THE WALKER CENTER PRESENTS: I AM YOU, YOU ARE TOO
The Walker Center’s I am you, you are too is an exploration of a new path the art world is currently forging. Unlike our Dada forefathers, we will not be plastering gas masks on gallery walls or hanging military officers from the ceiling with pig faces. Neither will we leave the deafening chaos of our political climate up to the interpretation of the ‘Silence’ around us. There is none. Inclusivity, as opposed to alienation drives the work in this exhibition, as well as the continuing contemporary work of political artists.
I am you, you are too re-imagines and examines the American identity. Beginning with Carey Young’s Declared Void II. The ‘void’ is in fact, an incredibly active expanse of negative space, clearly delineated by thick black lines running along the gallery walls and ceiling.
Written on the wall:
‘BY STANDING IN THE ZONE CREATED BY THIS DRAWING, AND FOR THE PERIOD YOU REMAIN THERE, YOU DECLARE AND AGREE THAT YOU ARE A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’.
The ‘void’ boldly illustrates the arbitrary nature of a ‘border’: a contentious symbol of demarcation (to put it mildly), that could just as easily be painted on the gallery walls of a Minnesotan art gallery, as it could be built into a wall made of wooden slats.
Standing in the ‘void’, the viewer exists within a black and white frame. They suddenly become the ‘picture’ of the American identity. Framed in legitimization, this citizen represents all the good that the United States has to offer. Alternatively, the participant may also feel ‘boxed-in’ by the cumulative negative connotations surrounding the identity of the American citizen.
Another stand out is Kerry James Marshall’s Blind Ambition. To the right, a black man in a business suit stands with clenched fists. The dark paint used to illustrate the man’s skin lives in stark contrast to the white background he is abruptly stamped on, mirroring the assumed environment the man on the canvas experiences day to day. Next to the man, stands a ladder with the words ‘Ambition’ ‘Courage’ and ‘Success’ written around it, in airy stencil; a shadow of the words themselves. These subliminal ghosts of encouragement only serve to mock the man. The gold circles in each corner, suggest that the canvas acts as a domino, falling forward and taking the ladder down with it. The pictoral elements are suspended in the moment before their collapse. Like Sisyphus at the base of the mountain, there is anger in the knowledge of what’s to come, but simultaneously, an appreciation for respite.
