Compared to men, women commit fewer crimes, hold more graduate degrees, and are better long-term investors. But women earn less than men, and more women live in poverty. How long will women tolerate an inferior status?
Last week, I sat in on the filming of an episode of 4th Street Forum, "Women: Superior, Yet Inferior." The program touched upon a wide variety of topics associated with women's equality in the public and private spheres.
4th Street Forum is a nonpartisan program that promotes public discussion of political and social issues that concern our community. Each week, a panel of experts presents their views on a chosen topic and explores solutions with the audience and the 4th Street Forum moderator.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Identity: Lorna Simpson and Vivian Maier
With the onset of spring, I have found myself incredibly busy planning future Guildess projects, starting a new residency with Artists Working in Education, and developing art programs for the Boys & Girls Clubs. However, I have still managed to find time to learn, explore, and create.
On April 2nd, a friend and I took a trip to Chicago to attend a lecture by Lorna Simpson at the Museum of Contemporary Art and view the recently discovered work of Vivian Maier at the Chicago Cultural Center. Of Simpson's entire lecture, I particularly enjoyed her comments on identity within her new series LA-57 NY-09, which draws upon an archive of photographs from the 1950s. In this body of work, Simpson creates self-portraits that mimic portraits of an unknown woman from the past. As she dresses up and poses, Simpson blurs the notion of historical identity by challenging our views of culture, history, and contemporary times.
My questions are: How can one emulate someone's identity simply by viewing a photograph of them? What can we learn about someone through a series of self-portraits?
This brings up an interesting connection to Vivian Maier. As an avid photographer, Maier left behind 100,000 negatives, 600 undeveloped rolls of color film, and several hundred undeveloped rolls of black and white film from the 1940s and 50s. Unlike the archive of self-portraits Simpson emulates, Maier predominantly photographed her surroundings on a daily basis. To this, does one get a better sense of someone's identity through a collection of self-portraits or through a collection of photographs that they have taken of the world around them?
In my opinion, the latter of the two scenarios holds more truth. Although we can get a basic sense of the physical identity of an individual through countless photographs of themselves in simple settings, seeing the world through the "eyes" of someone else is an unmistakable reflection of who they are. After viewing a small collection of Maier's work at the Chicago Cultural Center, I can imagine her being curious, compassionate, secretly humorous, and reserved.
On April 2nd, a friend and I took a trip to Chicago to attend a lecture by Lorna Simpson at the Museum of Contemporary Art and view the recently discovered work of Vivian Maier at the Chicago Cultural Center. Of Simpson's entire lecture, I particularly enjoyed her comments on identity within her new series LA-57 NY-09, which draws upon an archive of photographs from the 1950s. In this body of work, Simpson creates self-portraits that mimic portraits of an unknown woman from the past. As she dresses up and poses, Simpson blurs the notion of historical identity by challenging our views of culture, history, and contemporary times.
This brings up an interesting connection to Vivian Maier. As an avid photographer, Maier left behind 100,000 negatives, 600 undeveloped rolls of color film, and several hundred undeveloped rolls of black and white film from the 1940s and 50s. Unlike the archive of self-portraits Simpson emulates, Maier predominantly photographed her surroundings on a daily basis. To this, does one get a better sense of someone's identity through a collection of self-portraits or through a collection of photographs that they have taken of the world around them?
In my opinion, the latter of the two scenarios holds more truth. Although we can get a basic sense of the physical identity of an individual through countless photographs of themselves in simple settings, seeing the world through the "eyes" of someone else is an unmistakable reflection of who they are. After viewing a small collection of Maier's work at the Chicago Cultural Center, I can imagine her being curious, compassionate, secretly humorous, and reserved.
*Lorna Simpson image courtesy of Lorna Simpson Studio.
*Vivian Maier images courtesy of John Maloof at: http://www.vivianmaier.blogspot.com/
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