Feb 1 – 27, “Prop Art: African Art in the 1960’s and ‘70s Cuban Graphics,” The Gallery at Festival
Feb 1 – March 3, “
Feb 4-8, Contemporary Music Festival, Wilson Aud., 8 pm, $6/$3
Monday, January 26, 2009
ARGUMENT AND ADVOCACY EVENTS - College of Visual and Performing Arts
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I attended the "Picturing War: A Century of Graphic Representation." I wasn't sure what to expect, but the gallery was much smaller than I imagined, and I almost walked past it without seeing it. There were only two small signs to designate that a gallery was on display. There were no signs that said "Enter" or other welcoming messages, and I felt very much like an intruder. As I was walking around, looking at the images, a man asked me if I needed any help. This also contributed to my sense of being an intruder and not being welcome. I was the only person in the gallery, and it was very quiet, which added to the heavy, desolate tone created by the war images. The posters were placed on black backdrops and categorized thematically. There were brief introductions to the various groups of posters and propaganda material. These blurbs were helpful in noting important aspects of the various posters and in revealing some of the more subtle messages, as well as in giving a historical/contextual background to the scenes depicted in the artwork. Overall, many of the images were scenes of destruction, invoking fear and trepidation. One set of posters was geared to children, and seemed to make light of the war. I was surprised to see war cartoons by Dr. Seuss, as I did not know previously that he was interested in politics. The gallery, I believe, did a nice job demonstrating the many different forms war posters can take-some in black and white, some in color; some light in tone, others extremely violent and terrifying; some from the U.S., others from various nations. The gallery, overall, demonstrated how war can affect all different aspects of life and that art is a means for displaying war messages. However, the event could be improved by having more noticeable signs regarding the gallery, as more people would feel free to enter and look around.
I attended "Picturing War: A Century of Graphic Representation." The pictures started with the earliest, WW1 and WW2 war propaganda and then continued up through today. Each wall had a couple of posters grouped by similar theme or artists and next to each group was a short description. The descriptions were especially helpful and informative; they discussed the time period, the artists, and the emotions in the pictures. The descriptions and the set-up of the room made it easy to see the progression of wartime propaganda. In the beginning the propaganda either used fear, such as an enemy threat, or American values and national symbols to help the war effort. Brutal images and stereotypes were often used followed by satire. I found it especially interesting that Dr. Suess (or Theodore Geisel) became an editorial cartoonist for the New York Daily Pm and depicted images of the Holocaust using typical Dr. Suess style (rhyme or bubbly drawings and characters from stories). The last wall consisted of images from the seventies until today, and were very realistic. One was a comic book told from a man in a concentration camp. The end images showed how war sentiments have shifted from the WW1. Overall, it was a nice collection of pictures that told a fascinating story about war.
Post a Comment