Jeannette Ehlers
One of the pieces of work I viewed was Black Magic at the White House by Jeannette Ehlers
In this piece of art work the slideshow shows slave ghosts dancing or lighting candles or inscriptions in a White House Colonial Mansion. But more on this piece after we look a little into more of the artists work.
I noticed Jeannette Ehlers the artist appears to be of African ancestry and a lot of her work appears to be egocentric and centered around that. Here webpage where you can view her work is at Jeannette Ehlers Homepage. In addition to her work in the gallery I viewed her online work. One that I found very interesting was How Do You Talk About Threehundred Years in Four Minutes | 2014 | Excerpt 02:35 min . located at http://www.jeannetteehlers.dk/m4v/video22.htm which is very interesting. In it is an African man in a large backed wicker chair which is turning and turning during the whole time. It says "There is an old man, across the Mississippi, there's an old man. And the dead don't rest to Judgement day. Don't look up and don't look down, the ghost that makes the rich man frown. Then give me bow your heads, and look at them ropes until your dead." The words are as is and some were left out just to narrow the discussion. I definitely would recommend that everyone check out her site and this video.
The artist Jeannette Ehlers main theme is African themes focusing on disadvantage over the centuries, discrimination, and how power affects Africans.
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| How do you Talk about 300 years in 4 minutes? http://www.jeannetteehlers.dk/m4v/video22.htm The artist Jeannette Ehlers main theme is African themes focusing on disadvantage over the centuries, discrimination, and how power affects Africans. The only piece I noticed that didn't seem to directly point to an African theme was "Waves | 2009 | 08:04 min (loop) I feel that the Black Magic at the White House demonstrates that African labor and hard sweat contributed to the power in the White House and contributed to even that power today, and in most cases represents a clear power division between whites and blacks in the United States. We can relate this piece to "300 years in four minutes" whereas it shows how oppression takes its part against Africans in countries such as America. On the outside too, everything looks great, fancy, elegant, but on the inside you see the labors the African women are putting into the mansion day in and day night, even their ghosts remain there in the Colonial mansion dancing and cleaning, dancing and cleaning. Note how these works by Ehler demonstrate both racial inequality, how spaces that are predominately non-African are favored, and how Power plays out. As mentioned prior, the artist emphasizes the African culture in different countries, and how space, location, nationality, imperialism and race play a part to disadvantage Africans.
I think that in the book "Seeing
Power" we can bring some comparisons to power and how it plays a
part. The book references Katrina. “After Visiting Katrina-ravaged New Orleans
in 2006, the artist and activist Paul Chan was struck by the thought that the
decimated landscapes and looming oak trees in New Orleans reminded him, more
than anything, of the minimalist set called for in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for
Godot. It was, perhaps, an odd association,
but Chan saw what he saw: a theater of
absurdity in the weed-grown streets.
Beckett’s play begins with the most-simple stage instructions, a country
road, a tree, evening. It is both
everywhere and nowhere placeless, without contest and almost outside of
time. The flooded remnants of post-Katrina
neighborhoods seemed to fit that description in all its most haunting
implications. Where once houses stood
there were only stone front steps that led to homes that weren’t their
foundations disappearing amongst the abundant tropical flora, the desiccated
trash from a flood long passed still hauled into piles along the roads.” Here I feel like you can relate all the pieces of art to the note by the author. Katrina was widely ignored and the devastation and destruction was ignored. Louisiana and these areas were mostly African American and they were left unfixed and not helped. The Power was in majority white neighborhoods and thus these neighborhoods, even though for tourism, were widely ignored for a great time (Thompson, "Seeing Power" 107).
Nigra Videri
Avantia Danburg
The next piece I did was “Nigra
Videri” by Avantia Danburg & Ailsa
Anastatia. It is an animation. It depicts an African woman who in the beginning
is walking solely alone down a subway escalator. She soon passes a sign that says “this months
word is faith” and she enters on through a door with a handicap sign on
it. However it is not a handicap door, and
the black woman is not handicapped in a physical sense, but this symbolizes
that she is handicapped in life, by society.
The subway representing a public place.
“I’m there but I’m not I’m there when I want too.” The character says this as she is looking out
the window onto the streets. Then she
begins to walk down the center of the street on a walking median. To Sidewalk which appears to be a run down
area. She then says, “I share my color,
at my time.” She begins to touch the
building and it appears as if it burns.
Like her color actually destroys the value of the house and section she
is in. Portraying the sense of how the minority
is below those in power. I feel like the next scene depicts like white and black roots and the black roots and thicker but the white roots are all over and then it continues into the clock throughout time but forever stuck at 7 o'clock which may represent the hour of God or Faith.
Forever stuck in time at 7, does it represent the hour of God or Faith?
The next scene depicts what appears to be a raven and the character gets on her back and flies over a stadium. I am assuming maybe the stadium is a Katrina Stadium and then it says, "When I want them to see me" and the character is on a stage with a microphone and it appears she is about to give a speech to the public. The rest continues with this theme. They show how power plays an affect. Imperalism, race and identity all play a role in this piece of art.
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When I want them to see me (from Nigra Videri)
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Bibliography
Avantia Danburg & Ailsa Anastatia. Online: https://vimeo.com/48663987
Ehlers, Jeannette. Online: http://www.jeannetteehlers.dk/
Thompson, Nato. "Seeing Power Art and Activism in the 21st century."
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