Crossing Cultures: Ethnicity in Contemporary America

Crossing Cultures Sun Valley Center for the Arts

Crossing Cultures: Ethnicity in Contemporary America Dec. 7, 2012 – Feb. 23, 2013 Sun Valley Center for the Arts In 2000, the U.S. government made changes to the census form that illustrate significant shifts in the way the country thinks about race, culture and identity.

For the first time, respondents could select multiple categories of race and/or ethnicity. While the idea of race still operates across our nation, the way we think about it has become more complicated. This multidisciplinary project looks at the role race, ethnicity and cultural heritage play in the 21st century—as factors that are not limiting, but are instead elements in larger constructions of self. How do we take signs, symbols and customs from our traditional cultures and translate them into our contemporary lives?

According to a study by the Pew Research Center, one in seven marriages are now between spouses of different races or ethnicities, and more young Americans define themselves as multiracial than ever before. Despite the fact that racial and ethnic boundaries seem to be blurring, familial roots or place of origin continue to help define identity for many Americans. Others find their skin color or physical features automatically link them with a group with which they may or may not identify. And this connection often shapes how they are perceived by society at large.

The exhibition features large-scale installations by artists Joe Feddersen and Bob Dix alongside work by Julie Chang and Ana Serrano exploring the relationship between traditional signs, symbols and customs and contemporary culture.

Joe Feddersen, Charmed (detail), 2012, fused glass, courtesy the artist and Froelick Gallery, Portland

Joe Feddersen, Urban Vernacular: Freeway with HOV, Parking Lot and Clearcut, 2009, blown and mirrored glass, courtesy the artist and Froelick Gallery, Portland, photo by Bill Bachhuber

Joe Feddersen has been making work about Native American identity and signs for more than twenty years. His membership in the Confederated Colville Tribes (from the Inland Plateau of the Columbia Basin) is the foundation of much of his work. While known primarily as a printmaker, he has also worked in glass, fiber and photography to build installations and objects that reposition traditional Native American designs and forms with those of contemporary urban life. He uses humor and irony to explore the blending and merging of cultures that occur in the United States. For this exhibition, Feddersen is creating a curtain of glass “charms” based on imagery from native culture and contemporary life. Prints and vessels from earlier bodies of work will also be part of the exhibition, including glass vessels that use traditional basketry forms but feature designs from sources like parking lots, highway markings and the Bridgestone and Goodyear tire companies, companies whose product names reinforce romantic notions of the American West. Feddersen’s work explores the way that our cultural heritage shifts and morphs through time, reflecting or merging with the values of society at large.

Bob Dix, a resident of the Wood River Valley, is the son of an American man and a Japanese woman. His mother moved to this country when she married his father in 1950. Dix grew up in California where he was raised primarily by his mother. Yet his mother’s Japanese heritage remained something of a mystery to him—he never learned to read the language, for example, but remembers his mother spending hours engrossed in Japanese novels that filled their shelves.

Despite the fact that he is half Japanese, Dix does not appear to be Asian, and this contradiction is one of the factors driving his exploration of his heritage. He has created an enormous installation of drawings on large sheets of paper that will cover the ceiling and walls of The Center’s project room. The drawings blend imagery from Japanese culture with geometric proofs. A math teacher as well as an artist, Dix thinks of these geometric proofs as a means of formulating and defining his identity. The drawings present a tapestry of Dix’s life, melding signs and symbols from his mother’s books and home decorations, his own extensive travels in Japan and his childhood in a military family in California, a place that has long been synonymous with “American” culture both in the United States and around the world. Images float around his drawings, layering on top of one another in a kind of surrealist juxtaposition that confirms the sometimes contradictory notions that construct our individual identities.

Bob Dix, Proof: SHOKO (detail), 2009–2012, charcoal and sumi ink on paper, courtesy the artist

Bob Dix, Proof: Proof: SHOKO/Godzilla, 2012, charcoal and sumi ink on paper, courtesy the artist

Julie Chang, I Know Karate (detail), 2012, acrylic on panel, courtesy the artist and Hosfelt Gallery, New York & San Francisco

Julie Chang, Design for the Well-Lived Life (detail of 4), 2007, inkjet and silkscreen on paper, courtesy the artist and Hosfelt Gallery, New York & San Francisco

The daughter of Chinese immigrants, San Francisco–based artist Julie Chang grew up in Orange County. At first glance decorative, her richly layered and heavily patterned paintings interweave elements from Chinese textiles, European wallpaper patterns and contemporary graphic design, juxtaposing symbols as varied as tipis and pagodas, Buddhas and cowboys, in images that investigate cultural identity in America. Her Orange County upbringing resonates across her work, in which she includes diagrams of the Space Shuttle (her father was an engineer on the project), floor plans for tract houses, tennis courts, ballet dancers and palm trees. Chang’s witty work also explores stereotypes of Asian women—stereotypes she felt keenly as a teenager in Southern California.

Ana Serrano was born and grew up in Los Angeles, where she now finds inspiration for her artistic practice in the everyday details of urban life. Working primarily in cardboard, a material she enjoys for its availability and malleability, she creates sculptures of objects and places that are a nod to her family’s Mexican heritage at the same time that their bright colors, innovative use of materials and graphic style place them firmly in the realm of contemporary art.

Light and playful, her objects have a toy-like quality.

Serrano has created a new body of work for this exhibition, including several sculptures of buildings she sees as representative of Latino neighborhoods in Los Angeles. She’s particularly interested in retail spaces that offer a Ana Serrano, Gloria’s, 2012, paper and acrylic on cardboard, courtesy the artist, photo by Julie Klima

combination of services that seem incongruous: liquor shop, clothing store, Zumba studio. This juxtaposition, for her, speaks to the economic situation of these neighborhoods.

Serrano is also making a set of miniature piñatas based on the idols of her childhood. They come from the Spanish-language TV shows and music she watched and listened to as a child. Serrano felt disconnected from American popular culture until she was in her 20s, and her piñatas emerge from her observation that Mexican-American children grow up and identify with a different set of cultural icons than other American children.

Each of the artists in the exhibition makes work that focuses on signs and symbols—symbols with personal, private meaning, with historical or traditional cultural significance, and with contemporary, popular relevance.

Their artwork considers the fluidity, humor and contrariness of identity in contemporary America, where factors like race, ethnicity and our families’ cultural origins are always part of the way we identify ourselves, but offer up varying solutions in different situations.

• • • G allery

The Crossing Cultures multidisciplinary project has been generously supported by

Opening Celebration

Fri, Dec 7, 5:30–7pm Free at The Center, Ketchum Join us to celebrate the opening of Crossing Cultures! Artists Bob Dix and Joe Feddersen will speak about their work at 6pm.

Gallery Walks

Fri, Dec 28, Fri, Feb 15 & Fri, Mar 15, 5–7pm Free at the Center, Ketchum Start your gallery walk at The Center!

Cover Images: Joe Feddersen, Charmed (detail), 2012, fused glass, courtesy the artist and Froelick Gallery, Portland; Bob Dix, Proof: SHOKO/Hello Kitty, 2012, charcoal and sumi ink on paper, courtesy the artist; Ana Serrano, Gloria’s (detail), 2012, paper and acrylic on cardboard, courtesy the artist, photo by Julie Klima; Julie Chang, Smoke Signals (detail), 2012, acrylic on panel, courtesy the artist and Hosfelt Gallery, New York & San Francisco

Evening Exhibition Tours

Thu, Jan 10 & Thu, Feb 7, 5:30pm Free at The Center, Ketchum Enjoy a glass of wine as you tour the exhibition with The Center’s curators and gallery guides. Favor de llamar al Centro de las Artes para arreglar visitas guiadas en español.

L ecture

O ne N ight W orkshop

Richard Rodriguez

Tracing Family History with Donna Voyles

Thu, Jan 17, 6:30pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum $25 / $35 nonmembers / $10 students 18 and under Richard Rodriguez calls himself a “comic victim of two cultures.” His literary life has been committed to exploring his experience as the son of Mexican immigrants who became a successful American academic (with degrees from Stanford and Columbia as well as a Fulbright Scholarship) and the ways that those two experiences conflict with each other. While his books Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez and Brown are required reading in many high schools and colleges, they are also a source of controversy because of his strong stands against bilingual education and affirmative action. His essays have been featured on television and in print and have earned him critical acclaim and loyal followers.

Rodriguez will discuss his experiences, struggles and hopes about race and ethnicity in today’s America.

With support from Robin Leavitt and Terry Friedlander.

Tues, Feb 5, 5:30–8pm The Center, Hailey $30 / $35 nonmembers

In this evening workshop, Donna Voyles will walk students through the process of navigating genealogical websites.

Uncovering names, dates and people from the past, students are likely to discover something new about themselves as well.

Teen W orkshop

Documentary Filmmaking: Bringing the Story to Life with DeSiree’ Fawn

Sat & Sun, Feb 9 & 10, 10am–4pm $10 pre-registration required The Center, Hailey Join filmmaker DeSiree’ Fawn for a weekend exploring the art of creating a documentary film. Students will learn how to conduct an interview and build a story around that interview, creating 3-5 minute documentary spots.

This workshop is generously supported by Alan and Wendy Pesky.

F a m ily D ay

Crossing Cultures Sat, Feb 9, 3–5pm The Center, Ketchum FREE

Families can tour The Center’s exhibition at 3pm & 4pm with Center staff. Once families have toured the gallery they will have an opportunity to work with teaching artists to explore their own family’s cultural symbols, create a hands-on project and share stories.

FILM

P erformance

In Collaboration with the Blaine County School District

David Wax Museum

A Film by Jona Frank and Mary Trunk Filmmakers Jona Frank and Mary Trunk are spending several days with Blaine County School District students, conducting interviews about family heritage and traditions. From this series of interviews, they are creating a short, original documentary film that will illustrate the cultural diversity of our valley’s residents and the way we continue to celebrate customs passed from generation to generation.

Frank and Trunk are both accomplished filmmakers. Mary Trunk’s documentary The Watershed screened at over 30 film festivals around the world and garnered more than ten Best Documentary and Special Jury Awards. Filmmaker and photographer Jona Frank has produced two acclaimed books, High School and Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League, which features photos made over the course of a year at Patrick Henry College.

This project is generously supported

by Alan and Wendy Pesky.

Fri, Feb 8, 6:30pm Sun Valley Opera House $20 / $30 nonmembers / $10 students 18 and under Recently anointed as Boston’s Americana Artist of the Year, David Wax Museum has been on a steady ascent. From acclaimed performances at the Newport Folk Festival, sharing bills with Carolina Chocolate Drops and Ben Kweller, the Museum fuses traditional Mexican folk with country, folk and rock and in the process have created an utterly unique Mexo-Americana aesthetic. Combining Latin rhythms, calland-response hollering, accordion and donkey jawbone rattling, they’ve electrified audiences across the country.

This project received support from WESTAF, the Western States Arts Federation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

SUN VALLEY CENTER FOR THE ARTS Center hours In Ketchum: M–F 9am–5pm Sats in Feb 11am–5pm 191 Fifth Street East, Ketchum, Idaho www.sunvalleycenter.org 208.726.9491 P. O. Box 656 Sun Valley, ID 83353