Identities

November 3, 2007 - August 31, 2008

The artists featured in this presentation use the visual arts to express personal feelings and broader perceptions about racial, sexual, and cultural identity.  A compelling example of the exploration of cultural association is the painting A Third World, 1993, by Chinese émigré artist Hung Liu.  In this self-portrait, Liu addresses the conflict between two radically different ideologies—capitalism and communism.  Clashing worldviews dramatize the profound ramifications of relocation on personal and cultural identity.  The gold-leaf third eye, which symbolizes the inner world in Eastern thought, is in the shape of San Francisco as it was first mapped. "San Francisco” has been translated in Chinese as “old gold mountain,” and it is used in this case to suggest San Francisco’s status as a main destination for Chinese immigrants.  By contrast, the subject dons a red scarf and Mao button representing Communist China. 

A more macro view of national identity is represented bythe work of Nelson Leirner which is based on an original collage of stickers of Minnie and Mickey Mouse and Day of the Dead skeletons shaped to mimic the continental outline of the Americas.  From a series entitled Right You Are If You Think You Are, Leirner’s fusion of mass culture icons with elements of high modernism, primary colors, for example, communicates the complexity and diversity of the Americas.  His painting reminds us of the simple but profound idea that the one’s interpretation of the Americas depends on one’s context. 

The exhibition also turns an eye inward for a more personal view of racial identity with sculpture by Alison Saar.  Often larger-than-life size, her rough-hewn figures, carved with a chainsaw, blend the monumentality and strength of Michelangelo’s stone-bound slaves with the expressive power of African sculpture.  Her work tends to simultaneously acknowledge the example of American assemblage and the rich tradition of African and African-American sculpture first learned from her mother, the artist Bettye Saar.

Saar’s Terra Firma, represented in the Identities exhibition, presents a prone figure depicting urban poverty and homelessness.  At the margins of society, this mute and faceless person lies below our sight line.  The earthen colors and distinct patterns of the pants resemble African textiles while the use of nails may allude to Kongo power figures, which release energy each time a nail is driven into them.  The metal sheathing on the body is made up of the tin roofs collected from urban demolition sites.  From the nails to the tin, each of Saar’s strategic artistic elements come together to address African-American experience in the contemporary United States, proving how the human body is a powerful site for the exploration of personal and collective identity.

Other highlights of the exhibition include Carrie Mae Weems’ works from the Ain’t Jokin’ series, Black Woman with Chicken, 1986, and Black Man with Watermelon, 1987, addressing common historical racial stereotypes, while Catherine Opie’s photograph of a transgendered individual calls into question conventional perceptions about sexual identity. 

This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of Jill and John C. Bishop, Jr. and SBMA Friends of Contemporary Art.