Hiram Van Gordon Gallery
Hiram Van Gordon Gallery celebrate African Art
Call and Response: TSU asked Nashville artists and fourth-graders from
McKissack Elementary School to view, examine and absorb the university's
permanent Collection of African Art.
The exhibit includes their responses shown alongside items from the permanent
collection. On view through Feb. 29 as part of Black History Month. 10
a.m.-12:30 p.m. Feb. 4-8, 11-15, Tennessee State University, Hiram Van Gordon
Gallery, 3500 John Merritt Blvd.; free; 963-1599.
 African art inspires community response in new exhibit
INTERVIEW BY JONATHAN MARX, found at tennessean.comOn view Feb. 4-29 at Tennessee State University's Hiram Van Gordon
Gallery, the exhibit Call and Response presents a rare opportunity to view
African artifacts from the school's permanent collection. But as curated by
gallery director and university instructor Jodi Hays, the show also serves as a
forum for further discussion, with the "response" coming in the form
of artworks from members of the community. Hays explains:
When I envisioned this exhibition, I wanted the community to see our
permanent collection of African art and artifacts, but I also wanted to include
a contemporary conceptualization of the collection — I wanted a specifically
Nashville-centered way to look at this work. I'm not an expert in African art,
but I knew what I could do was raise questions: What is this collection? How
should we respond to it? I wanted to open up the collection and have other
people internalize the objects included.
I invited several artists or groups of artists that point to different
demographics to answer these questions. This exhibition exists through the
support of TSU's Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement, which
supports faculty members at TSU that integrate service in academic pursuits. To
that end, I invited Su Williams' fourth-grade class from McKissack Elementary,
which is literally in the back yard of TSU, a neighbor to the gallery. They came
in and studied the masks, discussing the art with me and a few art students.
After learning more about Africa and some traditional ceremonial objects, they
made their own masks from contemporary materials.
I also invited a Nashville artist, Ash Lusk, who graduated from TSU last May,
to view the collection and make his own work in response to what he saw. He's
made paintings and drawings working with archetypes, such as the soldier, and he
has taken an approach that speaks to the violence currently going on in Sudan
and throughout other parts of the large African continent. He's interested in
teasing out notions of identity through institutions, specifically military
institutions.
 COURTESY
OF HIRAM VAN GORDON GALLERY, TSU
For her contribution to Tennessee State University's Call
and Response exhibit, local artist Sabine Schlunk made this multimedia
sculptural installation out of mesh, thread and rocks.
Another artist, Sabine Schlunk, is originally from Germany and lives in
Nashville. She has responded to the TSU collection through an ethereal,
site-specific installation that speaks to a spiritual relationship with the land
and earth. Her work more conceptually comments on the spiritual motivations in
the African work, as many pieces were originally used for religious ceremonies
or worship.
TSU professor Samuel Dunson, who is a painter, is also participating. I
expect him to use iconography from the collection, and to digest that history in
his work.
This project, which asks pointed questions on the "use value" of a
collection, is a way for us to think about our history. It is also a way for us
to ask what it means to share a history with objects from around the globe,
considering that we all share a city. There are so many levels to how we
understand African art, and I am actively learning alongside all the artists. I
feel strongly that this isn't just African history, or African-American history
— it's our collective history.
End of interview
Hiram Van Gordon Gallery celebrates Black History Month
Call and Response
February 4-29, 2008
TSU's Department of Art and Watkins College of Art
partner for an Art Crawl and Opening Reception
Feb 8, 3-5pm (TSU), 6-8 (Watkins)
Community Responses to Tennessee State University’s
Permanent Collection of African Art
(African Artifacts from the Ruth Witt Collection
and Dr. Richard and Mrs. Sharon Edwards Collection)
What is a collection?
What role does context play in viewing a collection?
How do we comment on the past through the present?
In music, a call a response is composed of two distinct phrases, usually played
by different musicians, where the second phrase is a direct response to the
first. This tradition is found in West African cultures as a form of democratic
participation. Africans brought this to the New World, as seen today in the
roots of gospel, blues, and jazz (to name only a few).
Tennessee State University's Hiram Van Gordon Gallery has invited, or issued a
“call” to two Nashville artists, TSU Art Professor, Sam Dunson and students
at McKissack Elementary. The call was to view, examine, and absorb our permanent
Collection of African Art. Community Artists-In-Residence, Ash Lusk (TSU Alum)
and Sabine Schlunk, and children from Su Williams' Fourth grade class, along
with select art faculty have made responses to the gallery’s call, a visual
contextualization of the collection. The exhibition includes their work shown
alongside items from the permanent collection.
Jodi Hays, Curator, Hiram Van Gordon Gallery
3500
John Merritt Blvd., PO Box 9562
Nashville,
TN 37209 USA
(615)
963-1599 gallery@tnstate.edu http://www.tnstate.edu/gallery/feb08.html
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