The current exhibit, “Thenceforward, and Forever Free,” at the Haggerty Museum of Art is both thought provoking and conversation building. I had the pleasure of revisiting the exhibition in the company of Chief Curator Wally Mason and Associate Interim Curator Emilia Layden recently. They were both passionate in talking about the artists on display and they reminded me of why I enjoyed it so much the first time through.
Mason explained how the project came about when the History Department came to them about two years ago in regards to commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and having an exhibit in conjunction with that. Mason talked about, “art being about something that illustrates an idea.”
“I think that ideas about freedom are tangential,” he said.
Each of the seven featured artists are skilled storytellers, sharing their ideas of freedom from strikingly unique perfectives.
Artist Kara Walker is haunting in her “Retelling History,” said Mason. He referred to her work as nothing short of, “heroic.”
Walker superimposes silhouettes onto pages taken from “Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War.”
The “Liberty” piece by Wisconsin native and bookmaker Mark Wagner was the one that personally blew me away. It took him a mere seven months to complete and he documented the process with blueprints and video. He gives new meaning to the word meticulous, crafting a “currency collage” crafted of 1,121 dollar bills shaped as the Statue of Liberty.
“We love the hand,” Mason said–and people who still painstakingly create art in that fashion.
Layden said of Wagner’s art, “You can bring your own contemporary perspective.”
Gary Simmons is quite intriguing with his “Erasure” drawings, where he literally puts his whole body into it. Mason informed me that the featured chalkboard work would “disappear after this exhibit.”
“Museums (should be) safe havens for unpopular ideas,”Mason said. And all of these artists were able to express their own ideas. So one of the big questions that others should walk away from is: “What does it (freedom) mean to other people?” Layden said.
I also very much enjoyed the acrylic paint and charcoal on paper scenes from New Orleans artist, Willie Birch. I had not realized until Layden pointed it out that Birch featured pictures both pre and post Katrina. Layden noted the FEMA trailer visible in one frame.
In Laylah Ali’s “Typology” series, she depicts sometimes playful and also somewhat OCD figures interacting in ink and pencil.
Layden mused on how each one seemed to capture either “the moment before or after some sort of act of violence.” Indeed there is a dark humor at work here and you’re not sure whether to laugh or shift uncomfortably.
And while all the pieces in the exhibit are vastly different, there is a sense of continually, Mason said: “There’s that thread that runs through it. They’re wedded together.”
Which will hopefully leave a mark on the viewer.
“Ultimately when you walk through here, you come away with more.”
Mass media artist Michael Ray Charles, whose “Mixed Breed” work is proudly featured on the front of the “Forever Free” program, will visit for a conversation in Straz Hall, Room 105 at 6 p.m. with a reception to follow at the Haggerty on November 8. The exhibit runs through December 22 of this year and should not be missed.
PLUS: This exhibit the first to use QR codes to this degree, in order to make the pieces available to scan and further engage the visitor. The Haggerty prides itself in being accessible and user-friendly and I for one heartily agree. For more information, please go to www.marquette.edu/haggerty