“#FordHall2015”

Ever since the Ford Hall 2015 movement was launched last semester when students occupied the Bernstein-Marcus Administration Center for 14 days, the whole Brandeis campus has been called upon to think long and hard about its role in systemic racism — on campus, in American society and in history at large. In response, the Rose has decided to designate their Lee Gallery to reflect on the Ford Hall 2015 movement. The Lee Gallery often displays works from the Rose’s permanent collection, but as the wall text leading into the gallery explains, the Rose chose to install this specific exhibit because “as mediators of culture, museums have a role to play in responding to critical social issues.” The Rose hopes the gallery will be used for “teach-ins, workshops and close looking sessions related to injustice and inequality.” Several different works from the Rose’s permanent collection have been placed in the space, meant to elicit conversations about race, cultural bias and activism. As one would expect and hope from art dealing with systemic oppression, few of the pieces are easy to look at. Kara Walker’s vivid 1998 piece “Kind of a Study of My Staged Suicide” is a mural drawn in pencil that has a sketched feel, as though it were drawn quickly. Yet the complexity of the work’s themes and Walker’s treatment of them show the piece was nothing if not carefully made. The mural depicts a series of violent acts against black women in the antebellum South, including rape and abuse. The disturbing imagery is juxtaposed with a cartoonish style, and it highlights how the black female body has been treated as a sexual commodity in American culture for centuries. The piece’s accompanying text further explains that “the title of the drawing suggests that it is an introspective study, lending the work a distinctly personal note by alluding to Walker’s own subjectivity.” Less intense but no less powerful is Annette Lemieux’s 1995 “Left Right Left Right,” which is a series of picket signs depicting fists of all races raised in the classic protest sign. The images come from news photographs from the 1930s to 1970s and are taken from photos encompassing a range of subjects: Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Nixon and Jane Fonda are a few of the people whose fists appear in the work, though one cannot tell whose hand belongs to whom. Ultimately though, as powerful and interesting as the works in the gallery are, they are not the point of the exhibit. The Rose hopes the space will be used for discussions about the social issues that the art reflects on, a theme which Curatorial Assistant Caitlin Rubin elaborated on in an interview with the Justice: “ Really this is just the start of an ongoing conversation. It’s the first iteration of something that we hope will blossom into a deeper, richer conversation and a conversation that’s offered by many voices, not just Rose staff members.”

—Max Moran

“Sharon Lockhart/Noa Eshkol”

The Lois Foster Gallery currently gives a much different vibe than many of the past exhibits at the Rose. Walking into the gallery, it is completely dark, and rather than paintings, sculptures, or photos embellishing the walls, there are five videos, each portraying a group of dancers performing choreography. They are not dancing to music — the only sounds that can be heard in the room are the beating of the video reel, and the counting to four in Hebrew — “achat, shtayim, shalosh, arba” — before the start of each dance combination. Rather than wearing flamboyant costumes, they are dressed in simple black leggings and shirts. The environments they are dancing in are very simple as well, with white walls and shiny gray floors that mirror the movements of the dancers. The only colors that appear in the videos come from complexly-crafted quilts hanging in the background. This piece, “Five Dances and Nine Wall Carpets by Noa Eshkol” (2011), is the work of Los Angeles-based artist Sharon Lockhart, in which she explores the art of Noa Eshkol (1924- 2007), an Israeli dance composer, theorist and textile artist. Lockhart filmed seven dancers performing five of Eshkol’s compositions, setting them in spaces that are adorned with nothing but Eshkol’s wall carpets — effortlessly blending elements of both Eshkol’s choreography and textile work into one installation. The choreography that the dancers perform is very simple. Rather than performing leaps, jumps, turns or acrobatic moves, they make use of subtle movements such as arm circles, small steps and head rolls. The beauty of the choreography lies in how the movements of each individual dancer work together. For example, in one piece, two women face in opposite directions and essentially mirror each other with their movements, which mostly consist of bends and intricate footsteps, almost never looking at each other throughout the course of the choreography. Another piece portrays two women and a man performing slow, heavy movements and many instances of the dancers looking around and at one another. The wall carpets in the background add a striking contrast to the simplicity of the dance movements. Lockhart does an extraordinary job of not only combining elements from Eshkol’s very different works of art together but also blending the bulk of Eshkol’s art with her own composition. According to the description of the exhibit, “Although the artists never met, Lockhart considers the project a two person exhibition.” Lockhart’s film installation proves that collaboration does not have to occur between two people who have met face-to-face, but it can occur through a shared interest and love for one another’s work.

—Lizzie Grossman

“Rosalyn Drexler: Who Does She Think She Is?”

This semester, the Rose Art Museum welcomes American Pop Artist, Rosalyn Drexler’s work with the exhibit “Rosalyn Drexler: Who Does She Think She Is?” The exhibit highlights the breadth Drexler’s work, spanning from multi-media pieces to novels. Drexler stands out in the Pop world due to the fact that she was among one of the only women in Pop art, and work had a strong political consciousness. The exhibit demonstrates a focus love and violence as well as crime. Among the most notable pieces is Lovers” (1963). The mixed-media work features a monochrome red background very reminiscent of Pop. The combination of acrylic and paper collage creates a visual appeal for the viewer with the collaged image of the two lovers on the bottom left-hand side of the painting. Unlike many of her other works in exhibit, this Drexler piece demonstrates the very apolitical message of love. Dissimilarly, her works “Self-Defense” (1963) and “Rape” (1962) indicate a different narrative. The former features a woman fending off a man color, fighting for a gun. The latter shows the image of a black manon top of a woman. Both images use bold colors and their subjects are in the corner of the frame. Their compositions create strong focal points for the viewer. Unfortunately, these paintings perpetuate racial stereotypes and change the narrative of Drexler’s political activism regarding race. While not part of this exhibit, Drexler’s “Is It True What They Say About Dixie” (1966), featuring men in black suits on an entirely white background, was inspired by an image of Bull Connor, the brutal police chief in Birmingham, Alabama. In “The Syndicate” (1964), Drexler reveals the ambiguity between traditional notions of the “good” guys and the “bad” guys. Set on a monochrome background, the image dissociates identities such as ‘gangster,’ ‘private eye’ and ‘law enforcement official’. It instead shows the mirrored image of the men at two different tables — they possess the same interests as businessmen but pursue them in different ways. Drexler exists as a visionary in the art world, championing the mediums of painting, writing and filmmaking. The exhibit delivered the artist’s unique perspective on the Pop art movement, a perspective charged with political discourse. Drexler has certainly made her mark on American culture.

—Jessica Goldstein 

“Rose Video 08 | Ben Hagari”

Ben Hagari’s “Potter’s Will” (2015) is both a visual and literal spinning experience. Located in the video gallery, the piece includes a video portion of a potter molding a lump of clay on his wheel, as well as a real-life installation of the potter’s rotating studio. The on-screen potter’s studio resembles a dance; the camera rotates with the spinning pot while the potter mends the clay with a deliberate yet elegant touch. The sounds from the smoothing, scraping and molding of moist clay tickle the ears, adding viscerally to the idea that a pot is being created. Similar sounds of molding wet clay carry over into the next scene of the video, which conveys a clay man — played by Hagari himself — slowly standing and walking toward the kiln. The lens focuses on the figure’s lumpy, ambiguous body parts. However, as the figure moves closer to the fire, he becomes more human, his parts becoming more defined. Complementing the on-screen production is a real-life depiction of the potter’s studio. Rotating around the potter’s wheel, the moving set mimics the cinematography of the video art. However, there is something more eerie about the physical potter’s studio than the projected one, as no hands smooth, scrape, or mold the clay — the pot is already made. In his installation, Hagari uses the art of pottery to represent primordial myths of creation and creativity. He seems to reference an Adam-like figure through the emergence of the clay man, and portrays the serpent of Genesis with a cane that transforms into a snake. Additionally, the potter at his wheel mending wet clay hints at the Egyptian god Khnum, the water god and the potter god of creation. The piece incorporates other Egyptian references too. When the clay man, with the tail-biting snake Uroboros wrapped around his neck, poses peripherally to the camera and places one harm in front of him and the other behind, he mirrors Egyptian art’s popular frontalism — the showing of a drawing’s profile. Lastly, Hagari touches on all of earth’s elements from the wind in the spinning wheel, the water in the slimy clay, the air in the drying clay and the fire of the burning kiln. Hagari’s incorporation of all of these symbols works to further his thought-provoking rendition of the beginning “of man."

—Allison Yeh