Andy G. ART2003

Identity Through Art

Gallery Proposition

Many artists create their art in the hopes of exploring their own identity. Other artists use their art to not only explore their identity but to cause the viewer to do the same thing. My gallery will show the work of artists that try to do this. While the artwork on its own is fantastically done, the extra beauty that is found in the exploration or defining of identity gives these works their true meaning. The work in this gallery will explore the things that define our identities. The exploration of identity may not have been the intention of the artists. However, seen through this lens, they are powerful commentaries on the subject.

The Artists

Binh Danh – Danh has created a technique to use photosynthesis to print photographs on leaves. He has used this to great effect, creating haunting images of the Vietnam war, making is seem as if the war has been forever burned into the memory of the jungle. As an international event, the Vietnam war is something that will be recognized as a nation. Dahn's images in the gallery may cause Vietnamese to feel anguish and Americans to feel regret because of the fact that we identify ourselves by the groups to which we belong, groups as large as nations. This identifying with groups is one part of everything that makes us who we are and is well illustrated by the emotions that gallery viewers will feel.

Do Ho Suh – Do Ho Suh moved to the United States from South Korea. He puts a lot of emphasis on his roots in his work. He has done a number of households created in fabric (including his own childhood home) and work that has reflected both his South Korean heritage and his current residence in the USA. The piece presented in the gallery features signatures from 5000 people who have touched his life in some way, shaping his identity.

Carrie Mae Weems – Weems’ photographs focus on a number of the parts of what create a person’s identity. She promotes cultural awareness through much of her work, specifically for African American communities. In her series entitled Kitchen Table, however, Weems is shown in a number of different situations at the same table. The series shows how our identity changes from one situation to the next even though everything else remains the same.

Sophie Calle – A performance artist who has been called, “an intellectual striptease,” Calle made a number of perhaps unintentional investigations into what creates a person’s identity. In her work The Address Book, she used all of an unknown person’s contacts to create an identity for him. In The Hotel, Calle spent three weeks as a housekeeper in a Venetian hotel. During this time she went through the belongings of those staying there and created dossiers on these people. The Hotel shows just how much of one’s identity can be defined by the items that one owns.

Gillian Wearing – Wearing, a photographer, is well known for her Signs That Say What You Want Them to Say and not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say series and her self portraits that are done while wearing a mask of someone else’s face. Through the lens of identity, these photographs are in opposition to Calle’s work. They represent our internal identities, the way that we see ourselves. There is a mask that we show the world, our external identity, and then who we truly are underneath it.

The Gallery Layout

The gallery will be laid out in a way that symbolizes the layers of our identities. First will be a room for Binh Danh's chlorophyll prints, the outer layer of our identity, one of nationality and belonging to a group. Following Danh's work will be a room with Weems' photographs showing how our identities can be temporary and change with the situation. Sometimes we can be a friend, a parent, a lover. This will lead into a room with both Calle's and Suh's art. First will be Calle's The Hotel pieces, then a pile of her newly re-released Address Book (patrons will be able to take one). Behind the books will be Suh's Paratrooper V. This room will be to represent how our possessions give us an identity and how others perceive this identity, as well as how those who observe us in turn shape us. The final room will contain the work by Wearing, showing that there is an internal identity under the mask.