03.19.08
Myth & Memory
In last week’s show we examined a recent study by University of Virginia Sociologist Elizabeth Gorman which said, no matter how the data was sliced or certain variables controlled: women say they have to work harder than men. In today’s show, adapted from an article published this month on the Oscar Web site written by Jane Ford we look at the work of Maurie McInnis and her perspective of class politics, social structures and hierarchies of the antebellum South through the examination 19th century art and material objects.
Objects and ideas inform both history and contemporary thought and are the basis of the study of material culture. For Maurie McInnis, associate professor of American art and material culture and director of American Studies, understanding the antebellum South in the 19th century encompasses understanding art and objects from the perspective of class politics, social structures and hierarchies.
Working with Angela D. Mack, curator of the traveling show that originated at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C., McInnis has spent the last four years creating Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art, an exhibition on view through April 20 at the University of Virginia Art Museum. The exhibition focuses on themes of race, slavery and the plantation from the 19th century to today.
McInnis said, this “is an exhibition about ideas rather than an art history exhibit that traces the development of an artist or a stylistic movement. Race, slavery and the plantation do not have a fixed meaning through time.” Working on the exhibit and the companion catalog, McInnis said she was struck by “how much cultural currency the word ‘plantation’ has. The mythology of the South as a place of gentility and refinement is still held by many today.”
For African Americans, however, the meaning revolves around an imbalance of power. According to McInnis, “The two are fundamentally different ideas of what ‘plantation’ means. The reality is that beauty and brutality lived beside each other. The artifacts explore the widely varying ideas of what ‘plantation’ meant then and today.” The themes of protest, politics, nostalgia and identity run through the artists’ works, which represent a wide variety of viewpoints within these topics.
To help clarify the ideas for both the exhibit and catalog, McInnis began by using her research to develop courses. That, coupled with insight from students in her classes, “The ‘Old South’ in Myth and Memory” and “Arts and Cultures of the Slave South,” which she co-teaches with Assistant Professor of Architectural History Louis Nelson — proved invaluable for defining questions about culture and race.
The exhibit includes works by a slave potter named Dave, who worked in Edgefield, S.C., in the 1840s and 50s. He decorated the large storage vessels he made with poetry and signed them. Both the poetry and signing the pots are acts of political protest, since it was unlawful for slaves to read. McInnis said, “His poetry was sometimes funny, spiritual, ironic or obliquely political. Dave is important. His work is an excellent example of an African-American artisan, of which the South was filled, but many are anonymous to us. His work was integral to the economic foundation of the South and at the same time reveals much about slave life.”
Contemporary artist Juan Logan also deals with issues of slavery. His “Foundations,” a sculptural installation, is composed of a series of iron, brick-like structures symbolizing the part African Americans played in building the South. McInnis said, “They not only provided the economic foundation, but also literally built it,” adding that Logan is engaged in an “ongoing conversation and dialogue with the past.”
Both artists show that the heart of understanding the 19th century antebellum South is the understanding of race and slavery. Over time we construct “narratives to serve contemporary concerns and change surrounding these topics. Memories and ideas are not fixed, but changing.” McInnis will explore these shifts in her upcoming book, Remembering the Revolution: Pictures, Politics and Memory. Her interest in the divergent ways in which the North and South remember the American Revolution, especially with the approach of the Civil War, grew directly out of her research for the exhibition. Perceptions of iconic images and representations have changed over time, in terms of how both the image and the event itself are viewed. McInnis said, “that change helps us understand how contemporary cultural politics shaped the evolution of our key American myths.”
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when our topic will be the work of Karstin Hohl whose research has demonstrated that the encryption used by the now ubiquitous smart card is much easier to break than previously thought.