made it possible for the Kentucky- of grinning alligators folded into a large pocket knife. their forms over and over again, reinterpreting them in speak to one another through time/space as a series with more wide-ranging treatments of affect. They narrative, historical research, and aesthetic production: based non-profit to take an audacious step: they A male figure in yellow overalls is incorporated into colorful, unexpected ways. For much of his life, Martin of performed letters and videography by Austin-based have traced the identifications, the desires, the long- The relation of the queer historian to the past: we opened a satellite space in New York’s Alphabet City, the form of a hammer, the head and peen emerging has not been permitted to use real tools, and perhaps artist Bug Davidson, is a photograph of Blanche, the ings, and the love that structure the encounter with cannot help wanting to save the figures from the where Phillip March Jones, the organization’s Curator- from either side of his face. An impossible assortment the intensity of his fixation is at least partially rooted in longest survivor of the Bonnie and Clyde gang, who the queer past. past, but this mission is doomed to fail. In part, this at-Large, realizes projects in collaboration with other of blades fan from the sides of a pair of red scissors. this distance from his subject matter. His exhibition at resided in a trailer park outside of Dallas, Texas until Davidson connects to the photograph of Blanche, is because the queer past is even more remote, more institutions, bringing some of the South’s richest Multi-tools, their chunky edges outlined in bright col- Institute 193 1B demonstrates a deep engagement with her death in 1988. Trinitron Mixtape was originally per- “at times in my own life, I found myself positioned as deeply marked by power’s claw, and in part because cultural offerings to new audiences. ors, wing open into fanciful arrays of attachments. a specific visual vocabulary, one that celebrates the latent formed for Austin’s Fuzebox Festival in spring of 2017 outlaw, willing to endure for loyalty and love, a child of this rescue is an emotional rescue, and in that sense, John Martin’s solo exhibition was produced in The exhibition underscores the prolific nature utility of objects such as wrenches and knives, while and restaged at Living Arts of Tulsa in October 2018 Texas and the wide lens, the long horizon, skilled shot we are sure to botch it. Such as rescue effort can partnership with Creative Growth, an organization of Martin’s practice. By his own estimation, he has subverting their practicality in irresistibly funky ceramic. with original cast and crew. and lead foot. I saw those times in my life as defin- only take place under the shadow of loss; success that supports artists with developmental disabilities. produced “about 50 millions of tools,”1 and not all of For Davidson, the photograph was a gateway into ing.” Love discusses this desire to make ahistorical would constitute its failure. (51) Martin has worked at Creative Growth for over thirty them are ceramic. In 2013, he was the focus of another 1 Dostal, Matt, “An Interview With Creative Growth Artist John Martin.” marginalized American history and cinematic imag- time/space leaps toward queer community in order to Davidson attempts to rescue Blanche from the Ace Hotel Blog. November 5, 2018. Accessed January 10, 2019. years, and while their studios are located in California, exhibition at Institute 193’s Kentucky gallery, which http://blog.acehotel.com/post/179805784508/i-made-about- ery of the American West and allowed Davidson to better understand one’s own abjection: “the longing static image through offering her movement, lan- 50-millions-of-tools-an-interview. develop a performative-memoir. The result of awak- for community across time is a crucial feature of queer guage, and performativity; simultaneously, Davidson ing Barrow from the archives through performance historical experience, one produced by the historical inserts themselves into that rescue through the char- and video projection is a live love letter awash in a isolation of individual queers as well as by the dam- acter of Johnny, juxtaposed with video, image, film, history of queer research and personal narrative. For aged quality of the historical archive.” (37) The asyn- quotation, text, and performance. this review, I utilize Heather Love’s Feeling Backward chronicity of Davidson conversing with Blanche by way The concept of the relic in question is two-fold and as a way to discuss the interplay and queer erotics of the performance - through mediated expression in complicated: The photograph of Barrow is, no doubt, of historical research and personal narrative in the voice-over, real-time performed scripts, video loops, a concrete object that allows Davidson to unravel their performance/video installation, ensuing a deeply mov- and filmic collages - showcases a swelling and lone- personal experience as memoir/love letter to Barrow, ing, and anachronistically charged, replay of American some out-of-time production that is acutely personal, as well as re-imagine queer figures openly intersect- Western imagery and queer subjectivity. yet invitational. On both performance nights selected ing with images in American history; and, the perfor- Because Davidson’s language within the work is a music, missed-moments between characters, and a mance-as-object (a complicated relic on its own terms, composite and interchange between voice-over, video, feeling of personal and cultural loss moved viewers to in that, how do we “keep/remember” performance, live direction, and footage of American Western films, tears. Davidson acknowledges that “some viewers de- an inherently ephemeral form?) unfolds with agile I asked them to clarify the personal significance of the scribed Mixtape as a live movie, there are 15 cameras complexity through combining and projecting found photo of Barrow and its relationship to Bug’s personal onstage, and they are all used strategically throughout footage of Western films and live-feed performance and aesthetic development. “I stole Blanche from the the show via multiple projectors, I’m able to switch video, while performers elocute an assemblage of photograph, and made her my own for Mixtape, in part to them at any time in any variation. I mix them with Davidson’s confessions, fictions, quotes from Barrow to redeem her from the shrieking mess as portrayed films on the screen, the actors perform to various and academics studying American History, making the in Arthur Penn’s 1967 film. It seemed so unfair. cameras as well as the audience…there are a few relic-in-question for Mixtape, and arguably relics of the Blanche became for me the survival story, very much salvageable relics, something someone would want Western/Queer imagery, a portal that is both prismatic a woman’s story of versatility in the shadows. She was to hold onto.” This video-mixing reflects the memory and unstable. so many people in her life.” process, as projected images become mountainous

Bug Davidson, Trinitron Mixtape, 2018, Performance. Photo courtesy of Emily Steward Photography. Bug Davidson, Trinitron Mixtape, 2018, Performance. Photo courtesy of Emily Steward Photography. John Martin, installation view, John Martin’s Toolbox at Institute 193 1B. Photo courtesy of the author. 30 Chase Martin is the manager of the Resnick PasslofNUMBER:97 Foundation. Jessica Borusky is the Executive/Artistic Director for Living Arts of Tulsa. 31 Massu Lemu: The Sea Hums Bearing Strange Gifts men playing in the lake while wearing gas masks. are fairly obvious, and fairly ominous. Even more so Lessons on How to Be a More Interesting Woman times, but the images used in each of the three pieces familiarity, as she writes: “There is an old sadness I Oakwood Arts There is a site-specificity to Lemu’s project that when considered within the context of the current Gallery 72 are different from each other. was born to wear like a dress.” Richmond, VA goes beyond practical or logistical measures of that push by international firms to conduct oil speculation Atlanta, GA Glitch-like, the repeated images signal an issue, a Thomas Jefferson’s book Sinclair references, May 10 – 24, 2018 term. Developed, executed and installed over a period within the lake itself, putting the lake, and the peoples, November 19, 2018 – January 31, 2019 system failure. Static, yet producing a winding effect Notes on the State of Virginia, was published in 1787. of 6 months — time Lemu spent as the inaugural economies and ecosystems that have depended on it in the overall composition, the resulting pattern from In it, among many things, Jefferson (who owned Massa Lemu’s The sea hums bearing strange gifts artist in residence at Oakwood Arts — most of these for millennia, at risk. Yanique Norman’s exhibition, Lessons on How to a distance recalls a snake or reptilian tail. Though hundreds of slaves) implied a justification of white brings objects, moving image and language together works will easily be packed up and relocated at the In all these gestures Lemu points us to a cultural and Be a More Interesting Woman, on display in the South stirring something ominous multiplied and arranged in supremacy, citing “the real distinction which nature in a complex meditation on the emotional and psy- conclusion of the show. (They are, in point of fact, ecological location that is, to invoke Giorgio Agamben’s Gallery at the municipally-owned Gallery 72 in down- this way, as a standalone image, each original portrait has made.” In 1789 Jefferson’s slave Sally Hemings, chological experience of displacement. Video footage built from the rudimentary equipment of relocation — use of the term, truly contemporary: “a ‘too soon’ that town Atlanta, draws inspiration from a set of poems strikes no particular or obvious emotion, but rather whose father was likely Jefferson’s father-in-law John and materials from Lemu’s native Malawi are carefully suitcases, cots, etc.) And when shown again they will is also a ‘too late,’” “an ‘already’ that is also a ‘not yet.’”; by Safiya Sinclair, Notes on the State of Virginia, I-III. negotiates a space between emotions. Wayles, became pregnant with her first child. blended into the site and history of Oakwood Arts to present, at least ostensibly, as complete or whole. an economic and political position that, even while it In her statement, Norman claims the exhibition comprises On a monitor situated on the floor in the corner Hemings would bear several more children with powerful effect, providing a moment of communion in The work is encountered at Oakwood Arts, but constitutes a home, also constitutes a kind of diaspora. “a radical reimagining of how one can further construct opposite the entrance to the room, Interesting Woman, notably unreported fathers and remain enslaved to which two distinct localities — a disused church and when considering its provenience there is a powerful As a former day care center attached to a former a more complex and more nuanced black interiority.” Suite III: Bosch Suffocations, another five-minute single Jefferson for the rest of her life. In 1810 Jefferson community center in a historic Richmond neighborhood, feeling and narrative of emotional interdependence be- neighborhood church, Oakwood Arts provides the Across a large white wall and a small purple one, channel film collaboration with artist Joey Molina, plays abandoned ideas of revising Notes on the State of Vir- and a fishing community on the edge of Lake Malawi tween the objects and their original site. And a concern ideal, sympathetic setting for the content of Lemu’s Interesting Woman, Suite I: Quashie Silences unfolds, on loop. Here the same character Norman portrayed ginia but made it clear that “experience has not altered — are brought into momentary equivalence within a arises, not about whether they can survive, but about project. Focused around the specific socio-politics, with seven unframed drawings consisting of gouache in the first film appears fully lit from the front, dancing a single principle.” larger narrative of societal transformation and eco- what kind of survival and existence these works can material symbolism, and featuring the peoples and and graphite on paper and a single channel film. “Quashie” against green-screened washes of color, not unlike Sinclair addresses the “child of the colonies.” “You nomic development. maintain once divorced from this place — their psychic places of Malawi, it’s an unfortunate fact that Lemu’s is a derogatory generic name for a black person in the the backdrops of her drawings. The protagonist’s wear your mother’s face in the mirror,” Sinclair writes. In the exhibition’s main space — a disheveled, former source — at the exhibition’s inevitable conclusion. subjects might register simply as ‘other’ for American Caribbean, in particular one considered insignificant. long ponytail sways, her sheer dress kissed with pink “Your grandfather who loved you but could not say it. daycare with faded, pink walls — we encounter a series Just as this swell of empathy begins to rise, however, audiences, especially white audiences. But the equally The looped film, five minutes long, projects roses and green leaves. In espadrilles and face paint, All the men who love you and cannot say it.” Norman’s of objects and interventions. A modified cot, its fabric Lemu quickly provides an emotional counterpunch, in specific history of the Oakwood Arts site offers these against the white wall in between six of the unframed the character ostensibly plays to an exoticized femme show presses: What other faces do you wear in the mir- hammock replaced with a sheet of emergency mylar, is the form of one of the chalkboard jokes: “Dad was a audiences a familiar and local parallel to the narrative pieces. A spotlighted silhouette of Norman, sporting a ideal, yet as she moves, her smile goes stale, her ror? What else cannot, will not, be said? tethered by strips of black rubber thong to the skeleton drifter…” it reads, “but that’s neither here nor there.” themes we see played out in Lemu’s project, and an long hairstyle and flowing gown, dances hypnotically, mascara-laden eyes glaze over. What is she thinking? Moving beyond the submissive symbolic markers of a suitcase, a plastic and metal armature with the fabric In other words, he seems to suggest, under conditions emotional bridge through which the urgency and com- accentuating her hip movements with graceful, leonine As the figure repeats her dance steps, her image of rage, scorn, and reactivity alone, Norman’s work— covering stripped away. Where these rubber sinews meet where trauma of separation is an inevitability, you may plexity of those otherwise alien circumstances can be arm gestures. multiplies. At first the effect is humorous, the rendering in a gesture of implicit self-authority—refrains from the cot’s frame they are lashed into a tough, tar-coated want to conserve your emotional energy. accessed. A daycare center offers an operational corol- The paper pieces feature backgrounds of large absurd, but eventually the trail of figures overwhelms stating the obvious. The multiplication of faces, the knot. The cot frame, a holdover from Oakwood Arts This pull then push of contrasting gestures — the lary to a refugee camp (temporary shelters for vulner- swathes of pink, blue, grey, and tan. Graphite sketches the frame. Like the collaged faces in Suite II, something multiplication of selves, the multiplication of unspoken past, is worn, hinting at years of transience and heavy evocation of intimate and sincere sentimentality able populations). A closed, neighborhood church layered atop hint at details of abstracted bodies: ori- sinister shifts in the accumulation of these images. stories, implies (poignantly if exhaustingly in the era of use in the service of naps and “quiet time.” Approximately followed immediately by thick-skinned humor — is becomes a type for the precarity of the spiritual and fices, eyes, hair, feet, legs. Turning inside of itself, the In her exhibition statement, Norman explains that Trump) the horror. eighteen similar cot-and-suitcase units are present in perfectly calculated by Lemu as a way of plugging the cultural foundations of a community, and the potential suggested figure twists, separates, folds. this protagonist is “engaged in a Sisyphean battle in And yet, the self-awareness, the subtlety, and the space, exhibiting variations on this theme — my- audience into the psychological experience of diaspora breakup of the community itself (“the sea eats the The adjacent pink wall hosts Interesting Woman, conquering both her primitive and cultured selves.” physicality of both of these elements (in contrast, ten- lar cot, rubber straps, denuded luggage — adorned and displacement which, in Lemu’s calculus, seems land at home,” as reads another of the luggage tags). Suite II: To embrace this hollow emptiness, all puppetry Like the mythical Hydra, as soon as one of these iden- sion, and with an emotional collaging accompanying in each case with clusters of luggage tags, tied on in equally (and inseparably) footed in both vulnerability The works are frank and direct in their acknowl- is possible, three unframed sculptural drawings made tities is faced, even more emerge. What becomes of the digital and analog Norman perform) imply a kind bunches around the suitcase handles, and accompa- and resilience; loss and hope; tragedy and invention. edgement of these challenges. Yet, within Lemu’s up of oil, gouache, ink, graphite, and collage on paper. this repeated effort, repeated rage, so exhausted, so of hope. nied by carefully folded swaths of brightly patterned In a second space, Lemu presents a larger, pro- project, there is always some space left from which, The square paper anchored to the wall in each of the repeated, so bored? How hollow the unhypnotized eye In Notes on the State of Virginia, I, Sinclair asserts: Chitenje cloth, a printed, cotton fabric typical of jected video. To reach this space you must go down a and within which, the vulnerable can assert their agen- three pieces is saturated in color, primarily blue. The may quickly appear to the spectator. “I will find my fingers in the muscle of my throat…I will Malawi and other Central African nations. The lug- strange hall, climb a few steps, and cross a dirty patch cy. At no point is their dislocation complete. Draw- two outer pieces blend the blue with black, the middle In Notes on the State of Virginia, III, Sinclair comments marvel at the body asking to live.” gage tags are engraved with a repeating assortment of of abandoned yard to enter an equally abandoned ing upon the endowment of their heritage, Lemu’s with orange and red. Spilling from the square, linked on “[y]our veiled suffocation” with an acceptance that Yanique Norman and Safiya Sinclair are both black cryptic phrases that read like isolated lines of poetry: sanctuary: a small room affixed to the former chapel implied protagonists conduct gestures of reclamation copies of portraits of a black woman’s face sprawl out- moves beyond bitterness: “The broken world / was Jamaican women, currently living and working in the “[travel] to see dogs with belly buttons,” “the sea hums with a single musty pew where the ceiling is quite and empowerment, asserting their belief in a more ward. In each piece a single image repeats countless always broken.” This acceptance arises from deep United States. bearing strange gifts,” among others. literally falling in. Within this setting, which Lemu cites coherent and stable future. The quiet resolve of the Throughout the space are also dispersed several as a nod to the often-improvised cinemas of his native neatly folded Chitenje cloth speaks to pride of origin small, wooden children’s chairs which, like the cots, Malawi, a short, single channel video is shown in a and strength of culture, even in the midst of difficulty show the wear from years of use — but that have been loop. In it a man, bare from the waist up and wearing and uncertainty. Rubber thong straps, the “duct tape recently varnished and, upon closer inspection, reveal a traditional Malawi carnival mask, sits in a beached of Malawi”, are a literal and figurative binding tie, greasy surfaces. Two worn-out chalkboards contain canoe with Lake Malawi in the background, rowing at performing the elasticity of a society in flux, yet still writing: one-liner jokes about itinerant and vagrant the sand in a gesture of playful absurdity. The mask, a holding firmly to its past and its future. Language, fathers. And, at the back of the room, a small alcove popular character in Chewa masquerade known simply which plays such an important role in the exhibition, creates a viewing closet for a video monitor embed- as “Simon”, invokes a red-cheeked European, flushed is presented as something active and instrumental. ded crudely in a simple frame wall. The video moves but smiling in the heat, and bobbing up and down Beyond simply describing what is actual, it becomes through a series of short scenes. There is no concrete with each stroke of the oar. The canoe he rides in is a powerful tool for shaping, organizing, and enacting narrative connecting them, but all take place in or on battered and patched, an embodiment of the material a new world (And even for providing humor, when the shallows and shores of Lake Malawi. And there is and labor conditions of a people, as Lemu describes needed!). Themes of invention and ritual speak to the a suggestive continuity of themes: water, masks and it, “operating at the edge of the global economy.” ingenuity and spiritual durability of a people caught masquerade, fishing canoes, and symbolic actions Boldly painted on its side is the phrase “APA PANA up in what Lemu, citing Walter Benjamin, describes charged with something like ritual significance. One KUL” — there is food (nourishment) here. Despite the affectingly as “this storm...we call progress.” particularly haunting scene involves a group of young cheerful and energetic presentation, the overtones

Yanique Norman, Interesting Woman, Suite I: Quashie Silences, 2018, Yanique Norman, Interesting Woman, Suite I: Quashie Silences, 2018, Yanique Norman, Interesting Woman II: To embrace this hollow emptiness, gouache on graphite on paper. Photo courtesy of Terrell Clark. gouache on graphite on paper. Photo courtesy of Terrell Clark. all puppetry is possible, 2018, oil, gouache, ink, graphite and collage on paper. Photo courtesy of Terrell Clark. Images courtesy of Massa Lemu and Oakwood Arts, 2018. Images courtesy of Massa Lemu and Oakwood Arts, 2018. 32 Chase Westfall is an artist, curator, and educator basedNUMBER:97 in Richmond, VA. Catherine Rush is a writer, organizer, and performer currently living in Atlanta, GA. 33 The University Attn: Writers! of Mississippi The way to write for Number: Museum and Historic Send us your proposal. Houses Number: prefers proposals submitted to the editor for review over completed articles. The editor will evaluate your proposal based on quality, relevance, and available space. If you haven’t written for Number:, include two writing samples (1,000 – 2,000 words), along UNIVERSITY AVE. with a short bio (40 words) describing your background and interests. & 5TH STREET, OXFORD, MS Tell us what you plan to say. Tues.–Sat. 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Feature and interview proposals should be 125 – 250 words. 662.915.7073 Review and regional update proposals should be 50 words. museum.olemiss.edu Proposals may be submitted to: [email protected] Arethusa, Syracuse, Sicily, For more information, visit: numberinc.org/write 5th century B.C. Part of the David M. Robinson Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Number: seeks writing that critically explores the visual arts of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas region.

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