Here’s an image form the exhibition Seeing|Saying: Images and Words at Davidson College.
My work from the “Regola Series” is on the left, Shirin Neshat’s work is in the middle and José Parlá’s work is on the right.
I had a wonderful time with the Curator Van E. Hilliard, Gallery Director Lia Newman, and artists Bethany Collins and Andrea Eis this week.
On October 20 at 6pm I presented a gallery talk at the opening on my work form the “Regola Series”
Page’s marks may be likened to palimpsest or marginalia. She works on top of pre-existing printed and handwritten texts. The artist notes that, historically, text has been considered masculine, while the marks she makes – drawings, handwritten errand lists, and hand-drawn stitches denoting Italian merletti or lacework – is considered feminine. Page overlaps, changes, adds to, crosses out, and confirms the marks previously made. This seems particularly poignant when she works, for example, atop a Napoleonic tax ledger listing the monetary value or worth of various individuals. Her process both unmakes and rewrites history, creating a new kind of truth.
The show is up till December 9 at the Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson College
It is packed full of evocative, thoughtful and powerful work by 18 artists including:
Shimon Attie, John Baldessari, Mark Bradford, Cris Bruch, Andrea Eis, Teresita Fernández, Howard Finster, Christian Marclay, Shirin Neshat, Dennis Oppenheim, Susan Harbage Page, José Parlá, Dan Perjovschi, Raymond Pettibon, Santiago Sierra, Hank Willis Thomas, and David Wojnarowicz
A strict binary has long existed between the contrasting effects of words and images. Words have been thought to be foundational, while images have been considered subordinate. Words have been valued as rhetorically primary, while images have been thought of as illustrative. But such bifurcation seems to artists and writers alike both constraining and unrealistic. How might the communicative and aesthetic status of words and images be profitably studied together? How do images and texts cooperate in single works of art as modalities in tension or unison? Seeing|Saying: Images and Words assembles important contemporary works that experiment with this combination of words and images from 18 artists: Shimon Attie, John Baldessari, Mark Bradford, Cris Bruch, Andrea Eis, Teresita Fernández, Howard Finster, Christian Marclay, Shirin Neshat, Dennis Oppenheim, Susan Harbage Page, José Parlá, Dan Perjovschi, Raymond Pettibon, Santiago Sierra, Hank Willis Thomas, and David Wojnarowicz in the Van Every Gallery, and Bethany Collins in the Smith Gallery. The works presented in the exhibition invite us to question the image-word divide, and remind us of our current saturation—digitally and materially—in images with words.
There will be two public lectures accompanying this exhibition. W. J. T. Mitchell, a leading theorist of visual representation, will speak Thursday, November 3 at 7:00pm in the Lilly Family Gallery, Chambers Building, at Davidson College. Scholar, art critic, and graphic novelist Nick Sousanis will speak on Thursday, November 10 at 7pm at Semans Lecture Hall, Belk Visual Arts Center, also at Davidson. Sousanis’ artwork will be on display from October 20 – December 9 in the Spencer Lobby of Chambers Building.
Susan Harbage Page 