According to Robertson and McDaniel, "the place or places where one has lived with their attendant physical, historical, and cultural attributes, condition what one knows and how one sees" (Robertson, 151). I completely agree with this statement, and it reminds me of an artist that I have studied in the past named Laylah Ali. Ali's work does not directly deal with place, but it was something that had a major impact on her work.
Laylah Ali produces Gouache paintings that reveal racism and dominace. In her "Greenheads" she ususally shows one figure overpowering other figures. She shows violent scenes of "greenheads" killing each other. But why does Ali show this?
Growing up in Buffalo, New York, Ali experience "an interesting, post-industrial place, with a longt racial history" (Young, 7), had a major impact on her as a child. In the sixties and seventies, Buffalo was a very segregated city and because Ali comes from not only a very poor family, but an interracial family as well, she had a difficult time fitting in at school and even in her own neighborhood. The place where a person grows up can have a huge impact on how they view the world and those "places contain metaphoric or symbolic meaning that go deeper than the surface appearance of a particular landscape or architectural style. Societies transform place, imbuing them with memories, histories, and symbolic significance" (Robertson, 153). The image above shows the impact of what not only Ali went through in New York, but what many other African Americans went through. Sometimes in her work she shows witnesses, which refers to instances where terrible things happened in her community and people stood by and watched the violence happen. They would not say or do anything. The bullying that Ali experienced in her community really impacted her work and it clearly shows. The place where we grow up has everything to do with how we view the world.
Bibliography:
Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel. "Themes of Contemporary Art". Oxford University Press. 2010. pg 151m 153.
Young, Kevin. "An Interview with Laylah ALi" Laylah Ali Note Drawings. DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. 2008 pg 7.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Laylah Ali and Place
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I agree that often times a "place" can influence artwork without the artist actually depicting this "place." In fact, by not specifically showing it, I believe that we are given more information about the environment. We are able to see the place's influence on an individual and the way it affects the artists. Through Ali's work, we can see that the town she is from was extremely racist. We might not get this information from an arial painting of Buffalo, New York. It would be much less personal than the intimate scenes from Ali's life that she chose to depict.
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