SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — As Fox News recently faced new allegations of designing and spreading fake news, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona set up an exhibit that examines the various ways artists use language to counter propaganda. past and present, while imagining radically different futures.
Language in times of miscommunication features works created by 18 American artists between 2016 and 2023, a period in American history marked by identity politics, divisive language, and alternative narratives.
On the one hand, the exhibition serves as a guide to recent political conflicts: the embroideries of Ann Morton Proofreading The series, for example, was driven by the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, its editing cleverly marking the meaning of some of the former president’s most controversial statements.
Pick any issue that has been covered in mainstream or social media over the past decade and you’ll likely find it represented here. There is for example the neon on plexiglass by Patrick Martinez “Nothing Is Up but the Rent” (2021) and the flash “Abolish ICE” by Andrea Bowers (2018), created with cardboard and LED lights.
Fortunately, Lauren R. O’Connell, who curated the exhibit with Keshia Turley, did more than create a visually compelling tour of America’s current forays into capitalism, fascism, and racism. Instead, the museum has collected works of art that address the roots and antecedents of contemporary social injustices, including a trio of sculptures by Jeremy Dean Basis series confronting the fundamental systems of white supremacy in Florida, the state where recent headlines have highlighted book bans and curriculum changes designed to erase stories and deny the humanity of entire groups of people.
While arguing that lies by omission and commission are a feature, not a bug, of the nation’s systems of repression and oppression, the exhibiting artists also create space to imagine futures that go beyond the nihilism that so many propaganda seems intended to reinforce, in part by focusing individual and collective action.
Inside the museum, viewers see April Bey’s sparkling “Welcome to Atlantica (Hotel Room Planet Guide),” a 2019 artist’s book designed as a guide to a mythological place where black culture thrives , and “Concerned but Powerless: Rough Translation” by Safwat Saleem (2023), a digital video in which the artist talks with his young daughter about words and concepts related to xenophobia. Behind the museum, one of the vinyl pieces by Anna Tsouhlarakis (Navajo, Creek, Greek) from the series The Indigenous Guide Project (2019-ongoing) faces an arts district billed as a hub of Indigenous art, where it challenges stereotypical views of Native Americans while guiding narratives of the future. Minimalist black text reading “IT’S GREAT HOW YOU KNOW NATIVE AMERICANS ARE STILL HERE” contradicts popular assumptions about the aesthetics of Native art while challenging art world practices related to land recognition.
“Possibilities of Representation” by William Powhida (2020-ongoing), an expansive watercolor and gouache installation featuring a timeline of United States political history and several imaginary futures, speaks to the existence of propaganda through time with an elegant blend of history and humor, conveyed in part through imagery drawn from the overlapping realms of politics and pop culture.
Collectively, these artists inspire viewers to question and resist propaganda in its many forms, including the frenzied tweets and endless news headlines intended to create such a singular focus on the urgency of the present. that the memories of the past, the visions of the future and the actions they require, no longer exist.
Language in times of miscommunication continues at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (7374 East 2nd Street, Scottsdale, Arizona) through August 27. The exhibit was curated by Lauren R. O’Connell with Keshia Turley.
