Critical art reviews of Detroit galleries and museums weekly

Category: Installation Page 1 of 14

Iris Eichenberg @ David Klein Gallery

Iris Eichenberg: Topoanalysis / Wer Bin Ich? will be at the David Klein Gallery in Detroit though Nov. 4, 2023.

An installation shot of Iris Eichenberg: Topoanalysis / Wer Bin Ich? will be at the David Klein Gallery in Detroit through Nov. 4, 2023.  (All images courtesy of David Klein Gallery.)

With Topoanalysis / Wer Bin Ich?, Iris Eichenberg — the German-born, Dutch-educated head of metalsmithing at Cranbrook Academy of Art — continues her probing search for roots and meaning, particularly as found in material objects and places in memory. The solo exhibition will be up at Detroit’s David Klein Gallery until Nov. 4, 2023.

“Topoanalysis” is a term coined by the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard and refers to the psychological study of key sites in our intimate lives. And as the question in the title — “Who am I?” — underlines, this exhibition explores identity and personal history through allegorical representations of people and houses that still echo in Eichenberg’s life.

 

Iris Eichenberg, Academy Way, Wood, bark; 16 ½ by 24 ½ by 10 ½ inches, 2023.

The show comes in three parts, employing very different materials: wood, fabric, and pottery. But this won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s followed the artist’s career since she first landed in America, at Cranbrook in 2006. Creative tools in Eichenberg’s hands have included materials as disparate as her grandmother’s silk stockings and silver spoons, colorful birds crammed in painful cages, knitted mittens, glistening ceramic vessels, or, in the case of her 2020 show The Center Piece / The Blank, white and dark-gray discs hung from elegant, wide strips of black fabric. From a distance, the wallscape read almost like modernist architecture.

What Eichenberg said in this writer’s first conversation with her 14 years ago is clearly still as apt as it was then, and amounts to a sort of design philosophy: “I always try to encounter and fight with new material.” Indeed she does.

In Topoanalysis, Eichenberg’s constructed simplified “houses” up to a couple feet tall that look a bit like giant versions of children’s blocks. Each structure, rendered in warm, contrasting wood tones, is a stand-in for someplace the artist lived, where memories and emotions are deeply lodged. Some of these houses are attached to poles with a cross-piece or handle at the far end, suggesting, perhaps, that even a house constitutes a tool.

 

Iris Eichenberg, J.P. Lennepkade 287/289 (Table), Wood, French linen, 30 by 76 ½ by 44 ½ inches, 2023.

It’s worth noting that for all their simplicity, the workmanship on these wooden sculptures is gorgeous, as are their compositional arrangements. An absolute knock-out, even if a total mystery, is J.P. Lennepkade 287/289 (Table), where a house resembling a Monopoly token you’d put on Park Place hangs several inches above the floor, suspended by a wooden dowel and cross-piece hanging from a tidy slot in the middle of a handsomely constructed table.

Interestingly, Eichenberg – an artist of multitudinous talents – milled all the wood that went into Topoanalysis from an old walnut tree that had to be taken down in a friend’s garden.

The artist’s current residence at Cranbrook, designed by Eliel Saarinen, is represented by a squat, gabled affair titled Academy Way that rests on a large, curvaceous piece of bark. (Other houses often sit on a cushion of beige French linen.) As it happens, the bark is not flush with the floor, but has a low “arch” in the center, right where you expect a solid foundation line. Stand back a ways, and you can see light peeking through from the far side.

 

Iris Eichenberg, Wer Bin Eich, French linen, brass weights, charcoal, 100 by 98 by 52 inches, 2023.

Compared to the wood houses, something entirely different is going on with Wer Bin Eich, an eight-foot-tall house built of draped French linen hung from hooks, a little like a quickly erected tent. Of all the works in the show, this is perhaps the most enigmatic, not least because of the rough charcoal sketch facing it on the wall a couple of feet away that echoes its outline in quick, slapdash strokes. If the wooden houses suggest permanence and solidity, Wer Bin Eich trumpets instability and the fragile nature of human constructions.

Peering down at these artifacts are three muted, abstract portraits of friends of Eichenberg’s – Ilse, Ida, and Frida. Their faces are rendered in dribs and drabs of meticulously stitched fabrics, ranging from cheesecloth to horse hair to damask.

 

Iris Eichenberg, Ida, French linen, gold linen, cheesecloth, mopcloth, rabbit fur, produce bag, Chinese silk, 72 by 48 inches, 2023.

Finally, the show is capped by a series of nine dark-gray earthenware vessels, some resting on wooden shelves that almost act as frames, and one cozying up to one of her wood houses.

These are not the fine, glossy ceramics Eichenberg’s made in the past. In their slumping and swelling, these primitive, near-black earthenware vessels feel almost organic – like zaftig body parts — with mouths that yearn to talk or pour. It’s hard not to see them as animate little… somethings.

All in all, Topoanalysis is an intriguing, sometimes dizzying mix. As Wayne State art historian Dora Apel wrote in “Essay’d” in 2019, in a comment that applies equally well to this domestic installation, Eichenberg’s work “evokes alienation and dislocation, combined with a sense of yearning for comfort, warmth, and attachment.”

Iris Eichenberg, Black Earthenware Pot, Wood, black earthenware, various dimensions, 2023.

The solo show Iris Eichenberg: Topoanalysis / Wer Bin Ich? will be up at Detroit’s David Klein Gallery through Nov. 4, 2023.

New Work @ Matéria Core City (formerly Simone DeSousa Gallery)

Form&Seek: Poetic and Tending Time: Megan Heeres @

Matéria Core City Gallery

Opening night reception for new work by Form&Seek and Megan Heeres at the new Matéria building (previously Simone DeSousa Gallery) September 9, 2023. Images courtesy of Materia Core City.)

Well, the day has finally arrived. After a few of the usual construction delays, Matéria, gallerist Simone DeSousa’s new cultural campus, has opened in Detroit’s Core City neighborhood. Matéria’s first suite of exhibitions, performances, and events extends from September 9 to October 7 and contains multitudes.

The newly opened building houses the tenth-anniversary exhibition of fine craft objects by Bilge Nur Saltik, founder and creative director of the design collective Form&Seek, plus an installation by fiber artist Megan Heeres and Puma, a casual ceviche bar created by Chef Javier Bardauil of Barda.   An eclectic and eccentric schedule of activities and activations in the galleries and in the nearby park include performances by dancer/choreographer Biba Bell with Christopher Woolfolk and Shannon White and music by Matthew Daher. An invitation-only dining experience from Detroit’s farm-to-table collaborative Coriander will round out October’s scheduled activities.

The name Matéria points to a new direction for gallery director Simone DeSousa. While she will retain her former intimate jewel box gallery on Willis Avenue for shows featuring established Cass Corridor artists, DeSousa sees the new Matéria space as a laboratory for experimentation and for the presentation and promotion of new voices and visions in Detroit. “Our new name signals the beginning of a new era of collaborations for our project, as we expand our presence in the city with a second space,” she stated in a recent press release.

Performance park outside the Matéria building, designed by Julie Bargmann of D.I.R.T. Studio, assisted by Andrew Schwartz. Materials gathered from the surrounding environment.  Image courtesy of K.A. Letts.

Matéria Core City and its adjacent park and performance space are only the newest additions to the Core City neighborhood project as envisioned by entrepreneur and developer Philip Kafka of Prince Concepts. The elegantly appointed three-chambered building, one of Detroit’s many formerly unprepossessing low-rise commercial buildings, now transformed into an art, dining and cultural destination, is one of a complex scattered along Grand River Avenue. They include (among others) the Caterpillar and True North, two residential developments, The Magnet, which houses the Argentinian restaurant Barda, and 5k, a former grocery store imaginatively re-configured to serve as headquarters for the marketing firm OLU & Company.  In a recent brief interview at the site, Kafka described his philosophy of development in Core City as a leveraging of local human talent and on-site resources, both natural and architectural, in service to a new vision of contemporary Detroit. Kafka thinks of his collaborations with creatives and the urban environment as a kind of metaphorical jazz improvisation to achieve a result that no single player could arrive at alone.

Installation Form & Seek: Poetic. Clockwise from left: Entwine Rug, 2023, tufted wool, 74” x 56” x 2”; Entwine Rug 2023, tufted wool, 64” x 66” x 1”; 3D Printed Stool (Blue) 2023, 3D printed PLA plastic, 18” x 28” x 16”; 3D Print Table, 2023, 3D printed PLA plastic, glass, 20.5” x 32”; Frosting Lamp, 2023, 3Dprinted PLA plastic, 16” x 9”

Form&Seek: Poetic

Within the first of the three adjoining spaces of the new Matéria building, the design collaborative Form&Seek celebrates its tenth year of existence with an exhibition of all-new work by Bilge Nur Saltik.  Entitled “Form&Seek: Poetic,” the objects displayed explore the ever-more-symbiotic relationship between craft and technology in a pristine gallery environment. The exhibition coincides with the thirteenth anniversary of Detroit’s Month of Design.

In the ten years since its formation in 2013, Form & Seek has employed the talents of over 90 designers from 20 different countries to produce a diverse collection of one-of-a-kind objects that can be described as both objects for everyday use and fine art.  The Form&Seek esthetic philosophy “places a strong emphasis on craftsmanship, materials and the creative journey… [and is] dedicated to crafting one-of-a-kind, functional and whimsical objects.”

Sensuous yet cerebral, the artifacts created by Saltik for “Poetic” often employ 3d printed technology. A variety of scales are represented, from large tables, stools and lamps to smaller vases and planters.  A particular beauty is the elegant 3D Print Wall Sculpture, three white shapes that seem to reference classical Greek columns. Also featured are four wall-mounted tapestries that combine the cozy familiarity of tufted wool with voluptuous, thickly curving shapes in a variety of colors ranging from dusty pastels to saturated ultramarine blue. They seem animated as if the constituent ropey lines were alive and writhing on the wall.

Installation, Megan Heeres, foreground: Somewhere…Else, 2023, paper thread (shifu) from knotweed and grass plants on site, latex paint, repurposed wire and webbing from site, found mirror. Background: Forever Forest, 2023, repurposed duct work and lumber, live plants from site, casters, pigmented paper pulp with growing grains and time. On the back gallery wall, Angle of Repose (Mound Mapping,) 2023, soil from site, fabric, glue.

Megan Heeres: Tending Time

Of all the artists that DeSousa could have chosen for the inaugural exhibition at Matéria, fiber artist and urban forager Megan Heeres most clearly exemplifies, in fine art form, many of the concepts that animate the Core City esthetic. Heeres is no stranger to the upcycling of building materials, keen observation and thoughtful use of indigenous plant material and engagement of community members in the realization of her projects. For her installation “Tending Time,” Heeres has gathered found materials from the site—repurposed pipes, salvaged lumber, brick, terrazzo and asphalt, even dirt. She uses the found components from the immediate neighborhood to create an immersive environment of stylized columnar trees and impromptu low walls that lean casually against the building, both inside and out.

In Forever Forest, Heeres has placed white columns of salvaged duct work, close-packed together, in a forest of post-industrial pillars that terminate at their tops in explosions of greenery. In the front of the space, Somewhere Else, a u-shaped swag of paper thread made from knotweed and grass mixed with latex paint and re-purposed wire, loops from ceiling to floor and is echoed on the back wall of the gallery by an inverted arch, Angle of Repose (Mound Mapping) made of local soil.

Installation, Megan Heeres, Stacks on Stacks on Stacks, 2023, repurposed concrete, brick, terrazzo, asphalt from site, with grains (wheat, rye, buckwheat, millet) growing in pigmented paper pulp, time.

In the spirit of Core City collaboration, Heeres has also created wearable artworks made from her signature, locally fabricated fiber, to clothe dancer Biba Bell and two colleagues for a performance of concrète: a new dance that was performed on Saturday, September 16.

This middle (and as yet unnamed) exhibition venue is intended as a gathering/dining venue as well as a gallery. Its inaugural offering will be an invitation-only dinner on October 4 featuring a menu from Coriander Farm, which bills itself as “the only restaurant in Detroit that is the farm AND the table.”

The third space within the new Matéria building–and still under construction–is Chef Javier Bardauil’s Puma, a casual bar where thirsty art lovers can retire for a variety of beers, cocktails and light fare.

Immediately outside the Matéria building, a newly opened park makes the most of the neighborhood’s abundant open space. Designed by D.I.R.T. Studio’s Julie Bargmann and assisted by Prince Concepts’ Andrew Schwartz, the park seems to arise naturally from the surrounding environment, a “found” space that makes the most of materials at hand. Bargmann explains, “It’s about staying within the spirit of Detroit, which is a whole lot of spontaneous vegetation…It’s the new palette. It’s the new woodland. These projects are part of that.” Permanent and temporary artworks are envisioned for the future, and the park will host performances planned on a schedule developed by Matéria.

The cultural campus that is organically coalescing in the Core City neighborhood is exemplative of an increasingly visible attitude among artists and other creatives. They favor hybrid spaces that lend themselves to performance, dining and social interaction in addition to their function as venues for fine art. Rather than a pristine white box gallery devoid of context—a cultural monoculture, if you will–artworks can now be displayed in more natural, approachable environments that allow for a variety of esthetic experiences.

The design philosophy underpinning Matéria—and behind Core City more generally–makes a potent argument for thoughtful, non-hierarchical and multivalent development of public spaces. This reassessment of conventional ideas about placemaking recognizes the intrinsic value of Detroit’s natural landscape and proposes to build upon it toward a richer, more welcoming and accessible habitat for the city’s art community.

Matéria, Opening reception at new Materia Gallery, September 14, 2023

Shouldn’t You Be Working? @ MSU Broad Museum

Shouldn’t You Be Working? 100 Years of Working from Home installation view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, 2023. Photo: Vincent Morse/MSU Broad Art Museum.

In 1896, Michigan State University opened the doors to its School of Home Economics, one of the first in the nation. The school even contained a fully functional practice home where the students cooked, cleaned, and hosted events. The home was demolished in 2008, and the Broad Art Museum was erected in its place. Taking its former school of home economics as its reference point, through December 27, the Broad presents Shouldn’t You Be Working? 100 Years of Working From Home. Curated by Teresa Fankhänel, the exhibit features photography, digital media, and installation, and it explores the intersection of work and home life, focusing on how technology and artificial intelligence are shaping the future of both.

This exhibition pairs ten contemporary artists and architects with a selection of photography and ephemera, including archival photographs from the university’s former School of Home Economics. These are paired alongside iconic photographs of workers in their homes, taken by the likes of Walker Evans and Marion Post Wolcott, who, on behalf of the Farm Security Administration, famously documented the lives of the rural workers and sharecroppers who struggled to maintain their livelihoods during the Great Depression.

Records of the MSU School of Home Economics. Courtesy Michigan State University Archives & Historical Collections.

Marion Post Wolcott, A member of the Fred Wilkins family making biscuits for dinner on cornhusking day, Tallyho, near Stem, N.C., 1939. Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, purchase, funded by the Emma Grace Holmes Endowment, 2006.33.1

The visual epicenter of the exhibition space is a partial recreation (at a 1 to 1 ratio) of the Paolucci Building, the former home economics practice house that once occupied this site. This interactive structure serves to frame a selection of photography, digital art, and an installation, which explore contemporary intersections of work and home life. Inside, there’s a mock-up of a home office replete with all the trappings of a television studio; a sight which will resonate with any of us who have been on a Zoom call. It also recalls the home studios of the social media “influencers” who ironically manage to create lucrative public careers from the privacy of their homes.  This office installation, Cream Screen, by Marisa Olson, also serves to confront and dismantle the assumption that the technology to work or study remotely is accessible to everyone.

Shouldn’t You Be Working? 100 Years of Working from Home installation view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, 2023. Photo: Vincent Morse/MSU Broad Art Museum.

Shouldn’t You Be Working? 100 Years of Working from Home installation view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, 2023. Photo: Vincent Morse/MSU Broad Art Museum.

Also inside this recreation of the Paolucci Building is a selection of photography by Korean artist Won Kim. His series Living Small shows the cramped living quarters of Tokyo’s pod hotels. Unlike the city’s chic capsule hotels (more refined, but still not for the claustrophobic), these pods are little more than plywood boxes; there’s not even a door or windows. These spaces offer very low-income housing for individuals in between jobs, and are the ultimate expression of minimalist living. These images call to mind the famous photograph Five Cents a Spot taken by Jacob Riis, which shows the crammed tenement housing of some of New York City’s poorest residents.   

Won Kim, Enclosed: Living Small, 2014. Photo print © Won Kim

Several monitors screen short video works that specifically address how technology shapes our work/home balance. Theo Triantafyllidis’ Ork Haus applies a sort of dark, absurdist humor in his digital portrayal of a dysfunctional family of orks (yes, orks) at home during lockdown. All are hopelessly addicted to their screens (VR headsets, TVs, and phones). The papa ork dabbles in cryptocurrency, and his little orkling learns to code; meanwhile, the family is oblivious to real-world catastrophes that surround them, such as the out-of-control fire in their kitchen.

Theo Triantafyllidis, Ork House, 2022. Live simulation video © Theo Triantafyllidis

Merger, a video by Keiichi Matsuda, presents us with a dystopian future in which artificial intelligence has taken over all corporations. The film’s unnamed protagonist has resigned to this digital takeover, acknowledging her status as a human is obsolete, and ultimately makes the decision to transition into a digital entity.

Keiichi Matsuda, Merger, 2018. Video © Keiichi Matsuda

For better or for worse, the boundaries between work and home are shifting. And COVID certainly accelerated the process, turning our homes into workspaces, at least for those of us who were fortunate to have the means to work remotely. This exhibition doesn’t necessarily criticize the advent of new technologies in the home, though it does invite us to pause for a moment and consider what this brave new world will look like.

Shouldn’t You Be Working? is on view at the MSU Broad Art Museum through December 17, 2023.

Jennifer Harge and Devin Drake @ Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit

Jennifer Harge comes together with Devin Drake to present a clearing, a 13-minute film that was created as part of the five-chapter series called FLY|DROWN. This collection of films is a multiform project involving performance, film and installation. The artists’ consideration for context sets the stage as the chapters of the series are screened within installations that resemble a post-Great Migration home in Detroit. Harge is an artist, a teacher of dance and a 2017 Kresge Arts in Detroit recipient who is recognized for her focus on Black feminist thought, spirit work and folklore. The long-time collaboration between Jennifer Harge and Devin Drake has culminated in this project that plays a part in the larger conversation concerning ongoing erasure of tribal histories and our contemporary relationships with nature and time.  The film a clearing is a fable. Its exhibition text acts as a forenote that engages us like a story-teller introducing their tale. This text provides stepping stones to navigate the abstract waters of the film, linking it to previous works by Harge, and highlighting her ongoing investigations into the capabilities of our imaginations and what it means to construct and occupy dreamscapes. We learn about the film’s main character, elder, and her challenges with shame. We also learn about nyeusi and her role as elder’s disembodied spiritual guide. This story of supernatural communication has the potential to evoke discussions surrounding mental health, spiritual health and the daydream as a necessary component in the process of healing.

All images are stills from a clearing., 2023, photo: Ashley Cook

The darkened room in the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit encompasses four gold cushioned chairs on the right side, placed as if they are gazing up at the film projected on the left wall. This decorative seating possesses an animistic quality, imbued with an adoration for the moving images and the story they are about to tell. The chairs invite you to relax and comfortably enter the dreamscape of elder. Opening with a shuffling of an 8mm film, scenes of the skyline, an old telephone, an ice cream truck and inner-city nature transition to elder’s unnaturally accelerated and mechanical body movements. She arrives as an embodiment of restlessness and anxiety, showing vulnerability through a presentation of fear and pain. She then re-arrives as a dreamer.  In a chair that mirrors those mentioned above, elder lands, sleeping. Viewers of the film take the journey with elder. Our simultaneous experience becomes activated and sustained through a delicate weaving of abstraction and familiarity. Mystical humming sounds overlay birdsong and waves on a beach, and transparencies dance around each other, entering and exiting the frame at varying intervals as we sit in the same chair as she does. Our hearing, sight and touch are activated to not only tell us the story but to mentally and physically transport us into it ourselves.

a clearing., 2023, photo: Ashley Cook

The sudden arrival to this dream-space, where time is limitless and pacing is personal, emphasizes the stark contrast between her waking life and her dream. The chaos that is illustrated through dark lighting and rapid motion shifts to natural lighting and a slowed-down pace. The visualization of a place to comfortably exist is a common practice for artists. It is a way to take into account our current situation and produce alternative solutions in order to impact the future. While her observation of the world from an abandoned boat in the middle of a field hints at surrealist compositional techniques, her white mask and architectural headdress alludes to afro-futurism. Both creative movements actively work to bring things together in unexpected ways to challenge the norms and expand the boundaries of what is possible. Relative to the fast pace world that we live in today, another aspect of the film that feels quite unreal is the ease at which time passes. In her dream, elder is allowed to be unhurried in her gentle exploration. Jennifer Harge’s appreciation for relational ecosystems is visually communicated through elder’s curiosity and admiration for this world around her. With permission to be in reverie, elder plays with a tiny ladybug, embraces a large rock on the beach, wades in the water, and writes in the sand. She pulls pedals and leaves from a tulip and submits it to the tide. Her interaction with these things is serenely empathic, her choices seem symbolic and mystical and the barrier between her and everything else seems thin.

a clearing., 2023, photo: Ashley Cook

The distinct emphasis on pacing is established in the exhibition text accessible at the entrance of the dimmed room, and is reiterated through the natural repetitions found in the film. Wave after wave hits the shore, birds repeat their call, wind faintly shakes the brim of her hat, seasons change. As a continuation of the FLY|DROWN series, we are encouraged to think about pacing as a practice that allows us to take the time we need, listen to our bodies, our minds and the land. A verbal and written narration concludes the short film with an introduction to a fictional tribe called the “air people”. This final commentary establishes their connection to the true legendary people of Igbo Landing1 who, like the people of the Great Migration, made extreme sacrifices on their journey to achieve self-sovereignty. 

a clearing., 2023, photo: Ashley Cook

The FLY|DROWN series was created over the span of six years with the first chapter being premiered at Detroit Artists Market in 2019. Subsequent chapters premiered as part of larger exhibitions and festivals at institutions including the Wexner Center for Arts, Sidewalk Detroit and the University of Iowa.

The film a clearing, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit is supported by the John S and James L. Knight Foundation. The film opened on April 14, 2023, and is on view until September 3, 2023   https://mocadetroit.org/a-clearing/

1 Igbo Landing at Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island in Georgia, USA, is a historic site that marks the location of the largest mass suicide of enslaved people. In 1803, captives from Igbo (now Nigeria) rebelled against their captives, taking control of the ship and drowning them before marching into the water themselves, choosing death over slavery.  Samuel Momodu, “Igbo Landing Mass Suicide (1803),” January 9, 2023,

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/events-african-american-history/igbo-landing-mass-suicide-1803/.

Blind Spot: Stephanie Syjuco @ MSU Broad

Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage) Stephanie Syjuco, Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage), 2019. Wooden platform, digital photos and printed vinyl on lasercut wood, chroma key fabric, printed backdrops, seamless paper, artificial plants, mixed media. Overall 20 x 17 x 8 feet. Photo: Dusty Kessler. Courtesy of the artist, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

While I chatted with Rachel Winter (assistant curator at the MSU Broad Art Museum) about the artistic practice of Stephanie Syjuco, Winter described her as a “force of nature,” and given her many accomplishments, it’s easy to see why. Syjuco’s work has been displayed at the MoMA, the Whitney, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. Recently, she was featured on the PBS series Art21.  Born in the Philippines, Syjuco has spent most of her life in the United States, and currently teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. Using America’s colonization of the Philippines as a frequent reference point, her archival and research-based artistic practice addresses the ways photographs and objects can be used to construct skewed narratives.

Through July 23, the Broad presents the exhibition Blind Spot: Stephanie Syjuco, a collection of Syjuco’s work which traverses across photography, sculpture, craft-based media, and installation. This is a diverse body of work with a focused intent, addressing the ways individuals from the Philippines were represented in America during the years of American occupation (1898-1946). America’s history in the region is not given much attention in our history books, and is a “blind spot” for many of us. But these works also speak to colonialism and representation in a broader, more generalized sense.

Syjuco frequently uses chromakey green in her works, a reference to the green-screen used in digital video post-production. And the grey and white checkered pattern she often uses is a reference to the transparency background in Photoshop which fills the negative space in an image after something has been deleted. These allow for both superimposition and erasure, and their prevalence in her work speaks to the omnipresence (particularly in the internet age) of manipulated images and narratives.

Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage) Stephanie Syjuco, Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage), 2019. Wooden platform, digital photos and printed vinyl on lasercut wood, chroma key fabric, printed backdrops, seamless paper, artificial plants, mixed media. Overall 20 x 17 x 8 feet. Photo: Dusty Kessler. Courtesy of the artist, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

The exhibition’s namesake, Blind Spot, is an evocative digital reconstruction of photographs taken during the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. In addition to showcasing new technologies and scientific innovations, the fair also Included what was described at the time as a “human zoo,” featuring more than 1,100 individuals who were trafficked from the Philippines and who, for the duration of the fair, inhabited a Disneyland-style mockup of a village.  It was conceived as an educational display, but the exhibit also served to propagate notions about racial inferiority. Photographs of these individuals, taken as they posed in front of backdrops and dioramas suggestive of the South Pacific, helped disseminate these problematic ideas. Blind Spot is a digital intervention for which Syjuco manipulated these images in Photoshop, removing the people and leaving in their trace ghostlike, blurry apparitions. In the 40 images that comprise Blind Spot, all we see are the backgrounds that these individuals were posed in front of, and in removing the people from the photos, Syjuco symbolically liberates them from the ethnographic gaze. Begun in 2019 during a Smithsonian research fellowship, Syjuco completed the project specifically for this exhibition, and afterward it will enter the Broad’s permanent collection.

Blind Spot Stephanie Syjuco, Blind Spot, 2023. Pigmented inkjet prints mounted on aluminum. Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, purchase, funded by the Nellie M. Loomis Endowment in memory of Martha Jane Loomis, 2022.33

Although the installation Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage) is sculptural, like Blind Spot it also directly addresses photography and representation. The title references the photographic darkroom technique of lightening or darkening certain parts of the image, though Dodge and Burn can certainly be read in more literal ways. The ensemble presents a large stage crammed with images and objects associated with the Philippines. Many of these are cut-outs of stock images (watermarks clearly visible) that are displayed as prop-like objects. The centerpiece of the ensemble are sculptural representations of two women from the late 19th Century, one in traditional Filipinx dress, and one dressed in more Western fashion. It’s an intentionally busy sculptural collage which the artist likens to having too many tabs open on a computer. While the work reminds us of America’s colonial history, contemporary references in the ensemble (emojis, photographic color calibration charts, and MAGA hats) encourage us to think about the extent to which America is still a colonial power (Puerto Rico and Guam remain U.S. territories, after all, an enduring legacy of the 1898 Treaty of Paris). Subtitled “Visible Storage,” the work serves as a critique of how objects in museums have often been used to construct problematic narratives.

Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage) Stephanie Syjuco, Dodge and Burn (Visible Storage), 2019. Wooden platform, digital photos and printed vinyl on lasercut wood, chroma key fabric, printed backdrops, seamless paper, artificial plants, mixed media. Overall 20 x 17 x 8 feet. Photo: Dusty Kessler. Courtesy of the artist, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, and RYAN LEE Gallery, New York.

While several bodies of work in this exhibit specifically address Filipinx representation, Syjuco’s work also addresses representation and constructed narratives in more generalized ways. One work in the show features 20 digitally printed flags suspended from the ceiling; their presence evokes the United Nations, and initially they seem to be an expression of unity. But these flags come from fictional rogue/enemy states portrayed in American and European movies; none of these states existed in reality. Most of these are from films produced during the cold war, and are stylized to evoke certain parts of the world; together they speak to a generalized fear of a foreign enemy.

Syjuco’s work is heavily based on archival research, and it raises questions about how archival holdings are acquired, interpreted, and displayed. In support of this exhibit, the accompanying booklet includes brief essays by the directors and registrars of Michigan State University’s varied collections across the arts and sciences (such as the herbarium and the university archives).  They discuss their holdings while acknowledging the “blind spots” that exist within these collections, underscoring the cross disciplinary relevance of Syjuco’s artistic practice.

The show takes full advantage of the Broad’s Zaha Hadid designed exhibition space. It’s both conceptually powerful and visually rich. And while the colonization of the Philippines occurred on the other side of the world, Syjuco, particularly with her Blind Spot project, reminds us of some of the ways that the enduring impact of America’s colonial legacy comes close to home.

 Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum

Blind Spot: Stephanie Syjuco is on view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum through July 23, 2023

Page 1 of 14

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén