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INTRODUCTION TO THE 1990 MILWAUKEE SHADOWS PROJECT CATALOG
THIS SHOW WAS HELD AT THE WOODLAND PATTERN ARTS CENTER GALLERY
SUMMER, 1990
By Karl Young, Curator
The Manhattan Project was a microcosm of the nuclear age. It was
conducted in secret. The American public did not know it was going on,
nor did the majority of military and political personnel. Only two of
the twelve men aboard the plane that dropped the first bomb knew what
they were carrying when they took off. The American people were not
asked if the bomb should be used -- they were not trusted to make the
decisions that the president and a small circle of cohorts wanted. At
the same time, the elite Manhattan Project scientists weren't trusted
either: a secret army of spies kept them under surveillance.
There you have three of the main characteristics of the nuclear age:
secrecy, elitism, and exclusion. The next element, terror, also
surrounded the Manhattan Project. The ostensible reason for using
nuclear weapons was to terrify the Japanese into surrender. Japan's
surrender, however, took a back seat to the need to spread greater
terror in the Soviet Union. That worked so well that the U.S. and the
U.S.S.R. have spent the succeeding forty five years terrifying the
world by inventing ever more fiendish ways of terrifying each other.
But opposition has also been characteristic of the age. After the
defeat of Nazi Germany, many of the Manhattan Project scientists
wanted to stop work on the bomb. Although their protests were muzzled,
it is clear that opposition to nuclear weapons began BEFORE the
first one was tested and before the bombing of Hiroshima.
The 1990 International Shadows Project represents a particularly
appropriate tradition of opposition. For over a decade people around
the world have gone about their communities outlining each other's
bodies in memory of those Hiroshima residents who had been vaporized
by the first bomb. Performance artists have joined this tradition. In
the U.S., John Held, Jr. has been indefatigable in such efforts.
Ruggero Maggi of Milan, Italy has not only been active in
performances, he and Held have united Mail Art and Shadows Projects.
Maggi sponsored several shows in Italy in the mid '80's, and took part
in organizing a major show in Hiroshima in 1988. Work from this show
passed on to a 1989 show in Calexico, under the curatorship of Harry
Polkinhorn. The Calexico show in turn formed the nucleus of this
year's expanded Milwaukee show.
Mail Art is intrinsically opposed to the secrecy, elitism, and
exclusion of the nuclear age. It is thoroughly unhieratic. It is not
localized in centers of power and authority, but emanates from
everywhere and can go anywhere. Mail Art matured and continues to have
a large following in the Fascist dictatorships of Latin America, the
totalitarian countries of Eastern Europe, the U.S.S.R. and other
places where political commitment has been strong and the need to
avoid censorship has been great. Many American Mail Artists see the
genre as a means of confounding economic censorship. In addition to
making a case against nuclear weapons, the show argues the case for
freedom of every sort, including freedom from censorship, freedom from
repressive governments, and freedom from class, race, and social
prejudice. It does so by offering complete freedom of expression to
participants.
Although freedom from the terror of nuclear annihilation is
foregrounded in this show, the desire for freedom from other forms of
terror is also represented. For nearly half a century the human race
has been enslaved by nuclear weapons and the world they have created.
The nuclear virus has spread everywhere. Consider, for instance, that
freedom from hunger is the most basic of freedoms. If the enormous
resources devoted to nuclear weaponry had been directed toward
agriculture and food distribution, we would live in a world free from
hunger. If the ingenuity lavished on nuclear delivery systems had been
used to develop alternative energy sources, we would be free from
dependency on fossil fuel. Fissionable materials remain lethal for
thousands of years. That means that we are not free to restructure
society along different lines: someone will have to tend our nuclear
wastes for millennia. Freedom from sociopolitical terror is also a
basic freedom. Had we not carefully laid the foundations for terror as
panacea forty five years ago, we would be closer to freedom from
terror today, and terrorism would not have been elevated to the status
of an ideology or a religion.
The nuclear age has been alive with proposals for the elimination of
nuclear terror. Ours is simple: to answer slavery with freedom; to
answer elitism with universal enfranchisement; to answer exclusion
with openness; to answer expensive weaponry with art that can be
produced inexpensively; to answer terror with visions of peace.
SURVEY OF THE 1990 SHADOWS PROJECT SHOW
The Woodland Pattern Book Center consists of a book store and a gallery-
performance area. You enter the gallery through a hallway from the
bookstore. In the hall we hung a participatory piece, OUR SHADOWS STAND
TOGETHER. This is a large cloth on which visitors could draw shadows
around each other. Pens were left at the base of the piece to facilitate
the drawing of these shadows. I had expected a static composite, defined
by the largest and smallest participants, with line density increasing
toward the mean size. Participants, however, positioned themselves in
ways that kept their shadows from repeating those that had been made
before. Some added drawings and messages. This collective and
spontaneous effort shows that participants weren't going to stand
still in the middle of the cloth and simply fill in a space. They had
their own ideas of what they wanted to do and weren't going to try to
figure out or obey what some absent authority figure expected of them.
As a result, they created a much more lively and profound piece than I
had expected. This optimistic piece emphatically underscored the point
of the whole project.
The gallery is a large, rectangular room. The design problem for the
show was to use this space to best advantage. I made a number of
preliminary sketches, contrasting areas of greater and lesser density
with areas of negative space, working areas with a vertical
orientation against horizontal and angular designs. Most design work
beyond this was done on a day to day basis by Anne Kingsbury and Karl
Gartung who worked out excellent solutions to difficult problems.
Among the problems were how to keep small pieces from being
overwhelmed by larger ones nearby, how to display envelopes, how to
let each piece keep its individuality while interacting with the show
as a whole.
You enter the room from the west. At the center of the eastern wall we
set up several cubes in the form of an altar. On the top of this we
placed a garland of cranes made by Mizuho Kakiue specifically for this
show. Mrs. Kakiue was a child on the outskirts of Hiroshima at the
time of the bombing. A painting by nine year old Jules Villanueva-
Castano, the youngest contributor at the time of the opening, was
placed below this garland. Two other crane garlands were lent to the
show by visitors. The altar was the exhibit's centerpiece, both
underscoring the fact that Hiroshima victims included an inordinate
number of children, and that the consequences of continued nuclear
insanity will be a world in which there will be no future, in which
the succession of generations will cease.
The north and south walls worked out the patterns mentioned above. Cut
out and painted shadows formed a motif through all the walls,
culminating on the western wall. Here they not only reached their
greatest density, some were bent around angles in the wall. No
negative space was left as visual relief or visual silence on this
wall.
Many contributors did not address nuclear weaponry directly. Two large
pieces by Clemente Padin of Montevideo traced shadows of Disappeared
Persons in his country. Others addressed the same issue, as well as
child and spouse abuse, censorship, AIDS, colonialism, and other
horrors under the nuclear umbrella. These formed a second motif,
asking the viewer not to see nuclear arms in too narrow a context.
The show constantly changed. Work kept coming in past the deadline.
Works not immediately mounted were placed on tables at the center of
the room when it was not being used as performance space. Many
contributors sent poetry, and some of the poems were initially placed
on the tables. Later many were moved to the walls and eventually bound
into books. Patrons of Woodland Pattern often sit in the store or the
gallery and read available books. _The POETRY FROM THE SHADOWS_ books
were read by many visitors, including those who wanted to sit down for
a while before looking further, and by those who felt more comfortable
reading poetry from books than on a wall.
Though the world changed drastically after the first Hiroshima Day, life
has gone on. Those of us who have participated in this project have done
so in the hope that humanity can continue despite its present suicidal
course. There's more than a little crazy optimism in this hope. Maybe
that's what will ultimately save us from ourselves.
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TWO POEMS FROM THE 1990 CATALOGUE:
from _THE SEVEN HELLS OF JIGOKU ZOSHI_
THE SEVENTH HELL: of smoke, where fire-raisers
try in vain to escape
from a shower of hot sand falling
from a cloud
BY JEROME ROTHENBERG
The Houses of men are on fire
Pity the dead in their graves
& the homes of the living
Pity the roofbeams whose waters burn till they're ash
Pity the old clouds devoured by the clouds of hot sand
& the sweat that's drawn out of metals pity that too
Pity the teeth robbed of gold
The bones when their skin falls away
Pity man's cry when the sun the sun is born in his cities
& the thunder breaks down his door
& pity the rain
For the rain falls on the deserts of man & is lost
If the mind is a house that has fallen
Where will the eye find rest
The images rise from the marrow & cry in the blood
Pity man's voice in the smoke-filled days
& his eyes in the darkness
Pity the sight of his eyes
For what can a man see in the darkness
What can he see but the children's bones & the black bones buried
But the places between spaces & the places of sand
& the places of black teeth
The faraway places
The black sand carried & the black bones buried
The black veins hanging from the open skin
& the blood changed to glass in the night
The eye of man is on fire
A green bird cries from his house
& opens a red eye to death
The sun drops out of a pine tree
Brushing the earth with its wings
For what can a man see in the morning
What can he see but the fire-raisers
The shadow of the fire-raisers lost in the smoke
The shadow of the smoke where the hot sand is falling
The fire-raisers putting a torch to their arms
The green smoke ascending
Pity the children of man
Pity their bones when the skin falls away
Pity the skin devoured by fire
The fire devoured by fire
The mind of man is on fire
& where will his eye find rest
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MY BEAUTIFUL HIROSHIMA TEACHER
BY KEIKO MATSUI GIBSON
Crimson sunset in Lake Michigan.
I think of a beautiful woman
in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped.
Was she fortunate not to be killed
with the 200,000 others?
Was she fortunate to stay alive?
Bright light
crushed her breath
windows burst
she went out
she woke far off
stuck all over
with broken glass
she couldn't scream
in blood and pain
no word would do
or will ever do
she felt the end of the world
Fujiko is more beautiful because of her scars
Fujiko is more beautiful because many men and women have loved her
Fujiko is more beautiful because she has lived alone
Fujiko is more beautiful because she has taught many students
Fujiko is more beautiful because she has always
loved Hiroshima
Fujiko is more beautiful because she plans to live
in a tiny farmhouse there
Fujiko is more beautiful because she does not fear
the inevitable cancer
Fujiko is more beautiful because of her peace
The wormy scar on her neck
tells the folly of history.
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########################################################################
Poem by Jerome Rothenberg copyright (C) 1990 by Jerome Rothenberg. #
Poem by Keiko Matsui Gibson copyright (C) 1990 by Keiko Matsui Gibson #
########################################################################
THE FOLLOWING RETROSPECTIVE APPEARED IN THE 1990 SHADOWS PROJECT CATALOGUE:
SHADOW: THE INTERNATIONAL SHADOW PROJECT
CALEXICO, CALIFORNIA, AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1989
BY HARRY POLKINHORN, CURATOR
The Calexico Shadow Project took place in a small gallery environment
at the Imperial Valley campus of San Diego State University. Located
within walking distance of the U.S.-Mexico international boundary, the
gallery featured works by artists from all over the world. During the
planning phase, the organizers approached Ruggero Maggi of Milan,
Italy, who has been a key figure in the International Shadow Project
for several years now. Long active in mail art and underground
networking of alternative art forms, Maggi forwarded many of the works
exhibited in Japan during the 1988 event. The sponsorship of the
Shadow Project by the California State University marks perhaps the
first time that the Shadow Project's goals have been so supported by a
public agency.
Of additional significance, of course, is our location on the border.
Those who live in a bicultural context are acutely aware of the
conflicts between values, beliefs, and customs which residing on the
border exacerbates; they are also aware of the interdependence of
people, our compelling need to acknowledge difference in order to
survive under its mandate. As a place with little history; a social
laboratory made up of in-migrants from central Mexico who mix with
Mexican American, Anglo American, and other residents of southern
California; the abrasive divide between a developed and a developing
economy, spanned by the U.S.-controlled mass media -- as all of this
and more, the border provides a very appropriate setting for the
objectives and ideology of the International Shadow Project.
Another locus of conflict and accommodation which a border environment
manifests is of course language itself. Visual art does not transcend
the level on which such problems occur but substitutes alternative
sets of codes for the verbal. Interestingly, much of the work in the
Shadow Project features both visual and verbal systems, as if to
underscore a drive to overcome the loss of communication which takes
place between cultures, languages, and media. In spite of these
preconditions, these works speak bluntly: the message is one of the
necessity for tolerance of difference if we are to survive.
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CONTRIBUTORS TO THE 1990 SHADOWS PROJECT SHOW
A.
Peter Ahlberg (Sweden); Casteli Alberto (Italy); Ernest Alberto
(Mexico); Josephina Alcala Lopez (Mexico); Charles Alexander (U.S.A.);
Mark Amerika (U.S.A.); Michael Andre (U.S.A.); Komives Andor
(Romania); Lengyel Andras (Hungary); Antler (U.S.A.); Atmosphere
Controlled (Denmark); Avago (Austria);
B.
Kun Nam Baik (Korea); Anna Banana (Canada); Vittorio Baccelli (Italy);
Ken Baker (U.S.A.); Claudine Barbot (U.S.A.); Gerard Barbot (U.S.A.);
Vittore Baroni (Italy); Umberto Basso (Italy); Pap Bela (Hungary); Guy
Beining (U.S.A.); Juan di Bella (Mexico); John M. Bennett (U.S.A.);
Giuseppe Beoeschi (Italy); Carol Berge (U.S.A.); Martha Bergland
(U.S.A.); Daniel Berrigan (U.S.A.); Carla Bertola (Italy); Guy Bleus
(Belgium); Giovanni Bonanno (Italy); Dario Bozzolo (Italy); Anna
Boschi (Italy); Cesar Brandao (Brasil); McCanon Brown (U.S.A.); Joseph
Bruchac III (U.S.A.); Equipe Bruscky (Brasil); Dietrich Buhrow (W.
Germany); Serfio A. Burguez (Mexico); Peter Van Beveren (Belgium);
C.
Glauco Lendaro Camilles (Italy); Terra Candella (U.S.A.); Michael
Catsro (U.S.A.); Giuseppe Canzi (Italy); Bruno Capati (Italy); Jorge
Caraballo (Uruguay); Center for International Education (U.S.A.); Che
(U.S.A.); Ryosuke Cohen (Japan); Geoffrey Cook (U.S.A.); Antonio Cirao
(Italy); David Cole (U.S.A.); Collective of the Italian Mail Art
Meating; Flavio Coltri (Italy); Paul Cope (England); Michel Collet
(France); Raimondo Cortese (Australia); Costis (Greece); Gincarlo
Cristiani (Italy); Robin Crozier (England);
D.
Daniel Daligand (France); Guillermo Deisler (W. Germany); Raimondo Del
Prete (Italy); Wally Depew (U.S.A.); Jean-Claude Deprez (Belgium);
Carlo Desiro (U.S.A.); Rino de Michele (Italy); Marcello Diotallevi
(Italy); Bill DiMichele (U.S.A.); Desirey Dodge [Peace Post] (U.S.A.);
Marcello Diotallevi (Italy); Matthias Dreyer (W. Germany); Andrzej
Dudek (Poland); Francoise Duvivier (France);
E.
John Eberly (U.S.A.); Egg (U.S.A.); Theodore Enslin (U.S.A.); Cesar
Espinosa (Mexico); Ever Arts (Netherlands);
F.
FaGaGaGa (U.S.A.); Arturo G. Fallico (U.S.A.); Rob Finlayson
(Australia); Charles Francois (Belgium); Mariagrazia Federico (Italy);
H.R. Friker (Switzerland); Cesar Figueiredo (Portugal); Tetsuya Fukui
(Japan);
G.
V. Gabriell (Yugoslavia); Jesus Romeo Galdamez (El Salvador/Mexico);
Kenneth Gangemi (U.S.A.); Gene Ganow (U.S.A.); Karl Gartung (U.S.A.);
Keiko Matsui Gibson (U.S.A.); Morgan Gibson (U.S.A.); Gino Gini
(Italy); Luigi Giurandella (Italy); Bedeschi Giuseppe (Italy); Antonio
Gomez (Spain); Rafael Jesus Gonzalez (U.S.A.); Mario Grandi (Italy);
Anette and Michael Groschopp (E. Germany); Petra Grund (E. Germany);
Pedro J. Gutierrez (Cuba); Graqciela Gutierrez Marx (Argentina);
H.
Mayumi Handa (Japan); Lotte Rosenkilde Hansen (Denmark); Mike Hazard
(U.S.A.); He Mi ["Beauty Surrounding"] (Japan); Scott Helmes (U.S.A.);
John Held, Jr. (U.S.A.); Red Herring (England); Hans Hess (E.
Germany); Crag Hill (U.S.A.); Alexandra Holownia-Mattmuller (W.
Germany); Gene Hosey (U.S.A.); G. Huth (U.S.A.);
J.
Lou Janac (U.S.A.); Janet Janet (U.S.A.); Miroslav Janousek
(Czechoslovakia); Chris Jensen (U.S.A.); Ko De Jonge (Netherlands);
Gregg Jupa (U.S.A.);
K.
Mizuho Kakiue (Japan); Ulrich Kattensroth (W. Germany); Kowa Kato
(Japan); Karl Kempton (U.S.A.); Detlef Kappis (E. Germany); Roberto
Keppler (Brasil); Bliem Kern (U.S.A.); Paulo Klein (Brasil); Eckhard
Koenig (W. Germany); steen krarup (Denmark); Ilmar Kruusmae (Estonia -
U.S.S.R.); Zvonimir Krtulovic (Yugoslavia); Jack Kronebusch (U.S.A.);
Sadako Kurihara (Japan); Arto Kytohanka (Finland);
L.
La Follette/Silver Wind (U.S.A.); Kurt Landler (U.S.A.); James
Lawrence (U.S.A.); Valeria Landolfini (Italy); Freddy Lapenna (Italy);
Herald Lehnardt (W. Germany); Michael Leigh (England); Carmen Leon
(U.S.A.); torbjorn lime (Sweden); Joel Lipman (U.S.A.); Oranzo Liuzzi
(Italy); Richard Long (England); marco lorenzoni (Italy); Luce
(Belgium); Serse Luigetti (Italy); Solamito Luigino (Italy); Freddy
Lupenna (Italy);
M.
Jackson Mac Low (U.S.A.); ManWoman (Canada); Ruggero Maggi (Italy);
Olga Maggiera (Italy); Reima Makinen (Finland); William Mann (U.S.A.);
Roberto Marchi (Italy); Stephen-Paul Martin (U.S.A.); S. Martinou
(Greece); Mata (Spain); Antonella Mattei (Italy); Alina McDonald
(Australia); Herbert A. Meyer (W. Germany); Ruth Miles (U.S.A.);
Cynthia Miller (U.S.A.); Angela & Henning Mittendorf (W. Germany);
Kusacic Miro (Yugoslavia); Seiko Miyazaki (Japan); Adele Monaca
(Italy); Rene Montes (France); Emilio Morandi (Italy); Chris Mosdell
(Japan); Jack Moskovitz (U.S.A.); Rodrigo Munoz (Mexico); Roman
Mszynski (Poland); Caroline Muchhala (U.S.A.); Nathan Muchhala
(U.S.A.); Kazunori Murakami (Japan);
N.
Shigeru Nakayama (Japan); Steve Nelson-Raney (U.S.A.); Giorio Nelva
(Italy); Rea Nikonova (U.S.S.R.); Mogens ollo Nielsen (Denmark);
Norman Conquest (U.S.A.); Jean-Pierre Naud (France); Hugo Pontes
(Brasil);
O.
Atsuko Ochiai (Japan); Aloys Ohlman (W. Germany); Makoto Okuno
(Japan); Andrea Ovcinnicoff (Italy);
P.
Clemente Padin (Uruguay); Massimo Pattaro (Italy); Shane Paul
(U.S.A.); Teresinka Pereira (U.S.A.); Michele Perfetti (Italy); Pawel
Petasz (Poland); Michael Joseph Phillips (U.S.A.); Stuart Pid
(U.S.A.); Barry Edgar Pilcher (England); bruno pollacci (Italy); Harry
Polkinhorn (U.S.A.); Jeff Poniewaz (U.S.A.); Bern Porter (U.S.A.);
Q.
Julio Quispe (Peru);
R.
Robert Rehfeldt (W. Germany); Sherry Jo Reniker (Japan); Tulio
Restrepo (Colombia); Harland Ristau (U.S.A.); M.P. Fanna Roncoroni
(Italy); Waclaw Ropiecki (Poland); Salvatore de Rosa (Italy); Erika
Rothenberg (U.S.A.); Jerome Rothenberg (U.S.A.); Rupocinski (Poland);
S.
Mako Sakoda (Japan); Loredana Sanganelli (Italy); Vesselin Sariev
(Bulgaria); Marco Sbizzera (U.S.A.); C. Schneck (U.S.A.); Wolfgang
Scholtz (W. Germany); Serge Segay (U.S.S.R.); Jan Serr (U.S.A.);
Lucien Seul (France); Shozo Shimamoto (Japan); Shmuel (U.S.A.); Marie
Snell (U.S.A.); Fulgor C. Silvi (Italy); Maria Rosa Simoni (Austria);
Christopher Skiba (Poland); Valter Smokovic (Yugoslavia); Elson B.
Snow (U.S.A.); John Solt (U.S.A.); Pete Spence (U.S.A.); Chuck Stake
(Canada); Joachim Stangle (Italy); State of Being (U.S.A.); Manfred
Stirnemann (Switzerland); Marcel Stussi (Switzerland); Giovanni Strada
(Italy);Russell Swabe (U.S.A.); Arthur Sze (U.S.A.);
T.
Piero Tacconi (Italy); Mukata Takamura (Japan); Kazuyoshi Takeishi
(Japan); Ruben Tani (Uruguay); Anne Tardos (U.S.A.); Nathaniel Tarn
(U.S.A.); Harvey Taylor (U.S.A.); Andre Tisma (Yugoslavia); Jean
Toyama (U.S.A.); Roberta Tyree/Holt (U.S.A.);
V.
Jose VdBroucke (Belgium); Franco Vallone (Italy); Alma Luz Villanueva
(U.S.A.); Jules Villanueva-Castano (U.S.A.); Martha Villegas (U.S.A.);
Justo Vigil (Peru); Stephen Vicary (U.S.A.); Alberto Vitacchio
(Italy); Candido Vetia (Spain);
W.
David Waite (U.S.A.); Joy Walsh (U.S.A.); Tamotso Watanabe (Japan);
Achim Weigelt (W. Germany); Franz-Milan Wirth (Austria);Don Wellman
(U.S.A.); Peter Witkauski (U.S.A.); Phil Woods (U.S.A.); Ruth Wulf-
Rehfeldt (W. Germany); Gerd Wunderer (Austria);
Y.
Richard J. Yost (U.S.A.); Karl Young (U.S.A.);
Z.
Maria Grazia Zamparini (Italy); Biro Zozsef (Hungary); Roberto Zito
(Italy);
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For more information on Shadows projects contact Karl Young
karlyoung@delphi.com