anna's art21 writeup

In both viewing and reading about McGee, Swoon, Hamilton, Skiandar, and Walker, all can be looked at as storytellers.

Ann Hamilton is shown during the sprituality segment, but with her simple, yet ingenious pin-hole mouth camera, she becomes like some sort of intimate roving reporter. The images her mouth camera create are immediate and intimate. In the video she states how the mouth actually mimics the shape of the eye, and she sees herself as the pupil within. She also creates that same feeling for the viewer, as if we were able to stand within her line of vision.

Shahzia Skiandar also is featured in the sprituality portion. She adds both history and the personal to her traditional miniature paintings. In this she combines Hindu and Muslim culture. I wonder how much of this would be lost on most western viewers, as many people don't understand the differences of and Indian Sikh and a Pakistani Muslim. After 9/11, people were being attacked for wearing a turban. Many were Indian Sikhs, who are not Muslim (not that Muslims should've been attacked anyway, but were, due to ignorance and fanatacism). I actually liked her wall pieces, where she uses layers of papers with paintings, patterns of light, making them luminous and mysterious.

Kara Walker is the one artist under the stories category. Her silhouettes are powerful. I like how she said she chose them because of the way you cannot look at the subject directly. This is the perfect vehicle to bring home our own attitudes we won't address directly. We are onthe cusp of possibly electing our first African-American president, yet reacism still shows itself (in a more subtle way). Everyone says how monumental and wonderful it is, but really it is a shame that it has taken this long to come about.

Barry McGee and Swoon re-create street scenes in gallery installations. Beginning as graffiti artists who have crossed over into the mainstream, it reminds me of the band that makes it big. McGee wonders about his relevance to today's graffiti kids, and whether or not he has sold out. Swoon and McGee though, are telling stories about those streets through their installations.

Graffiti has become mainstream because they found a way to make money off of it. Graffiti markings can be unsightly and crude, but they also tell stories about the surroundings. Both Picasso and the French photographer Brassai shared a love for the graffiti carvings in France. Brassai photographed these, and later the sprayed graffiti in color on his only visit to America. He was fascinated with how these walls would change over time, old images would morph into new ones, continuing the stories of its' surroundings.