Strange Oscillations and Vibrations of Sympathy @ UGAL

Every now and then, a show delivers an experience so profound and expansive, it silences its viewers and provokes heavy consideration. Strange Oscillations and Vibrations of Sympathy, a title selected by Stephanie Brookes from the curated words of Virginia Woolf by Sylvia Plath, does not attack, but suggest a challenge. The show is not exclusive. It is broad, however, incorporating 21 women artists referencing more than 15 women writers. Strange Oscillations had a similar effect on viewers as one would experience in an idyllic feminist family reunion or conference: warmth, empathy, power, humor, love, togetherness.

Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Square Toed and Flat Footed), 2003

 With so many references and literary bones in the work, the challenge of connecting variably different work was most likely nothing short of immense. Reading is a critical companion to looking when visiting Strange Oscillations, naturally. Bethany Collins heightens this demand in What good is science fiction to black people?, where a large handmade sheet of stark black paper is covered in dizzy clusters of the title question floating weightlessly. The letters are made of oil pastel, which sits on top of the paper, thick, never settling. The letters appear like confetti, stacked in some areas, completely gestural and formal at first. The drawing easily becomes an analogy for the rest of the show when one considers the fusion of gesture and character, letters and content, and authorship.

Notions of authorship are challenged in the unique collection of work in Strange Oscillations. Uniqueness and individuality are enhanced by the evolution of thought between generations of writers and artists. There are moments of non-plagiarism and evolution available to viewers that challenge the popular, and destructive, concept of individual genius in art.  

Installation view, Melissa Pokorny's As Above, So Below

Cecilia Vicuña, Gabriela Mistral (desnuda con pitahayas y mangos), 1979

   A traditional portrait of Gabriela Mistral painted by Cecilia Vicuña, who explains how Mistral was stripped of her author rights without any later compensation or apology. Vicuña states that past representations of Mistral have been specifically stern, hard and destructively mean. The misrepresentation and editing of women is a conceptual backbone to the show, which is in direct opposition to the control of women and their voices. The combat occurs in the reclaiming of ownership, as the gesture of painting Gabriela Mistral (desnuda con pitahayas y mangos).

  The work in the show is expansive. There are large installations, a handful of videos, sculpture and flat work, including three cotton Jen Bervin works from The Dickinson Composites Series. Bervin is acknowledging Emily Dickinson’s works in these massive felt embroideries, specifically Dickinson’s fascicles, collections of her handwritten poems. The embroideries function as blown up, heavily worked clones of their small, lightweight mothers, produced by Dickinson over 100 years before the works of Bervin.

Xaviera Simmons, Blue, 2016

One street-view window exhibits the work of Xaviera Simmons, an almost in-the-round ply curio of massive jars uniformly capped and each full of high-key colors, ranging textures and rolled up crunkled printouts of people and things. The jars are substitutions for text, and are meant to be read like a poem. Simmons is re-writing Rebecca Solnit in sculpture, with a positive commentary of love and gratitude. There is a loving hand in the work, the jars maternal like Louise Bourgeois’ spiders.

Bethany Collins, What good is science fiction to black people?, 2016

Close up of What good is science fiction to black people?

There is a huge emphasis on support and community in Strange Oscillations, which I can only hope is a key consideration all viewers hold when visiting the works. As Rebecca Solnit stated in a 2012 interview with Guernica Magazine,

“Having the right to show up and speak are basic to survival, to dignity, and to liberty. I’m grateful that, after an early life of being silenced, sometimes violently, I grew up to have a voice, circumstances that will always bind me to the rights of the voiceless.”

Supporting the voices of women, through means of art or activism, is still a completely relevant and necessary action. The invalidation and silencing of women is woven into standard social practice within the art world. It is the responsibility of institutional powerhouses to use their status to uplift and banish oppressive action. I believe this is a positive direction for Illinois State University and University Galleries. I hope that the attitudes represented in Strange Oscillations will echo and storm in the area long after the show is down. That being said, I will keep my eyes peeled for the 2017 catalog.