April 2004
Within Reach is a visual tale of a woman dealing with change; adapting to
it and creating it. Making a route, measuring time and events, are all part
of this journey within herself. Questions arise. Can I plan my future? When
will I die? Where will I go next? How do I know if I have failed or succeeded?
Will I return?
March 2004
For millions the corporate office environment is the new source of the “quiet desperation” Thoreau was pondering over 100 years ago. Desperation making a huge success of the cartoon Dilbert and the cult movie Office Space. Many a cubicle across America has a trinket or a cartoon clipping expressing underlying anger at mismanagement and layoff fears, not to mention paper jams and computer meltdowns.
In Jeramy Turner’s own words, her paintings are “allegories for power relationships, for the state of the modern world, for a deepened understanding of history. And they stem from a political, rather than personal, vantage point.”
A few years ago, I was asked to put a piece in a show at the Brecht Forum, which is the Marxist School of the New School for Social Research in NYC. I assume you’ve never heard of it. The exhibition was curated by a committee of Haitian young men, who were themselves artists and Marxists. I selected a piece for the show, which I thought most appropriate, for its political simplicity and clarity. They did acquiesce to hanging the piece, but not without condemnation: the painting, they determined, was quintessential man-hating. Now here we had a few “politically aware” young black men from perhaps the most oppressed country on the globe, interpreting a crystal clear depiction of imperialism as generic MEN (even though they’re white and in suits carrying crosses, etc.) abusing a poor innocent WOMAN, symbolized, in their eyes, by the bird. Without consulting the artist, they condemned this work as sexist bigotry. They were more willing to join identities with the white suits than they were with the female artist.
