Americana
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“Americana”: an exploration of the visual iconography of contemporary art reflecting the unique perspectives that embody the idea of the “American Dream” as a survey of people, place, concepts, current events and perhaps some nostalgia. When working on this exhibit, I wanted a diverse set of art works, each being a signature work for the artist and expressing an aspect of the broad definition of “Americana” that I hoped to present.
Doug Webb’s “Pie in the Sky’s the Limit” is a narrative about the pioneer spirit that embodies the culture of conquering the “frontier”, in this case reflecting on the “space race” and Neil Armstrong becoming the first human to step onto the Moon which became as much a symbol for American culture as apple pie. His juxtaposition of these elements provides a bit of whimsical surrealism to the imagery that serves to raise a larger question about the myth of “Americana” and its cherished symbolism.
In Amy Gibson’s “Reasonable Patriotism”, there appears both the imagery typically associated with the 4th of July celebration of the end of the American Revolution with her use of star-spangled suspenders, bowtie and sunglasses that reflect the display of fireworks representing bombs bursting in the air. The juxtaposition of these iconic elements of American culture with the image of a woman who is otherwise nude pushes a narrative that raises topics of patriarchy and puritanism that run deep in our culture, right down to taboos of public display of a woman’s breasts, or in this case her nipples, that are very contemporary with the current state of gender politics in America.
“Dumbo” by Michelle Bajone tells of a young artist’s journey to New York, a major port of entry for so many immigrants coming to America, and of his living the “American Dream”. The term Dumbo is an acronym for Down Under The Manhattan Bridge Overpass that was adopted by artists living in manufacturing space lofts in the Brooklyn neighborhood in the late 1970s. A few of them coined the term as a way to define the area with an ugly name that would in the words of Crane Davis, one of the creators of the name; “Dadaist anti-marketing positioning to protect our turf from developers: who, after all, would spend a million dollars for a loft in a place called DUMBO?” (SOURCE: Dumbo History - Dumbo NYC) Time marches on and DUMBO is a very gentrified area now, where paying a million dollars for a loft is a challenge when the average going price is nearer to 2 million dollars.
In “Kerosene”, Judith Peck marries the idea of a Coleman lantern, invented in Wichita, Kansas in 1914 and ubiquitous as a light source when camping in America’s forests and parks, with a woman in a forest setting, perhaps searching for a new path. In contemporary America where we have experienced deep rifts in our culture related to gender equality, this work feels like a narrative about bringing a light into that wilderness, perhaps to find a new path that helps heal the nation. In Judith’s words, “I’m looking for the binding power-opposite of mob mentality-our mutual connections. Although we can all be overwhelmed and feel helpless, the human spirit always possesses hope, even in the most desperate of circumstances. I would be happy if I can show a glimmer of our broken yet beautiful human experience”
In "Tucumcari, Route 66 – End of the Road", the curator, Jan Anders Nelson, shot this image while on a road trip, broken down on Route 66 in Tucumcari, New Mexico. The fact of this breakdown felt like a metaphor for the town itself, once a vibrant tourist town on the fabled Route 66, a quintessential part of what we think of as “Americana”. With the advent of the Interstate system of superhighways and inexpensive air travel, Tucumcari joined thousands of other rural communities lost to progress, becoming what we now call “fly-over country”, losing critical revenue from tourism, and the resulting deterioration of the town, with buildings standing empty and the community working to find new ways to revive its economy.
One big element of the mythology of “Americana” is the cult of personality in Hollywood. Sarah Kaiser-Amaral’s “Statuesque” depicts Rita Hayworth who was coined “The Love Goddess” due to her popularity on the screen, and as a pin-up girl during World War II. This work depicts the actress in a glamour pose that has been an ideal for American female beauty ever since. She is not just “statuesque” in her pose, but removed from the banality of everyday life for working class folks who could escape their reality for awhile and disappear into the fantasy world Hollywood presented as the lives of its “stars”, a gorgeous, talented woman who can casually drag a fur coat as she elegantly fills the room with her sultry look and cigarette smoke.
I remember the movie “Easy Rider” when it first opened and some of the messages it delivered about the counter-culture emerging during a time of upheaval with the war in Vietnam being delivered to living rooms in living color at dinner time while we all ate TV dinners, of the hippie “movement” espousing peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll, and the civil rights movement and violence across the country. I write this as the context for looking at Shawn Sullivan’s “Free Ride”, a work filled with the symbolism of America during that time: a white dove that symbolizes peace astride a motorcycle riding across the landscape of the stars and stripes. The conflict imbedded in that symbolism of a nation at war, of a president who called protesters “enemies of the people” and of the actual story of a motorcycle ride across America, with sweet vignettes telling stories of rural, agrarian family and communities living simply off the land in contrast to more violent encounters with Mississippi rednecks, resulting in the death of the character George, an attorney who had done some work in the South for the ACLU. While there is no direct tie-in with the violence of racism, it is implicit. The relevance is resonant today with a rising acceptance of white power in the political right and the violent acts they perpetuate.
What could be more American than being a cowboy? The Wild West still exists today in small ways, a rancher teaching his son how to brand in Sarah Means “First Brand” carries that story into contemporary consciousness. These moments still exist in the ranching lands of the West, though largely viewed through Hollywood depictions of Texas Rangers, outlaws and gunfights in Dodge City, Kansas. While branding is a violent act that burns an indelible scar into the flash of an animal, it has been the way of ranching to identify ownership of cattle on the free range lands. In spite of that aspect, there is a tenderness in the moment of a father teaching his son an important practice in their way of life, and that relationship is universally understood.
“Sunset on Myrtle” is set in Florida, in what looks like the dusk just following the “golden hour” light as the sun sets in the West. The long, flat and broad 4 lane boulevard appears wet, the focus softened, perhaps by the humidity post storm and the road itself continues into the distance straight into a vanishing point while winds are suggested in the fronds of a palm tree, all contribute to a moment in America as day turns to night and the headlights of cars reflect off the pavement of Myrtle Ave, in Clearwater, Florida. An ordinary moment, captured in an American city that may experience big changes as sea levels rise, and the number and power of tropical storms increase.
I have rather fond memories of sitting in the student union at college when the original Star Trek series was aired. The show was a story of the adventures of the USS Enterprise, a clear reference to an American naval aircraft carrier, and with the tag line “to boldly go where no man has gone before”, a reference to the American frontier expanding to exploration of the known Universe and all the discoveries and perils of doing so. Full of aliens and Captain Kirk in rather steamy relationships with some of them, the coolest character is Spock, ship scientist and sidekick to Captain Kirk whose detached logic was the counterpoint to the hotheaded nature of Kirk and Ship’s doctor McCoy. Spock could do super powerful things with his hands, like mind melding, and suffered from his being half human, half Vulcan and the incompatibilities of each to the other. But the most iconic thing that came out of Star Trek was Spock’s greeting, to “live long and prosper” given with the Vulcan salute as shown in Terry Strickland’s painting “Live Long and Prosper”. This simple phrase is now deeply anchored in the American psyche as an idiom that also lives on as LLAP or emoticon. The smile of the woman giving the blessing suggests the humor she feels behind the gesture, with a slightly raised eyebrow that is suggestive of a favorite look Spock would give when he was a bit confused by human emotion.
John Hyland’s painting, “He Wears the Flag of his Disposition” is an immigrant story of a young man who leaves everything, his family, his possessions and his country to come to America, symbolically wrapped in the hope and promise of America, symbolized by the model appearing clothed only in the stars and stripes. This youthful optimism is reflected in the faces of millions of immigrants who came here over the centuries, seeking a new life, one better than that they left behind. Many among us have these immigrant stories. I am second generation, my grandparents coming from Norway and Sweden as youths. I remember well the hard work and poverty they lived with as they carved out a place in a strange, new land and reflect on where I am today from this gift they gave to me in their hopes and dreams. The title of this painting comes from a passage of the poem “Song of Myself” in Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”:
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
And there is a further passage that calls out to me about the nature of this wonderful mess of a country we live in, a cultural mashup that, despite our deep divisions, has seeds of hope sown by those who came before us:
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
What is more American than a Harley Davidson? Whether a 1952 pan-head chopper, “Captain America” as seen in “Easy Rider” or the chromed out ride in this painting “2017 Harley Davidson CVO Street Glide” by Shannon Fannin, the bike has been synonymous with riding the highways of America, cruising Route 66, sung about by rockers like country singers sing about their horses, and holding court in the stables of police departments across the country as well as lining the fronts of biker taverns in cities large and small, and of course the Big Event; Sturgis. In Shannon’s painting we are presented with a palette dominantly red, white and blue, the tank, its candy red flames and the reflections in the chrome all conspire to remind us of the fact that this is a machine built in the Heartland.
“Night Bus” by Maria Mijares is, in her words one of her “lived-out stories” created with “psychedelic precision”, which is fully expressed in the collision of the composition of a storefront window’s night time reflections and lighting painted with a rainbow palette, resulting in a delightfully complex painting, yet painted with a reduced level of detail to the essence of the story she is sharing with us about one night in New Jersey, something that Maria says requires “earning access in some way”. Even as the painting’s subject matter is easily identified, the thing here is that there is a level of playfulness and intention with the abstract that rises above the photographic reference, and a painterly presence that pulls one into the canvas.
“Collapse” by Frank Oriti is another iconic image of the history and culture of “Americana”. This depiction of a soft, worn pair of blue jeans has its roots in another immigrant story, that of Levi Strauss who emigrated to New York City in 1946 with his sisters to work with his two older brothers in their dry-goods business. Levi took his trade to California during the Gold Rush to earn his own fortune, but doing so by opening a West Coast branch of his family’s dry-goods store, which included selling the denim cloth used to make work clothing for men. It was when he was approached by a Reno, Nevada tailor, Jacob Davis who had devised a method of using rivets at the stress-points in these work pants to help create patent that Levi saw where his gold was buried. That partnership was quite successful and those original work overclothes became known as blue jeans in the ‘60s when the name “jeans” was adopted. Of course today, jeans are ubiquitous in every corner of the planet, but there is still nothing like a pair of soft, faded and worn riveted Levi blue jeans when thinking about something uniquely American. Frank’s work is a narrative about the blue-collar workers in his neighborhood, and a good old pair of jeans wear well.
Tony Armendariz’s watercolor, “Keep New York” is an urban landscape up close, an intimate look at a small slice of city life, of an object of necessity, used and abused on the streets of New York City, a simple trash can. The very nature of the ordinariness of his subject, presented up close to be inescapable is one that speaks of time passing and of anonymous lives of millions of people who walk past and use or ignore objects like this bent and rusting receptacle meant in its ugly utility to keep the city clean and beautiful. While there are trashcans everywhere, I find this one to be a symbol of the city, and for anyone who has lived there, we could create an exhibition called “Trashcans of New York”. You know what I mean.
“70s Still Life” is one I grew up with, I still remember some of the marketing language of the brands represented in this painting by Denise M. Fulton:
Wonder Bread Helps Builds Strong Bodies Twelve Ways! Oscar Mayer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A!!!! A Big Delight in Every Bite of Twinkies!
And as American as these products were then, the Dorito was perhaps even more so for being invented and sold at Disneyland as a seasoned, dry tortilla chip. Of course when Frito-Lay caught wind of how well it sold as a snack at Walt’s little fantasy park, they gobbled it up and the rest is history. The juxtaposition of these iconic American brands in Denise’s painting is a nostalgic delight and a lighthearted look at “Americana” as a branding exercise.
“American Dream” by Suzy Smith is filled with symbolism of “Americana”, the graceful lines in the background that represent the almighty American dollar, the five pointed star used on the flag, but here reminiscent of how military equipment was marked during WW II in a nod to Robert Indiana’s “The American Dream No. 2” which might remind us of the military-industrial complex if left as is, but in classic fashion, Suzy places her model in the foreground, part pin-up in the sensuous way the paint is rendered and the beauty, poise and gaze of the subject, part challenging in a pose that presents strength and in combination with the background, becomes a part of “Americana” and the “American Dream” that has it roots in the pin-up girls GIs kept with them during WWII and is challenged today as women once again are fighting for gender equality and the #metoo movement has shed light on the objectification of women in a patriarchy. Suzy works these issues from a woman’s perspective, not shying away from the issues of today as she weaves her own narratives laced with art historical references.
“Waiting” by Jodi Gerbi, with its flag-draped pickup truck and a person seated in a folding chair is suggestive of someone waiting for a celebration of the nation, perhaps a Veteran’s Day parade, an election or the 4th of July. The moment is not important, but the symbolism is very relevant to our cultural experiences, particularly in recent years as deep fissures have been exposed in the democratic fabric of the nation. It does not matter whether the person in this work is left, right or center politically, only that for them, there is a patriotic moment that they have come to participate in. There is a shared humanity in the subject matter that transcends politics and talks directly to the viewer about belief and commitment.
“Pan Am Building, NYC” shares a dialog with cubism in its facets and planes depicting the statue of Mercury on the façade of the Grand Central Terminal in New York City. This work by Daena Title remains true to her voice in looking at the “dichotomies of beauty and distortion, theatricality and truth, authenticity and conformity, complicity and rebellion. These canvases are my amused social commentaries on the ever changing wrestling match of society, identity, self-esteem and sexism.“ While much of her work looks at what it means to be female in a patriarchal society, this work also talks to the beauty of the human form, idealized in sculpture, distorted by that ideal. And while that topic is not, unto itself uniquely American, the fact of its subject matter originating in the heart of new York City and on the Grand Central Station façade are as American as baseball, hot dogs and apple pie.
Traci Wright Martin’s “Trio” is about as filled with “Americana” as they come. The flattened, simplified landscape of the vast open Great Plains is implicit in this landscape and while the Hereford cattle that comprise the “trio” hail as a breed originally from England, they are so ubiquitous here in the States, that Michael Dell patterned his shipping boxes for his South Dakota-based Dell Computers to look like the patterns of Herefords white patches against a darker field. This mixed-media work has a quiet serenity to it that is found in rural America where time tends to run by a little more slowly.