ERRANT SPIRITS // ARTNOW: THE SOUL IS A WANDERER AT OKLAHOMA CONTEMPORARY by Benjamin Murphy
Oklahoma is a complex place, rich with stories that
On a documentary field trip, Young encountered a tribal
represent a wild variety of experiences. With Oklahoma
elder who told this version of the Mayflower story—a
Contemporary’s most recent iteration of its biennial
jarring and compelling response to negative collective
exhibition ArtNow, thirteen artists who work in the state
memory. Within the frame of an old-school video art
plunge into their investigations of the past, today’s
aesthetic, the video features Young’s cousin Warren
complicated truths, and what we might read as possibly
Realrider (Pawnee/Crow) recounting the story through the
liberated futures. Presented by Tulsa-based guest curator
“picture writing” of Plains Indian Sign Language—itself
Lindsay Aveilhé, the exhibition takes its title The Soul
the basis for American Sign Language—whose short
is a Wanderer from former United States Poet Laureate
phrases are subtitled. Young’s approach can be traced back
Joy Harjo (b. 1951, Tulsa; Muscogee Nation). As her poem
to his sound and music studies at Bard College, where he
from 2000 “A Map to the Next World” tells us “The soul is
began to understand that silence is a part of sound and
a wanderer with many hands and feet.” It also counsels
the world lacks true silence. The work pulls its audience
us that “Crucial to finding the way is this: There is no
into an insurgent reaction to America’s original myth
beginning or end./ You must make your own map.”
to experience an ambivalence born of tension between
Among the thirteen artists who endeavor to find their way
authenticity and invention.
through our shifting cultural landscape, I chose to take a
Ashanti Chaplin: Earth Elegy
close look at three who have created an exciting range of artworks utilizing language, video, earth, sculpture, performance, sound, and extended painting techniques. Nathan Young: Plains Indian Sign Language II
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Inspired by Walter De Maria’s Earth Room, Ashanti Chaplin (b. 1981, Tulsa) uses sculpture, video, sound, and performance to connect with memory and place in a reflection on the 13 historically Black towns in Oklahoma: Boley, Brooksville,
“Heavy” and “surreal” is how Nathan Young (b. 1975,
Clearview, Grayson, Langston, Lima, Red Bird, Rentiesville,
Tahlequah; Delaware Tribe of Lenape Indians) describes
Summit, Taft, Tatums, Tullahassee, and Vernon. Acting as a
his video installation Plains Indian Sign Language II. Don’t
landscape, but not in a traditional sense, the work’s video
be fooled by the innocuous-sounding title, the story it tells
projection depicts earth and soil up close, presenting us
is as heavy as it gets. Calling the mythologized story of the
with an abstracted landscape. Accompanying the video is an
Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving “lies in history books,”
obelisk standing 13 feet high. This reverential monument is
Young’s telling asserts a darkness in these religious pilgrims.
constructed from ground clay collected from each of the 13
When the settlers arrive, Native Americans provide life-
towns and mixed with polymer. Its exterior resembles adobe
saving assistance during the colonists’ first winter only to
building materials but with an ombré effect achieved by
be later rewarded with death. Told using only hand gestures,
the different colors of clay, whose mixed colors move from
silence becomes a salient character in this tale of undeserved
dark to light in hues ranging from deep red and purple to
aggression, one whose quiet delivery chillingly subverts the
pale ochre. Shifting musical compositions, inspired by the
naïve version of America’s colonial origin story to make it
landscapes associated with each town, play in the exhibition
emblematic of the attempt to silence Native Americans.
space. On ArtNow’s opening night, Chaplin gave a ritualized
Young’s visually plain and silent video packs a punch.
performance to invoke a spiritual connection with the earth.
F E AT U R E
CONTINUED