Marcia Vaitsman at Solomon Projects

I just wanted to do a quick review of my experience of Marcia Vaitsman's work currently on display at Solomon Projects in Atlanta.
The title of the show, "A Study of Strange Things" seems to be a bit simple and possibly naive, and when one sees the show, the sparse population of works can easily lead to confirming this reaction.  But then again, the appearance of simplicity is often due to a lack of investigation.  It is from this idea that the rest of my analysis will grow...
Two opposing walls in the gallery  each hold a tetratych of large photographs. Another wall has a video, while the other wall, technically holds nothing, instead has an installation of maybe forty small photographic light boxes.  Essentially, there is a visual-spatial intersection of two lines; one whose points connect images that are the result of a photographic process whose media absorbs (and reflects) light, the other connecting images created through a similar process, but whose end form emits light.  In this way, Vaitsman sets up a conversation around the ideas of photography (and video) in relation to the medium of light.  Her graduate thesis, of which I only had time to scan, mentions influence of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, so I will indulge.  In his lecture, On the Gaze as Objet Petit a, Lacan alludes to a subject that exists as the relationship between a light source, and the image that light source produces.  Imagine a film projector.  It is a light source.  The light it projects is caught by a screen.  When we perceive the image, we do not see it on the screen, but in or beyond the screen.  This situation explains the existence of the subject, where the subject is the screen.  [A two-dimensional image like a painting or photograph uses the inverse function of light to produce perspective, or the appearance of depth, within an image.  Still, in this instance, the image, or surface of the two-dimensional object is analogous to the existence of the subject.]

Vaitmans similarly sets up a site of subjective existence in a perpendicular intersection of images that produce and absorb light.
Another relationship I found in the work was a conflation and confusion of the large and small.  The large photographs on the wall are all macro images, who subjects are blown-up to be larger than their real world (pre-photographic) existence.  The images from the lighted sources, are fragmented and made smaller than their original existence (for the light boxes some may be similar in size.)  This dichotomy really fleshes out the understanding of all of the unused space of the gallery.
One of the most intriguing naturally occurring optical illusions is the changing size of the moon (or sun).  When on the horizon, the moon looks large, yet while it is in the middle of the sky it seems relatively small.  The actual reason for this illusion is still up for debate, but the common explanation is that the moon looks larger at the horizon because it has other recognizable distance cues for judgement - i.e. the horizon is obviously far away, so the moon is only perceived to be large, while the 'dome' of the night sky is immeasurable, so it is assumed to be closer, thus giving the illusion of a smaller moon.

When this idea is brought to the photographs and video Vaitsman provides, we begin to relate the vastness of the empty space in the gallery to the border (frame) of each work.  Similarly, we relate the size of each image to the size of its frame, and our assumption of the original size each image's subject to its subsequent photographic size.  When we assert ourselves into the intersection of the images that is representative of our subjectivity, we become Alice - one who changes size in relation to the (perceptual) tasks at hand.
Now, we can see the imagery in each of the works as a portrait of ourselves; a zebra with no stripes, who is not a zebra at all, but a voodoo doll of wound-up physical matter partly frozen, partly thawed; a fragmented peacock of sexuality, whose kaleidoscopic identity is constantly shifting; the list can go on with each image, and each grouping of images...

A Study of Strange Things is just what its name suggests, and as with everything that at first seems simple, the longer it is studied, the stranger it becomes.

Nathan Sharratt: Young Machete

Sometime around 8:00PM, after two hours of sarcastic live-tweeting, aimless-drifting, and general time-wasting amongst the hit-or-miss art installed on the mall at Underground Atlanta, I finally found a map for the events and artworks sponsored by Elevate, Art Above Atlanta.  Of course, I had seen most of them in my modern version of a dérive, but had not yet ventured out to the corner of Peachtree and Decatur Street, for what would be the highlight of my night, Nathan Sharratt’s interactive performance/installation Be My Blood Brother. (Note: the Elevate map is slightly off - Blood Brother is not on Edgewood and Peachtree.)

This was Sharratt’s third run at Blood Brother.  He first performed it for a Sculpture class at SCAD, then publicly in March 2011, at The Granite Room in Castleberry Hill.  Although, I did briefly see the performance in Castleberry, the Elevate opening was my first real interaction.

I walked into the small storefront to find it transformed into what may be best described as a slightly futuristic mash-up of a doctor’s office, DMV, and shaman’s lair.  In the center, Sharratt, looking more like a serial killer than a doctor, was seated on a small white stool, facing a small white table, wearing all white coveralls stained with fake-blood.  Opposite the artist sat an identical stool, empty and inviting.  On the table between the two were various syringes, jars, and beakers flanking the main props for the interaction: a small puddle of fake crimson-colored blood, a butter spreader, a rubber stamp, and a stack of card-sized certificates.  In the otherwise sparsely decorated red, grey and white room, Sharratt’s assistants guided viewers to their appropriate tasks.

Sharratt performing Be My Blood Brother (photo by Mona Collentine) ©2011 Nathan Sharratt

First, I sat down with the artist, who welcomed me with a deadpan, “Would you like to be my blood brother?”  Upon accepting, I was asked for my name, which he wrote on the certificate that he would also stamp with a serial number.  After this, he did not speak.  Sharratt proceeded to mix the ‘blood’ on the table with the completely blunt butter spreader, followed by pretending to cut the flesh of his hand, leaving the red residue in his palm.  Then, with an obvious gesture of sharing, offered me the knife.  As silly as this felt, I played along, repeating his actions with my own body.  We then justified our actions by clasping our ‘bloody’ hands.  This is where it became real…

Sharratt took a firm grasp of my hand and began to peer deeply and purposefully into my eyes.  Maybe it was a minute or two, but it felt much longer.  I felt helpless.  I did not attempt to release my grip, but was fully and overwhelmingly embarrassed.  Something metaphysical changed.  Through the artist’s gaze, I had been ‘subjectified’.

Sharratt performing Be My Blood Brother (photo by Mona Collentine) ©2011 Nathan Sharratt 

With ‘artist’s gaze’, I mean to arouse Jacques Lacan’s idea of the almost benevolent gaze that art allows, as found in Of the Gaze as Objet Petit A.  Generally for Lacan, the gaze is a property of inter-subjectivity where, when one perceives that he/she is being viewed by another, one is objectified by the other. A latent result of the psychic break that occurs in the Mirror Phase, to experience the gaze is to be reminded that one does not exist in the Real, but instead in a Symbolic realm as a sign (which actually has less of an existence than an object.)  This can be extended to include subject/object interaction, where observing an object reminds one that he/she is an object.  The gaze (as objet petit a) is a reminder of our inherent lack, the source of desire.    In good art, according to Lacan, the artist puts his desires into the work, laying down his gaze by revealing to the viewer that the other also has desire.  We are presented with an image, but an image that reveals itself as such.  In understanding that the image is a veil to be looked beyond, we are relieved, feeling that we have seen something more real.  We, in turn, also feel more real.  In Be My Blood Brother, this scenario plays out perfectly. 

In an interview on Google+, Sharratt shared with me the way that his  adopted father is thought of as his real father; so much so that his mother sometimes forgets, worrying that he will develop similar genetic traits.  The extended coexistence that formed the meaningful bond between  adopted son and  adopted father is translated in Be My Blood Brother via the sharing of fake blood.  In what Christians may read as an analogy to the Eucharist joining the Church family, Sharratt sees  his “bonding with a new Brother” as a way to form a constructed bond that is as real as possible.  The artist describes it as “try[ing] to be a mirror through which [the participant] can see themselves.”  Taking it a step further, Sharratt provides a digital forum (http://www.wearebloodbrothers.com/) for initiated Blood Brothers to share their stories.  Here, he gives an arena for what was once a group of strangers, a collections of others, to lay down their gazes and acknowledge each other’s subjectivity.

Maybe I have romanticized Be My Blood Brother by giving it the qualities that so many people who claim to be interested in “Relational Aesthetics” or interactive art usually espouse, but what I do know for sure is that for at least the rest of the night after I became a Blood Brother, I felt very Real.

Interview with Nathan Sharrat

Image from performance of Be My Blood Brother ©2011 Nathan Sharratt (Photo by Mona Collentine )

1) What is the inspiration for Bloodbrothers?

This goes back a ways. In 2004 I was living in New York City and working as a designer and photographer in the magazine industry. At the time, I didn’t really know who I was as an artist or where I was going or what I even wanted to do. I just knew I had a lot of shit building up inside that had no way out. Since I wasn’t finding any success with external sources, I started looking internally to the things that created the greatest personal emotional response. A big one was my family. No matter how much crap life threw at me (unemployment, homelessness) they were always my rock of stability. I had just finished a book by Margaret Atwood on writing called Negotiating With The Dead, and in it she talked about how the dead wanted our blood. Dead being our ancestors and blood being a metaphor for life and creativity. At least that’s how I choose to read it. I had also read an interview with Stephen King, where he was asked how he, a family man with children, could imagine and write such horrific stories. He replied that if he wrote it, it wouldn’t happen. So I decided to use those sources as a starting point. I took a color-printing class with a coworker at the International Center for Photography, and used that as a way to explore these themes of family and protection. I drove upstate to my family’s home in Cooperstown and took some portraits using a borrowed plastic Holga camera. I gave each family member, excepting my father, a tool from my father’s workshop and covered them with fake blood (http://nathansharratt.com/section/215401_Family_Portraits.html). At the time, the fake blood was an analog for real blood, and the portraits were meant to be a protective mantra.

            It took another 4 or 5 years before I started examining family in my work again, mostly at the behest of my sculpture professors. This time I began to get really interested in fake blood and the whole concept behind its existence. We, as humans, are obsessed with not spilling our own blood, yet we have such a bloodlust that we’ve created this blood analog to be used strictly for entertainment purposes. We love watching violence as long as it’s pretend. Action and horror films are just public executions and gladiator fights without the actual death. I started realizing the vast amount of content available in using fake blood as a material. The difficulty was in the execution, how to elevate fake blood as a fine-art material and have it be seen for what it is—and what content it brings to the table—and not just as a non-biological blood substitute. I made some object-based art using fake blood, So I started making connections between the constructed qualities of fake blood and my own constructed family history: my biological father (Robert) left before I was born, and my mother met my non-biological father (Dwaine) when I was two, and they’ve raised me ever since. When I was five my non-biological father wanted to adopt me, but Massachusetts’ state law didn’t allow adoption for a minor with a legal parent or guardian, so my mother had to give me up to the state for all of ten minutes, or however long it took to fill out paperwork, then they both adopted me. I remember sitting in the cavernous marble hallway of the statehouse while all this was going on. I was no longer Nathan Kaczynski, I was now Nathan Sharratt. The connection I felt to my parents had not changed, only some paperwork. So the idea of a constructed family led me to think about constructed bonds in general, and how we create this social construct called “family.” The fact that my father isn’t my biological father is such a non-issue in my family that my mom even forgets sometimes, and warns me about genetic health issues on my father’s side. There are no “half-sisters” or “step-fathers,” we’re just family and we love each other and in my opinion that’s how it should be.

2) What is your obsession with blood in general?

For me it’s a material, so it’s kind of like asking a painter what is their obsession with paint? Any material has a pre-existing connotation that viewers carry with them, and many materials were resisted in their initial introduction as a fine-art material (David Smith’s welded-steel sculpture comes to mind). Blood is one of our most primal common denominators. It’s also the challenge of using a material that isn’t traditionally associated with fine art, and seeing if I can find ways to elevate it to make new connections that maybe viewers hadn’t thought of before. Also, I went pretty in depth about it above.

3) You are interested in creating multiple layers in your work, what do you think is the most missed meaning/layer in 'BloodBrothers'?

Probably the connection to my personal history. I don’t make that a large part of the performance because the whole installation is about me, so when I’m bonding with a new Brother, I want to make it as much about them as possible. I give my Brothers my absolute undivided attention during the ritual, and try to be a mirror through which they can see themselves. I make my name really small on the ticket so that when it’s pinned to the wall you see their name most prominently, not mine, and I give them the opportunity to share their story through the www.wearebloodbrothers.com website. However, I will be adding a few new hidden clues to the room for sharp-eyed viewers to find.

4) What other projects are you currently working on?

I’m still looking for participants for Words On Shirts Project (wordsonshirtsproject.com), and I’m working on a public art installation for Art on the Atlanta BeltLine that should be up soon. I’m also building a sound-trigger box for Martha Whittington’s 100 Whispers installation, in addition to being her studio assistant for the MOCA GA Working Artist Project grant. I’ve been slowly peppering donated clothing with It’s All My Fault labels (http://nathansharratt.com/artwork/2115157_It_s_All_My_Fault.html) and last but certainly not least I’ve been hard at work on my Dashboard Co-Op “Ground Floor” installation which is coming in October.

Nathan Sharratt's "Be My Blood Brother" preview

Here is a link to images from the performance that will be the subject of my next article on BURNAWAY: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathan_awesome/