The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and the Anthropological Turn
The Contemporary Austin
“There is a small world of people who are very interested in contemporary art and a slightly bigger world of people who look at contemporary art. But then, there is a much larger world that doesn’t realize how influential art is on things that they actually look at.” – Marc Jacobs said in a Variety interview in 2013. This is an important outlook on contemporary art and how we usually don’t realize how influential the art all around us can be in our everyday lives. We look at different types of contemporary art every day without noticing, and The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and the Anthropological Turn showcases a number of artists depicting different aspects of pop cultures and societies in their own techniques. Contemporary art typically takes cultural and globally influenced materials and concepts. Many times, contemporary art can take events from pop culture or controversial moments and times and make them into works of art. Visiting the Austin Contemporary in Austin, the name of the art museum itself tells you the type of art you will be exposed to upon entering. I’ve never really been exposed to that much contemporary art before, but the works inside will be hard to forget after leaving the exhibition. The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and the Anthropological Turn consisted of many forms of works depicting different societies and cultural representations. This exhibition showed different ways a group of artists can come together to create an astounding collection of art in the contemporary art world. These artists throughout the exhibition work in a culturally diverse and globally influenced world while the technology around us continues to advance and change our perception on different materialistic things. There is no direct uniform or precise organization that goes into creating contemporary art and this proves to be true throughout the different works seen in the exhibition. The relationship between contemporary art and anthropology is discovered through the many twists and turns the exhibition takes. Anthropology, the study of human society and culture, leaves its mark on the different sculptures and paintings as the artists make their own interpretation of cultures and societies. When you first arrive to the Austin Contemporary and look up, the words “With Liberty and Justice For All” are seen attached to the top of the building in reflective, rainbow colors. Jim Hodges used different forms of lights and mirror-like materials to create incredible sculptures that sit upon the roof. Hodges’ sculpture, not part of The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and the Anthropological Turn exhibition, gives us a first look of contemporary art before even entering the building. The artwork makes you wonder about where the country was when these words were first written in the Pledge of Allegiance and how far we’ve come since then while also thinking how far we still have to go. Hodges took these well-known words known to most, if not all, Americans and gives us the opportunity to think of what the words mean to each of us individually while wondering how the words affect others. Liberty and justice have multiple meanings to different people and it’s important to know what they mean to us all. Hodges made sure to include “A Work in Progress” at the end of the piece and I think it’s important to remember that we all in some way have progress yet to make. As you enter the Austin Contemporary and leave the words above the building outside, the different opinions and meanings of liberty or justice stay with you. The exhibition, The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and the Anthropological Turn, shows the power of the internet and social media and how it affects a culture’s customs and ideas. Culture appropriation is a common theme seen throughout the exhibition, where it can show one person’s view and reinforces the idea of how different stereotypes can be altered and transformed into art. There is a theme of “things” and how artists can take a materialistic culture and question the overall appropriation of everyday objects. These objects can be seen as a person’s idol, obsession or totem of importance and the artists in this exhibition show these objects in a whole new light. The Contemporary Austin has its location downtown where The Sorcerer’s Burden resides, while there is also more art to be seen at The Contemporary Laguna Gloria location near Lake Austin. This location shows many forms of contemporary art to the public outdoors in nature. Many sculptures can be seen throughout the location involving steel or glass sculptures giving it a different feel than The Contemporary Austin at the other location. Whether you want to see sculptures outside or inside in a more intimate environment, either of The Contemporary locations offer a variety of contemporary art viewable to the public. Nathan Mabry created his version of ancient ceramic containers derived from different cultures that sit upon boxes. Hand-crafted and atop their own pedestals, his series of replicas of ancient ceramic containers are all placed in a line and remind me of different spiritual animals. Sitting against a brown wall, the objects are colored in a similar caramel color giving a wooden and golden aesthetic to the exhibition. Many important objects in ancient times were usually shown in golden tones and this color gives the objects the feeling of them being trophies or prizes from their time period. The objects looked as though they were original pieces derived from ancient periods. The different ceramics depicted animals like a frog, snake and a type of bird. I do wonder why he chose to recreate these animals in particular. They could represent different spiritual animals that are important in different cultures or they could simply be random animals Mabry preferred to sculpt. Mabry strips these objects from a certain time period and spins their supposed importance in a new way. The different boxes the animals sit on appear to be like their own thrones, giving the animals a title of importance and value in the cultures they originate from. In these different sculptures, Mabry takes commonly known English idioms and turns them into potential idols for us to admire. From the sides you can really see the different geometric shapes Mabry put into the works with the circular rings forming out of the animals’ backs. He succeeds in honoring different cultures while keeping them mysterious throughout his work. Julia Wachtel, another artist featured in the exhibition, created paintings that are visually appealing yet bizarre representations of historical phenomenons and pop culture and combined them in a way to tell a certain narrative. She takes images and objects seen throughout the internet and pop culture and gives these things her own spin and meaning. In her painting, The History of Animals, she paired a black and white image of a group of three men dressed in gorilla costumes from a comedy sketch made years ago with a colorful, angry bear cartoon. One being a cartoon animal and the other real-life animal costumes on humans, you really start the wonder where we draw the line between fantasy and reality. The real-life moment being in black and white gives the painting the feeling of what we see on television isn’t as real as we would like to think. The cartoon, being the only part of the piece in color, can make a person believe that cartoons are just a representation of who we really are or feel as a society. I stood in front of the painting for a long time, trying to understand what Wachtel wanted the audience to see in the work. When taking a step back to wonder, contemporary art doesn’t have one, simple meaning and if there is one it won’t be blatantly spelled out to you. What is shown in The History of Animalsis a sketch about three men in gorilla costumes could have angered or embarrassed some people resulting in the feeling the cartoon represents. It could mean the individuals in the costumes felt anger while performing, giving the painting a multitude of reasons why the cartoon and gorilla sketch fit so well together. Wachtel gives a spin on NASA exploration in her painting, Time and Again, where a depiction of a man wearing a yellow Ames Hazmat suit gives the only color in the entire painting. On the right side of the painting, an alien creature sits on the ground looking as though it is joyful or laughing. This painting plays with the idea of how we as a society draw the line between fantasy and reality. It is popular in the movies we see or news articles questioning whether there are such thing as alien life forms out there in the galaxy. Wachtel took this reality of people truly believing in aliens and the fake pop culture aspect of alien characters in television shows or movies and combines the two onto one canvas. In Wachtel’s painting’s, Untitled (bad), she pulls the infamous character from the popular television show Breaking Bad, Water White, and alters the image creating a whole new look. The character is dressed in the familiar yellow florescent suit from the show and is positioned twice right next to a cartoon character peeking in through a door. A similar theme in all of Wachtel’s works is taking an object from pop culture and giving her own spin on the object creating a new, bizarre meaning to it. In Wachtel’s Untitled painting, you see a puzzled cartoon character on the left side of the painting divided by the right side depicting a live news report of an investigation on the Pentagon. Whether the news report was a basic story or one about the Pentagon Papers or 9/11, for us the cartoon’s puzzled and frustrated expression may be how others may have been feeling during this period of our country. The expression could also represent how individuals may feel about news stories in general as well. In a strange way, often times cartoons and fictional character’s emotions help us deal with our own and this might of been how Wachtel herself felt about the news report. The cartoon shows a red, white and blue character while the broadcast image is mostly red with the grey area dividing the two. The red and blue could represent the feelings of anger and sadness news reports can make you feel while the red colors on the new reporter can show how she was feeling as well. Showing our country’s flag colors could have also been an intentional aspect of Wachtel’s painting. Having a grey area dividing the two creates this idea that there really is a thin line dividing fact and fiction. It could then make you wonder if our reality is as far from fantasy as we might sometimes think. Contemporary art and how we see it is so important. The idea of taking objects from different cultures or pop culture and transforming them into something new is what the artists in The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and Anthropological Turn did in their artworks shown on display at the Austin Contemporary. Contemporary art makes us think differently and see opinions on cultures or stereotypes in a different light. We receive so much knowledge and information from pop culture and the internet, but where we draw the line between fantasy and reality is a common theme found in this exhibition. Artists can use contemporary art to question our views on different cultures and their stereotypes or bring us joy in the form of pop culture objects and alter them in a humorous or bizarre way. Just as Marc Jacobs once said, many people look at contemporary art but there’s so many more people that don’t realize how influential the art that we see can be in our lives. The different artists in The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and Anthropological Turn create this new idea of contemporary art and how it can connect with different cultures and pop culture. There is usually a line drawn between fantasy and reality, but this exhibition sets out to blur that line.