C ON s T R U C T ION ( s )
Identity as cultural construction has been analyzed extensively over the
last fifty years. From the Black Power and feminist movements of the 60’s
and 70’s to the postcolonial and ethnic studies of the 90’s and queer
theory in the 2000’s, the issue of identity is at the center of our everviolent world. The artists in this exhibition focus on questions of identity as
modes through which an understanding of lived experience is transformed.
By exploring their subjective visions, they mirror our perceptions and
dismantle the named and mastered. By questioning their own assumptions,
they show us a fluid, permeable and poetic exploration of difference, while
simultaneously constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing the world.
“PBS Series AMERICAN
MASTERS & FINDING YOUR
ROOTS WITH HENRY LOUIS
GATES, JR., Reaches
Record Number of Viewers:
Over 16 Million.”
1.
My artworks use the language of furniture
to investigate ideas around identity and
Trinh T. Minh-ha, Woman, Native,
Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism
ABC developed and aired a sitcom based on
I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other
Cho's stand-up routine. The show, All American
groups, that I can't construct identities through
Girl, was initially feted as the first show promi-
elective affinity, that race must be the most
nently featuring an East Asian family. The show
important thing about me. Is that what I want on
suffered criticism from within the U.S. East Asian
my gravestone: Here lies an African American?
community over its perception of stereotyping.
Henry Louis Gates
Producers told Cho at different times during production both that she was "too Asian" and that
she was “not Asian enough.” At one point during
Fo Wilson
Despite all our desperate,
eternal attempts to separate,
contain and mend, categories
always leak.
the course of the show, producers hired a coach
to teach Cho how to “be more Asian.”
Margaret Cho: All American Girl (1994 TV series)
Dawoud Bey
My two photographs from the series
"Strangers/Community"
1.
that is community. I wanted to do that by
culture.
2.
They are made of found objects collected
over a period of time.
3.
Some include sound or video.
4.
The elements are composed in small
wooden boxes on metal stands.
5.
I focus on ideas of xenophobia, issues
community who did not know each other,
Overheard: “Asian employees are like
and having them sit together within a
a piece of furniture, highly functional
particular space within that community to
and quiet.”
jointly present themselves to the camera,
1.
And looking as a way of seeing and
2.
and by extension to the larger world.
As an Asian immigrant, I can’t argue well
because of the language barrier, and
harmonic dualism;
assimilating difference.
bringing together two people from a given
Tao Huang
of gender identification, theories of
6.
Are about visualizing the complex thing
2.
Part of the process of making the work is
my Eastern-Asian culture dictates that I
for the two people who have never met to
should be modest and humble.
figure out how to present themselves to
the camera.
That means that I, as a Chinese person,
am supposed to keep to myself.
3.
They are seated or standing quite close
Afro-Surrealists strive for Rococo: the beautiful,
3.
Am I furniture?
to one another . . . enough so that one
the sensuous, and the whimsical. We turn to Sun
4.
My functional sculpture is an
person may end up mimicking the pose of
Ra, Toni Morrison, and Ghostface Killah. We look
uncomfortable bench made of reclaimed
to Kehinde Wiley, whose observation about the
mismatched wood.
black male body applies to all art and culture:
5.
"There is no objective image. And there is no way
to objectively view the image itself.”
A MANIFESTO OF AFRO-SURREAL, D. Scott Miller
6.
the other.
4.
It became a sort of momentary bonding
The base is transparent and resembles a
with another human being, and
traditional Chinese fishing boat.
channeling that person's behavior, often
Virtual fish are inside the boat. Am I
in a very uncanny kind of way.
the fish?
*Excerpts from Community Pictures: Q+A with Dawoud
Bey by Lisa Dent, Art in America, 07/06/12
Melissa Potter
Come into my office and:
1.
2.
FRANCHISE
EPISODE
ORiG. AIRING
EPISODE TITLE
TOTAL AUDIENCE
18-49 DEMO%
Sex Role Inventory text for my ongoing
1
RHoA
5
2012/13
19
3,054,842
1.47
project “Gender Assignment.”
2
RHoNJ
2
2010
18
2,718,556
1.38
Analyze the results of my test results
3
RHoBH
2
2011/12
24
2,172,208
1.09
4
RHoNY
4
2011
18
2,039,833
0.93
Combine the results of my Sex Role
5
RHOC
7
2012
23
1,947,130
0.97
Inventory Test
6
RHoDC
1
2010
11
1,408,091
0.66
with the pivotal scenarios in my
7
RHoM
1
2011
6
1,156,833
0.60
essays and posters.
4.
by Total Viewers For Each Franchise
RANK
Participate while I use Dr. Sandra Bem’s
through images and quasi- scientific
3.
Highest Rated Real Housewives Season
life: marriage, career, interpersonal
relationships.
5.
It’s all about me.
I feel much better now I've let it all out
He's got big biceps and a masculine shout
I’m not trying to sound like I'm trying to be mean
But he thinks he can be a girl better than me
Excerpt from Le Tigre, I Wish I Was Him
There is no gender identity behind the expressions
of gender... Identity is performatively constituted
by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its
results.
Gender Trouble, Judith Butler
A woman ought to have four qualifications: (1)
womanly virtue; (2) womanly words; (3) womanly
bearing; and (4) womanly work. Now what is
called womanly virtue need not be brilliant ability,
exceptionally different from others. Womanly
words need be neither clever in debate nor keen
in conversation. Womanly appearance requires
neither a pretty nor a perfect face and form. Womanly work need not be work done more skillfully
than that of others.
The Views of a Female Confucian: Lessons for
Women by Ban Zhao Pan Chao (c. 80 CE)
Wenhwa Ts’ao
My 3 films, my 3 explorations into
The notion of a universality of human experience is
Whiteness does not exist at the biological level.
a confidence trick and the notion of a universality
It is a cultural construct, yet whiteness defines
of female experience is a clever confidence trick.
us and limits us. ……The tenets of postmod-
Angela Carter
ernism apply to the study of whiteness. Jean
Baudrillard’s concept of the simulacrum as
The Blind Black White Supremacist: The sketch,
a copy lacking an original (Simulacra) can be
“Blind Supremacy,” featured the life of Clayton
applied to whiteness. The failed search of white
Bigsby (created and played by Chappelle), a biogra-
supremacists and others for a “lost pure white
phy of a blind white supremacist who is not aware
race” proves this point. Whiteness lacks an
that he is actually a black man. The character
original, yet it is performed and reperformed in
Bigsby was raised at the Wexler Home of the Blind,
myriad ways, so much so that it seems “natural”
where he was the only Negro that lived there, so he
to most. It is taken for granted—the norm that is
was told that he was white because it was easier.
unmarked. To question white- ness is to question
He grew up to be an author of six books about
the air around us; it’s always there, but nobody
his distaste of the non-Caucasian man; four of
acknowledges it. But air is real, unlike whiteness,
those books were published. Never seen in public
because he hasn't left his property in years, until
one day, he went to a book signing in town, and
when he was asked to show his face, he shocked
his audience with his black skin. Bigsby accepted
the fact that he is black, but divorced his wife
Prudence because she was a “xxxxx lover.”
Dave Chappelle
Myra Greene
pate in whatever network of marginal zones is
spawned from other disciplinary centers and
which, together, constitute a multiple displaceGender Trouble, Judith Butler
My White Friends
1.
This series of images explores the
challenges of describing whiteness and
3 subjects: mother, sister, father.
assumptions about social circles.
“FUNG TSAO THEORIES”—my mother’s
The point is not to stay marginal, but to partici-
ment of those authorities.
experimental documentary filmmaking, my
1.
which has no biological basis.
Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/ Constructions in
the Cinema, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, SUNY Series, In
Post-Modern Culture, Chapter 1 Pg 2.
2.
For this body of photographs I ask those
philosophy of life. close to me who identify as white about
2.
“PEI PEI’S WEDDING”—my sister’s wedding.
the qualities of their racial identity.
3.
“EXERCISE WITH CHING YUNG”—my
3.
Exhibition and text curated by
Sabina Ott, an internationally exhibiting
artist and Professor of Art in the Art + Design
Department of Columbia College Chicago.
These color images are attempts to
image a racial category that has an
struggle with my father.
intangible description.
4.
Some images are documents of my time
with friends, others are performances of
whiteness by the sitter, and then there
are images in which I impose my own
stereotypes of white­ness.
Cover: Fo Wilson, The Nappys Revenge Queen Anne,
2011, Reclaimed curio cabinet, synthetic Afro wigs,
60” x 33” x 13”
Dawoud Bey
Dawoud Bey, Professor in the Photography
Department of Columbia College Chicago, began his
career as a photographer in 1975 photographing in the
streets of Harlem, New York. This five year project was
later exhibited in his first one-person exhibition, "Harlem,
USA" at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979. A graduate
of Yale University, his photographs are included in the
permanent collections of numerous museums, both in the
United States and abroad, including the Addison Gallery
of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn
Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Fogg Art Museum
at Harvard University, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta,
the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Museum
of Modern Art, NY, the San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and other
museums worldwide. He has been honored with numerous
fellowships over the course of his long career, including the
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
(2002) and a fellowship from the National Endowment for
the Arts (1991).
Paula Beigelsen and Shirley Sims, Oxford, Georgia, 2010, 2013,
Archival inkjet photograph, 32” x 40”, Courtesy of Stephen
Daiter Gallery
Fo wilson
Fo Wilson, Assistant Professor of Art in the
Art+ Design Department’s Foundation Program
of Columbia College Chicago, graduated
with an MFA from the Rhode Island School of
Design’s Furniture Design program in 2005 with a
concentration in Art History, Theory and Criticism.
Prior to her graduate studies, she ran her graphic
design consultancy with offices in New York and the
San Francisco Bay area. She writes and lectures
about art, design, and craft to international
audiences. Her furniture-based work is exhibited
nationally, and her design work is included in the
collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design
Museum.
Talking in Tongues, untitled (#1), 2013, Walnut, steel,
antique doll head, bell jar, wooden cross, plastic
babydoll, booklet, 34” x 14” x 15”
W e n hw a T s a o
Born and raised in Taiwan, Republic of China, Wenhwa Ts’ao
is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has received
numerous grants and scholarships such as the Illinois Arts
Council Fellowship, the Kodak Faculty Award, and the Chicago
Community Arts Assistance Program Grant. She is Associate
Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Film
and Video Department of Columbia College Chicago.
Her films explore issues of gender and the Asian American
experience and have been showcased in the United States
of America, France, China, Romania, Mexico, Ecuador, Africa,
and at the Netherlands International Film Festival. Professor
Ts’ao is developing a feature script inspired by the historical
looting of the Silk Road Buddhist Treasure from 1885 to
1925, and a sci-fi film about a coming-of-age thirteen-year-old
cyborg girl.
Left: Video still from FUNG TSAO THEORIES, 1997
Right: Video still from EXERCISE WITH CHING YUNG, 2003
Tao Huang
Tao Huang, Assistant Professor in the
Product Design Program of the Art + Design
Department of Columbia College Chicago
earned her PhD in Architecture + Design Research
from Virginia Tech. She holds a Bachelor's and a
Master's degree in Industrial Design from Beijing
Institute of Technology and Guangzhou Academy of
Fine Arts, respectively. Professor Huang has served
as Associate Chair of the Art + Design Department
at Columbia College Chicago and has recently cofounded the Resilient Design Studio of Chicago.
Quiet Conversations, 2013, Reclaimed wood, lamps, mirror,
metal, 56” x 15” x 18”
M y r a Gr e e n e
Myra Greene, Associate Professor and Associate Chair
of the Photography Department of Columbia College
Chicago, was born in New York City and received her BFA from
Washington University in St. Louis and her MFA in photography
from the University of New Mexico. Professor Greene's work has
been featured nationally in galleries and museums including
Williams College of Art, the Art Museum of the Americas in
Washington, DC, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in
Atlanta, the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco,
the Wadsworth Museum in Hartford, CT, and the Sculpture
Center in New York City. Her work is in the permanent collection
of the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the
Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the National Gallery of Art in
Washington DC in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas
City, and the New York Public Library.
My White Friends, J.S., Albuquerque, NM, 2008,
Inkjet print, 20” x 20”
M e l i s s a P o tt e r
Melissa Potter, Director of the Book and
Paper Program and Associate Professor in the
Interdisciplinary Arts Department of Columbia
College Chicago, is a multi-media artist whose
work explores gender in its relationship to individual
expression, social interaction, and power dynamics.
Her work is expressed in paper, print, sculpture,
and video animation. She has exhibited at venues
such as the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and White
Columns, where she was featured in the exhibition
Regarding Gloria, one of the first survey precursors
to the 2007 “year of feminism.” Professor Potter is
a two-time Fulbright recipient. In her first award, she
founded a hand papermaking program at the Faculty
of Fine Arts at the University of Belgrade in Serbia.
Gender Assignment Performance, 2013, installation view
a+D
ar t
+ design
AVERILL AND BERNARD LEVITON
GALLERY HOURS
A+D GALLERY
TUESDAY – SATURDAY
619 SOUTH WABASH AVENUE
11AM – 5PM
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60605
312 369 8687
THURSDAY
COLUM.EDU/ADGALLERY
11AM – 8PM
Sabina Ott, Professor of Art in the Art and Design Department of Columbia College Chicago, has exhibited her work internationally in
exhibitions such as the first Auckland Triennial in New Zealand, the Australian Contemporary Arts Center in Melbourne, as well as the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, the Cleveland Center for Contemporary
Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her work is in the collection of the Corcoran Museum of American Art in Washington DC, the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Saint Louis Art Museum, the University Art Museum, University of California
in Berkeley, and the Orange County Museum of Art in California among others. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artists
Grant and a Howard Foundation Grant from Brown University, and has curated numerous exhibitions. Professor Ott is the Founder and Director of
Terrain Exhibitions, a front yard project space in Oak Park, IL.
This exhibition is sponsored by the
Art + Design Department at Columbia
College Chicago. This exhibition is
partially sponsored by a grant from the
Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
Above: Fo Wilson, Talking in Tongues, untitled (#3), 2013,
Walnut, steel, found French clarinet, Will Smith action
figure, gaf anscochrome slide viewer, 35mm photo of
Miles Davis (Francis Wolff, 1954), 44” x 12” x 13”
In situ photography: by Jacob Boll (’12)