Questioning Healthcare from The 8th Floor: In the Power of Your Care

Presented by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation at The 8th Floor Gallery in 2016, In the Power of Your Care explored the shortcomings, limitations, and political issues surrounding healthcare. The exhibition addresses the identities of those experiencing different forms of health crises such as cancer, HIV, the ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, institutionalized care and more. Artists Jo Spence and Terry Denne’s collaboration, Picture of Health: How Do I Begin?, from 1982-83 portrays Spence wrapped in a white sheer cloth with a single ‘X’ over her left breast, marking her future mastectomy. The color photograph reclaims her body from illness. In Arena, a painting by Frank Moore from 1992, the artist depicts the surreal, other-worldly, and circus-like quality. Set within a circular maze-like construction, skeletons of people and animals, doctors, patients, diagrams, spiritual deities and observers. The image connotes a cynical view of medicine in which the patient is at the mercy of the doctors and on display for others. The exhibition drew attention to the experiences of individuals currently or previously going through medical crises, injustices, or life shifts. The exhibition points out the ways healthcare shapes our society and calls for changes in the policies that block us from humane care for all.

Picture of Health: How Do I Begin? by Jo Spence and Terry Denne. 1982-83. Image courtesy of Artsy.

Arena by Frank Moore. 1992. Oil on canvas. Image courtesy of Artstor. 

Net Art Anthology: Transborder Immigrant Tool

   

         Transborder Immigration Tool, Electronic Disturbance Theater, Net Art Anthology

     Devised by the art group Electric Disturbance Theater, the "Transborder Immigrant Tool" began in 2007 with the intention of distributing low cost cell phones equipped with the Transborder immigration Took (TIT) app. As a part of Net Art Anthology, the project was exhibited on the website as a performance intervention. The app itself aimed to aid immigrants in their dangerous passages, through the deserts of Mexico to the US. The app features a GPS tool that guides users to water stations deployed by nonprofit organizations. TIT also showcased poetry inspired by from the beauty of the surrounding desert to ease the stress of immigrants on their journey. As a performative piece, the work spurred debates and faced backlash from conservative critics and the U.S. government, which conducted an investigation of the legality of the app. Due to this investigation, the tool was never distributed to its intended audience. The aftermath of this work magnifies the country’s lack of morals through the rejection of a tool aimed at supporting survival. Created back in 2007, this work carries the sentiment of a lack governmental ethics as the border has only been strengthened in its “Zero Tolerance policy” for Mexicans seeking asylum. Although the app never fully came to fruition, it questioned what is more important: enforcing border control or upholding basic human rights to survival?

The Guggenheim Circular: Community

       

Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach, Faith Ringgold

Acrylic paint, canvas, printed fabric, ink, and thread

74 5/8 x 68 1/2 inches

    The Guggenheim Circular is an online exhibition in which works were drawn from the Museum collection using themes of time, home, embrace and community, all aspects of life during the Covid-19 pandemic.  The theme of community was curated by Megan Fontanella, Nat Trotman and Xiaoyu Weng in May of this year.  The works are separated into two sections, those from the museum’s modern collection and those from the contemporary collection.  The pieces chosen portray expressions of human interpersonal relations and the shared desire for connection with others.  One piece from the contemporary collection is Faith Ringgold’s Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5.  Tar Beach, a story quilt which is a traditional craft rooted in African American culture and associated with women’s communal work.  The image depicted on the quilt is of Cassie Louise Lightfoot, a character created by Ringgold to relay a narrative of culture and connection in Harlem.  This piece embodies the connections and hopes of communities worldwide during this time of uncertainty. The curators’ choice to separate modern and contemporary works seems significant.  It would be helpful to viewers if they better explained their intention in doing so.  It seems strange that when addressing the theme of community there is such a segregation within the presentation.  Overall the exhibit is successfully engages the viewer while remaining loyal to the theme.

The 8th Floor Review: In the Power of Your Care

In the Power of Your Care, an exhibition presented via The 8th Floor’s website, explores health as a human right and a cultural construct imbued by expectations of what health and sickness should visually manifest. Works within the exhibition highlight not only the shortcomings of healthcare policy but also how health is defined both physically and mentally. In her performalist self-portrait Untitled (1992), Hannah Wilke challenges the eroticization of femininity in conventional society while waging war against disease. The suite of three images were taken during her lymphoma treatment. Mimicking mugshots—views of the front, back, and side of her shaved head—the triptych shows Wilke smiling defiantly, navigating the internal and external identity shifts induced by disease. Another work by Wilke—a sculptural piece called Why Not Sneeze (1992), a homage to Marcel Duchamp’s Why not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? (1921)—consists of a birdcage filled with empty prescription medicine bottles, syringes, and other medical paraphernalia. While the work represents Wilke’s body as a vessel of illness during her treatment, it can also be seen as a tally of medical consumption in relation to the economic systems of healthcare policies, in which drug treatments are more important than the prevention of illness. Because of works such as Wilke’s, In the Power of Your Care posits art as a tool for social change, taking steps to dismantle our culture’s biased perception of health.

Hannah Wilke, Why Not Sneeze, 1992, wire birdcage, medicine bottles, syringes, https://www.artsy.net/artwork/hannah-wilke-why-not-sneeze

The Guggenheim Circular - Home

Artist

Joan Miró

b. 1893, Barcelona; d. 1983, Palma de Mallorca, Spain

Title

The Tilled Field

Date

1923–24

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

26 x 36 1/2 inches (66 x 92.7 cm)

Credit Line

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Accession

72.2020

Copyright

© 2020 Successió Miró/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

Home is an online exhibition focus on sharing a collection of art that related to home, whether is physical home or homes that artists can relate to. The pandemic forces most of us to stay in places where we define as shelter. When we use Zoom, we are forced to share the most private parts of our lives, identities, so home changes from a private place to a semi-private one. One only shows the part that you want to show to people. Some artists in the show decide to show a moment in their household, some decide to imagine the place considered a home, and some artists decided to show a corner that they think represents the most of their home. 

Some people’s places are big enough to accommodate work from home situations, but most of us cannot afford more space to make into a working office. The boundaries between a workplace and a place to relax have shifted after the pandemic and many people forced to redefine what is a home to them now. With that being said, most of us required to open a certain spot in our home to be shown on the internet or a zoom call, the pandemic also makes us open our privacy in order to continue to live a “normal” life. What we used to call home has changed to life and workspace, The Guggenheim Circular - Home showcases a variety of homes, whether it’s from a physical point of view or with a psychological lens to help us redefine home. 

In “The Tilted Field” by Joan Miró, the artist chose to portray the entire landscape of his home. Inside his home, he includes the animal and trees he loves and cares about. The colors and the lines contrast, and I see day and night in one painting. The different styles show how the artist’s definitions of home, the home represents himself, his belief which he incorporated three flags into his painting. 

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"In The Power of Your Care": Examining Autonomy and Disability in Hannah Wilke's "Why Not Sneeze"

 

 

"Why Not Sneeze" Hannah Wilke, 1992.

Wire bird cage, medicine bottles, syringes

7 × 9 × 6 7/8 in

 

 "In the Power of Your Care" is an exhibition put on in 2016 by The 8th Floor examining "health and health care as human rights, and the interdependencies of care in our culture, from personal relationships to systems of care in a policy context."  The exhibition featured many artists whose work addresses illness or disability.

Hannah Wilke's "Why Not Sneeze," is described as a sculptural portrait. Wilke's medical waste, including medicine bottles and syringes, are encapsulated in a found wire birdcage. The title of the work is an allusion to Marcel Duchamp's "Why not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy?," a sculpture using a found wire birdcage that encases marble cubes that resemble sugar cubes. 

The question "Why not sneeze?" begged by Duchamp's original work of art is meant to be a type of rhetorical question. Sneezing is an involuntary bodily function, and so there is no point in asking questions about sneezing, as if a person has any control over whether they sneeze or not. I believe this idea of involuntary bodily functions is seminal to Wilke's work. In her work, the question "Why not sneeze?" serves as a sort of ideological placeholder for any other involuntary bodily function. For people with chronic illnesses or disabilities, some of their bodily functions are outside of their control, but the dominant narrative around disability is that these people have some form of control over their disability, or what their bodies can do. Wilke is saying that she is not in control of her body as much as people would think, and to suggest that she can control these things is as nonsensical as asking someone to control how they sneeze.

The Guggenheim Circular/Time

Zoe Leonard, 1961, 2002–ongoing. Vintage suitcases, for every year of the artist’s life; one suitcase added every year, dimensions variable. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by the International Director’s Council 2014.119. © Zoe Leonard. Photo: Bill Jacobson

    Time is so much more palpable with the lack of structure in Covid times where days blend together. Days, weeks and months were taken away when we had to quarantine ourselves. Time has been the unit of change in all cultures, regardless of beliefs or economic background. Time can affect everyone and will change everyone's lives, when we started our quarantine we moved from a present to an online world that made everyone restructure their lives.

    In Zoe Leonard’s work we can understand the passage of time with her timeline of her luggage. Fashion has always reflected how society has changed and has evolved, what we think is interesting today might not be tomorrow. This idea of constant change is shown physically in her art exhibition. Each one of us has changed emotionally and our style has changed with it, it's hard to believe what we once used to accept as true and accept the change . Thinking about what I used to find pleasure might not have changed but emotionally I answer differently. Religion for instance, it was introduced to be as chirstianity and I accepted as true growing up but by the pass of time and knowledge gain I have questioned it. I react to the principles that I learn and morals within the Bible but I no longer consider myself christian. 

    In the memories that she had collected in each trip with each bag, Leonard’s time was established by memories and people that changed the artists and her collection shows it with the timeline of luggage. I can relate to the growth in changing perspectives and in the collection this message makes sense together as she is one person and has only modified herself in her evolution. Change is encouraged and shown in the models of bags that have changed but the continuity of blue hues is what let us know that is one person that has evolved, the essence is there and the details changed.

 Exhibntion from “ How Can We Think of Art at a Time Like This? “ 

Photography art by Mouna Karray, the artist get the inspiration during period of constraint, isolation and immobility, he believes the world wil have some change after this crisis.The series “Noir” echoes foucus on the concept of isolation, deprivation of movement and luck of freedom…  People are not allowed to go outside, and the world is disconnect, photography become a way to feel freedom instead of a tool of taking picture.

The white stretch fabric in the photo appears to be healed but restrained, and the outline of the body is looming, adding to the mystery of the photo. The black cable seems to be the only way to the outside world, so when the body is tightly wrapped, there is a One hand still holds it firmly.

At the same time, at this time, he linked creativity and imagination to break the boundaries of the country and new areas of invention. "Nous avons rendez-vous où les océans se rencontrent" This series of photos is a virtual representation of people and things that exist in different spaces. The encounter between people and different cultures and things is extra strange and thought-provoking in this case.

The Guggenheim Circular：Opalka 1965 / 1-∞: by Roman Opalka

 

Roman Opalka (French/Polish, 1931–2011）

Opalka 1965 / 1-00: detail 2910060-2932295 , 1965

Medium:Acrylic on Canvas

Size:196 x 135 cm. (77.2 x 53.1 in.)

The online exhibition “Time” is from the collection of the Guggenheim Museum. The works in the “Time” show all focus on the relationship between time and life. Especially during this pandemic, people are all waiting for the “time” to solve problems. Such as finish the quarantine and back to home, recover from the virus. In Opalka 1965 / 1-∞: detail 2910060-2932295 by Roman Opalka (1931-2011), an acrylic painting on canvas. In 1965, the artist painted the number one with white paint at the top left hand corner. This work can be considered as a journey the work and Opalka went through together. The end of the work is the end of Opalka’ life. During this 46 years, Opalka used a numerical sequence to fill the canvas. He once said: “My procedure manifests nothing apart from the duration of a lifetime.” This work is a record of Opalka’s life. Time is fluid and people can not touch it. However, Opalka created a way let us to see the passing of  times. Time rely on people to live. Without people, time means nothing. When the artist passed away, the painting of the work concludes. The collection shows the new understandings of how time structures our lives. Artists let people can see the time. Some artists keep on moment and some like Opalka let time leave its stamp.

"BUILDING A BETTER MONUMENT" Exhibition Review

 "Building A Better Monument" is an exhibition curated by Seph Rodney on the website ArtAtTimeLikeThis, an online art institution focusing on arts and artists in the time of crisis such as 2020. As city governments react to protestors by removing the confederate statues during the past summer, one shall wonder what there will be to replace the colonialist icons. “Building A Better Monument” includes 9 artists dedicating their works to represent the marginalized demographics through monuments in the format of architecture, performance, painting, and sculpture. The exhibition utilizes the medium of videos and pictures to showcase the diverse range of works yet still manages to undermine their powerfulness by prioritizing the introduction writing through improvable website layouts. On Joiri Minaya’s page, her series “Containers”, in which she intervenes colonial statues by wrapping them with patterned fabrics, is simply stripped of the sheer impactful visuality due to the small-sized pictures comparing to the banners and texts. It is comforting to see that arts like these are able to engage with audiences in a time that is more relevant than ever, but the effort should not be spared perfecting the viewing experience for the webpage medium that is much more limited than its physical counterpart.