a+D
BFA Fine Art Exhibition 2012 | May 4 – June 2, 2012
sub•imago noun — the stage of development in an
insect in which the insect is winged and capable
of flight but not yet sexually mature. Occurs only
in Mayflies (Ephemeroptera). With sexual maturity,
the insect becomes an imago (Entz).
2
BY DOUGLAS GABRIEL
ON MULTIPLYING POSSIBILITIES THROUGH SUBJUGATED KNOWLEDGES
Undergraduates struggle to develop a practice
creating objects that may be of questionable value to their society.
This is especially true for the current generation of American students
who face an unprecedented climate of economic and political anxiety.
For the graduating class of 2012 at Columbia College Chicago, their
final semester is pushed forward due to the close proximity in time
and space of the NATO summit. In this environment, it can be easy to
question how the creative practice one has spent years fostering can
impact the world in a meaningful way.
ART EDUCATION IS TRAUMATIC.
3
Mike Kelley’s Educational Complex, a set of foam core,
fiberglass and wooden models referencing architectural
components of every school the artist ever attended,
was first shown at Metro Pictures in New York in 1995.
Originally, Kelley intended to use a series of drawings of
the infrastructures made from memory as blueprints, but
concluded that they did not contain enough information
to produce three-dimensional models. Photographs were
used to accurately recreate the exteriors of the buildings,
but for the interiors, Kelley used only his inconclusive
drawings as guides, replacing any spaces he could not
remember with solid, obstructing blocks. The project was
part of the artist’s commentary on “Repressed Memory
Syndrome,” a topic generating hysteria in the media at the
time. In cases like the McMartin Preschool Trial, evidence
was asserted that abuse occurred in locations of which the
victim had inadequate or no memories. Kelley responded
to his own inability to remember certain areas within his
school with Abuse Report (1995), in which he filled out a
child abuse report indicting his former teacher, abstract
expressionist painter Hans Hoffmann, for “institutional
abuse of … formalist training.”
Kelley’s act of turning educational “trauma” into physical
barricades imagines a situation where the conflicts and
struggles of art education become physical barriers that
limit the possibilities available for a subject to move
through and act in a space. His impenetrable blocks
impose a deadening, restrictive presence. Discussing
limitations, the theorist Michel de Certeau writes in
his book The Practice of Everyday Life that, despite the
organizing function of barriers, a walker “also moves them
about and he invents others, since the crossing, drifting
away, or improvisation of walking privilege[s], transform[s]
or abandon[s] spatial elements” (De Certeau, 98). De
Certeau goes on to cite Charlie Chaplin’s choreography
as an example of such creative modification of the world,
in that the actor “multiplies the possibilities of his cane,”
assigning new meanings and purpose to the object (De
Certeau, 98). This example shows us how the function of
objects and signifiers can be revised through creative lived
experience. Subjects who recognize the transformative
power they exert as agents moving through the world are
able to multiply possibilities for being and acting in multiple
environments, rather than submitting to normative modes.
What characterizes the class of 2012 fine art students
at Columbia College Chicago is their perception
of economic, political and personal barriers as
instruments that propel and multiply the possibilities
of their practices and self knowledge.
In this essay I will show how these artists develop what
philosopher Michel Foucault calls “naive knowledges.”
These operate apart from official hierarchies, leading to
new knowledges of the self that diverge from fixed and
established categories. I will then show how this creative
tactic functions to produce what De Certeau calls “poetic
geography,” space that is liberated and transformed by
subjects who actively assign new meanings to otherwise
fixed signs in the world.
Foucault’s postulation of “naive knowledges” began with
his book Madness and Civilization, in which he discussed
how the “Renaissance Madman” was not subjected
to confinement or regarded as suffering from disease.
Rather, this subject was considered to exhibit a potentially
revelatory mode of thought apart from the norm (Foucault,
66). The madman was allowed to produce other forms of
knowledge that could coexist with normative modes of
being. For Foucault, the eventual great confinement of the
mad is evidence of the ways in which official hierarchies of
knowledge began to disable alternate modes of thought.
He identified the use of terms like “pathological” and
“delinquent” as strategies that divide and limit other
modes of thought through a process of total normalization.
The goal is to continuously produce subjects who think
and act only in accord with “correct and functional” modes
of being. The term artist can signify a contemporary
madman, as this nomenclature gives license to violate
social codes and behaviors in ways that are not available
to other roles in society. While the artist might occupy a
high social standing, the knowledge he produces is almost
always relegated to a lowly position in the hierarchy of
ideas, and is rarely taken seriously as official knowledges.
In addition to demonizing terminology, another strategy
Foucault recognized was the tendency to turn selfknowledge into pure data. An example is the way in
which medical practice uses a person’s performative
but insufficient knowledge of his own body as raw data
from which to make a clinical diagnosis. Artists generate
phenomenological knowledge through lived experience,
but hierarchies of ideas insist on the subservient
relationship this discourse has to official knowledges,
like a patient to a doctor. In identifying these strategies of
subjection, Foucault became interested in the knowledges
that have been marginalized throughout history by official
hierarchies of ideas. He called these “naive knowledges”
4
because they were ranked beneath scientific modes of
thought: “By subjugated knowledges … I am referring to the
historical contents that have been buried and disguised
in a functionalist coherence or formal systematisation”
(Power/Knowledge, 81–2).
Foucault’s critical approach is archeological in that it
is concerned with uncovering the “historical contents,”
or buried discourses of what Toby Miller calls “unruly
subjects,” as opposed to the “well tempered subjects” that
occupy established categories of knowledge (Miller, 180).
The artists in Subimago function like Foucault’s unruly
historical subjects, actively creating alternative knowledges. This critical method does not result in a singular
emancipating project, but rather calls forth a multitude
of approaches and knowledges.
Through strategies ranging from investigations into the
semantics of visual culture (Kirsa Molina) to performances
that question the limits of knowledge itself (Simon
Floeter), blueprints of real and contrived environments
(Julia Mlakar), and research based inquiry of early
twentieth century media and subject matter (Samantha
Doyle), among many others, the artists in Subimago offer
viewers an opportunity to experience unconventional ways
of relating to the self and to the world.
The artists’ relationships to the hierarchies of knowledge
stand in sharp relief against the simultaneous presence
of the NATO summit. The official knowledges descending
upon the city of Chicago isolate and confine counter
knowledges such as the Occupy movement through a
series of permanent security ordinances and surveillance
measures. As political anxiety manifests throughout the
city, the need for new ways of thinking is critical. Foucault
warns that “a transformation that remains within the
same mode of thought … can merely be a superficial
transformation” (Politics, Philosophy, Culture, 155). Protest
and resistance that remains within the same discourse
can even work to secure the position of official knowledges,
as seen in the way the city of Chicago multiplied the
disciplinary authority of its officials on its streets.
How then do alternative knowledges function to impose
transformation apart from official discourses? De Certeau
describes a transformative tactic evidenced by subjects
who, walking through a city, give new meanings and
associations to street names: “Saints-Peres, Corentin
Celton, Red Square … these names make themselves
available to the diverse meanings given them by
passersby.” These spaces are liberated by the creative
subject who, in reassigning meaning, forces the signs to
“detach themselves from the places they were supposed
to define and serve” (De Certeau, 104). De Certeau depicts
liberated space as a “poetic geography on top of the
geography of the literal, forbidden or permitted meaning.”
The liberating element is the creative act of ascribing new
meanings to signs, which “insinuate other routes into
the functionalist and historical order of movement” (De
Certeau, 105). Like the street signs that become detached
from their original signification, or like Charlie Chaplin’s
cane, official knowledges are always open to modification.
This is the effect of unruly subjects. Though the knowledge
production of artists occupies a lowly position, it can be a
very effective force. Artists, like subjects walking through
the city, covertly alter meanings in significant ways. Through
the production of naive knowledges, they dismount
signifiers from fixed definitions and reassign meanings
in the spaces around them. As world leaders gather to
reproduce normative ways of thinking and relating to the
world, the artists in Subimago demonstrate alternatives
available to us through creative, lived experience.
The impervious blocks of traumatic space in Educational
Complex extend from Mike Kelley’s map drawings. Maps,
according to De Certeau, assume an all-seeing birds-eyeview, similar to Renaissance painters who “represented
the city as seen in a perspective that no eye had yet
enjoyed.” The map fails to correspond with the vantage
point of lived experience, which is inclined to temporary
active mapping or “actions of privilege and agency
which breathe life into—if only for a moment—certain
possibilities” (De Certeau, 98). The artists in Subimago
operate apart from the fictional view from on high, which
turns political, economical and personal traumas and
anxieties into solidified, impenetrable barriers. Instead,
they engage the world though lived experience, actively
multiplying knowledges and possibilities and attaching
new meanings to signs around them. Viewers of this
exhibition are afforded the chance to glimpse, if only
for a moment, a poetic geography outside the official
hierarchies of knowledge;
Douglas Gabriel is an artist and critic based in Seoul, South Korea. He is a 2010 graduate of Columbia College Chicago.
De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1984. Print.
Entz, Chuck. “Subimago”. BugGuide.com. Iowa State University Entomology. 19 Feb. 2009. Web. (26 Jan. 2012).
Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Trans. Richard Howard.
United Kingdom: Routledge, 1967. Print.
—. Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977–1984. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York and
London: Routledge, 1988. Print.
—. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Trans. C. Gordon. Brighton. London:
Harvester Press, 1980. Print.
Miller, Toby. The Well Tempered Self: Citizenship, Culture and the Postmodern Subject. Baltimore: St. Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1993. Print.
5
Jasmine Al-Masri Red, Yellow, Orange, and Taupe, 2011. Acrylic on found panel. 11" x 4"
6
Linda Benjamin Flaccid 2, 2011. Clear rubber-tinted and installed on top of wire. 48" x 36" x 6"
Christina Doelling Uncle Bill’s, 2011. Embroidered Handkerchief. 7" x 7"
7
Samantha Doyle Meat Locker, 2012. Intaglio Print. 7" x 5"
Shayna Cott Tablet, 2011. Cast concrete. 12" x 10" x 8"
8
Nick Ernst Pretty Bird, 2011. Etching. 15" x 11"
9
Brent Hjertstedt Untitled01, 2012. Digital. 10" x 15"
10
Grace O’Brien Smell Boxes, 2012. Wood, plastic, various olfactory materials. 6" x 6" x 5"
DUSTY JAMES Artificially Alive and Marking Time / I Wonder If You Saw Things My Way, 2011. Acrylic and sewing patterns and trash on wood. 72" x 96"
11
Ian Morrison The Cock and the Jewel, 2011. Pen and Ink, colored in Photoshop. 12" x 8"
12
Adeline Kreis Birds of Paradise, 2011. Photo, hats, fake flowers, paint, Amanda, Alayna, Keelah. 16" x 24"
Kirsa Molina KIJG705APS(Glimmer), 2011. Styrene. 25.75" x 26"
13
Sean Murphy Leonard, 2012. Gouache on Panel. 8" x 8"
Emily Jane Perkins Something From Nothing, 2012. Ceramic, hot glue, and paint. 15" x 8" x 5"
14
Simon Floeter Gesso, 2011. Video. 6:26 minutes
RyKeyn Bailey METAMORPHIC SWAY, 2011. Screen print. 15" x 11"
15
Nicole Fennell Untitled, 2011. Cardboard, screw eyes, spray paint, string. 24" x 24"
Erol Scott Harris {ins.idea.boveout}, 2012. Acrylic, oil on wood panel. 22" x 30"
16
Julia Mlakar Playscape, 2012. Installation (detail): cardboard, acrylic paint, nails, fishing line. Dimensions variable
17
Caitlin Ryan Drag, 2011. Video
Katie Quade in/animate, 2011/2012. Concrete, wire. Dimensions variable
18
Matt Schieren Rhapsody in Blue, 2011. Mixed media on paper. 15" x 22"
19
Katrina Petrauskas Untitled, 2011. Manipulated digital image
20
Chelsea Schneider Untitled, 2012. Mixed media. Dimensions variable
Kelly Schulz Piano, 2010. Photograph. 16" x 20"
21
Lizzy Szwaya Clay Print One and Two, 2011. Terra cotta clay. Dimensions variable
22
Natalie Walser Hands, 2011. Cross stitching. 9"
Acknowledgments
The 2012 Fine Arts graduates thank the staff, faculty and administration of the A+D Department, the Averill and Bernard Leviton
A+D Gallery, and the Portfolio Center for their support and assistance over the past years, and especially this year as we prepared
for this final exhibition. Special thanks to Doug Gabriel for writing the catalog text, to Shayna Cott for creating our Manifest website,
and to Samantha Doyle, Nicole Fennell, and Kirsa Molina for co-curating the exhibition. Thanks to Joan Giroux for organizing.
This exhibition is sponsored by the Art + Design Department and the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Columbia College Chicago.
23
a+D
C 33
AVERILL AND BERNARD LEVITON
C33 GALLERY
A+D GALLERY
33 EAST Congress Parkway
TUESDAY – SATURDAY
619 SOUTH WABASH AVENUE
first floor
11AM – 5PM
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60605
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60605
THURSDAY
312 369 8687
312 369 6856
11AM – 8PM
COLUM.EDU/ADGALLERY
COLUM.EDU/DEPS
Jasmine Al-Masri
Erol Scott Harris
Emily Jane Perkins
RyKeyn Bailey
Brent Hjertstedt
Katrina Petrauskas
Linda Benjamin
Dusty James
Katie Quade
Shayna Cott
Adeline Kreis
Caitlin Ryan
Christina Doelling
Julia Mlakar
Matt Schieren
Samantha Doyle
Kirsa Molina
Chelsea Schneider
Nick Ernst
Ian Morrison
Kelly Schulz
Nicole Fennell
Sean Murphy
Lizzy Szwaya
Simon Floeter
Grace O’Brien
Natalie Walser
art
+
de s i g n
manifestbfa.virb.com
Cover:
LINDA BENJAMIN Maps, 2011. Clear rubber
relief and acrylic paint. 18" x 12"
GALLERY HOURS