One way art can change a world
Matisse, Bouquet de fleurs pour le Quatorze Juillet, 1919
I’ve been having a conversation with Jennifer Wenker, the director of the Herndon Gallery at Antioch College, in which we have been touching on the role of art in human life. She has a show up now, Image: The Public Face, that relates to her deep interest in how art can promote social justice. It’s part of the FotoFocus Biennial in Cincinnati, an area-wide exploration with dozens of institutional participants that examines how photography does and doesn’t document reality and truth, and it has a postmodern twist of calling into question even the basic notions of reality and truth themselves. A central theme of the show is how photography has given power and a voice to people who otherwise wouldn’t have much of either–flattening the hierarchy that once put the painter in control of another person’s self-image and gave the privilege of a portrait to only the rich, powerful, and privileged. The spread of photography first through the invention of the Kodak camera and now through the popularity of the smart phone has thus become a force for social justice.
I’ve known and respected Jennifer for many years now. I participated in one of her art projects by tossing seeds into the wind down in the Finger Lakes, a memorable moment for me. (I like describing it that way because it sounds like a randomly MORE