IVLA Expo
SEEING ACROSS DISCIPLINES
04 Nov 2021 – 31 Aug 2022
SEEING ACROSS DISCIPLINES: AN OVERVIEW
by Kate Ogden, Professor of Art History, Visual Arts Program, Stockton University (USA)
Seeing Across Disciplines is the second juried virtual exhibition presented by the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA). It was organized in conjunction with the IVLA Annual Conference "Seeing Across Disciplines: Visual Literacy and Education," held online on November 5 and 6, 2021, and co-sponsored by the University of Toledo and the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio.
The Exhibition Committee was co-chaired by Petronio Bendito, Associate Professor and designer, artist, and curator, Purdue University (USA) and Karen Tardrew, Past President, IVLA, Chair, Learning Sciences in Education and Associate Professor, School of Advanced Professional Programs, National College of Education, National Louis University (USA). Members of the Exhibition Committee included Peter Carpreau, Senior Curator, M Leuven (Belgium); Geri Chesner, Associate Professor, Educational Leadership, National College of Education, National Louis University (USA); Debra A. Davis, Professor, Department of Art, School of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Toledo (USA): Kate Ogden, Professor of Art History, Visual Arts Program, Stockton University (USA); Alison Huftalen, Head Librarian, Toledo Museum of Art; Dana Statton Thompson, Vice-President of IVLA, Research and Instruction Librarian and Associate Professor, Murray State University (USA); and Michelle Wendt, President, IVLA, and Technology Integrationist, SRI&ETTC of Stockton University (USA).
The exhibition was juried by Petronio Bendito, Peter Carpreau, Debra A. Davis, Alison Huftalen, Kate Nearpass Ogden, and Dana Statton Thompson. The Online VR Installation Team was coordinated by Petronio Bendito and included Geri Chesner, Debra A. Davis, and Karen Tardrew.
Seeing Across Disciplines includes a wide range of artistic expression, including artists' videos, photographs, paintings, drawings, prints, posters, sculptures, graphics, and other digital images. The judges saw everything in the exhibition online, in a digital format, and audiences will view it in an online exhibition using the platform Kunstmatrix. The "digital revolution" influenced every stage of the exhibition, from the creation of imagery to the exhibition and catalogue. The fact that the only sculptures in the exhibition were made with 3D printing technology further indicates this move into the digital world.
The variety of work in the exhibition is characteristic of today's broader art world: no single style, medium, message, or group of artists has predominated for several decades. Today's art world is a pluralistic space in every sense, from the types of art being made to the people making the art. At least half of the artists submitting work for this exhibition were women, and several nationalities were represented.
Seeing Across Disciplines includes work by 22 artists – approximately 50 percent of the total number who submitted work – and half of them are women. Photographs, which outnumber other media in the exhibition, range from straightforward depictions of the world around us to images manipulated in various ways. The artists' videos defy reality by fracturing realistic images or creating digital forms that move through space in realistic ways.
There are paintings in the exhibition running the gamut from abstraction to naturalism and made in various media. One series of paintings is presented as an installation that flows across the walls of an architectural space. Drawings include works in pen and ink, digital media, pastels, and oils. Although in a sense everything here is digital, some works began as oil paintings on canvas and ink drawings on paper, while others were originally created on the computer.
Digitizing the images democratized them to a degree; the sizes and surfaces seen by the judges were made nearly identical in the digital realm. Digitizing may even have done a disservice to artworks made in “analog” media like paint and pencil; the surface textures and sense of a handmade object, the techniques of execution learned in art school, nearly disappeared. The jurors who considered the works in the exhibition judged their images and ideas rather than the objects with all their texture and tactility, their size and physicality.
Themes in the exhibition are hard to pin down. Images abound of nature and the world around us, but there are also subjective fictions evoking the life of the mind. An industrial building seems to fold in on itself; a tropical landscape explodes with colors and movement. History is here in images of Jules Verne, Frederick Douglass, and old photographs in an archive; modern life can be seen in images of foreign lands, commuters rushing through the subway, and a family having cake for dessert.
THE TREASON OF IMAGES
by Peter Carpreau, Senior Curator, M Leuven (Belgium)
When the Belgian surrealist René Magritte created his most iconic painting, the famous image of a pipe with the caption "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe"), he gave it the title "La trahison des images" ("The Treason of Images"). This was one of the most definitive blows to the traditional western belief in mimesis, the idea that an image could be an objective copy of something else. He exposed to the public the secret artists have known for centuries: that images created by humans have the purpose of influencing the spectator and that one of the most powerful visual tactics is to give the impression that the image is "realistic," an objective presentation of a real event. The technique Magritte used to make this clear can be called a visual key. At first glance, we see a realistic image, but one aspect of the image undermines this sense of realism and opens the image up to a much less realistic, less logical, more dreamlike and subconscious meaning. Magritte was, after all, a Surrealist.
Walking through this exhibition, Magritte springs to mind. In these works of art we constantly see one aspect that shifts our understanding of an image, a visual element that opens up a new interpretation. In Michael Arrigo's work "Overlooked," we see at first glance a crowd on a green hill during a fine spring day. The flying drone, a tiny detail in the sky, suddenly suggests another spectator who is not looking at these people from our point of view but from another perspective. This is something we are not used to in traditional western art, but it invites us to wonder who the spectator is, what they see, and why. It triggers in us a whole new narrative possibility.
Consider the work "Stems" by Susan Jane Britsch, in which we are seduced by beautiful colors and only belatedly notice a flower caught by a sewing machine needle. Why were these objects placed together? In Deborah Orloff's work, details again open up a whole new storyline, and we wonder about the identities of these people, seemingly forgotten in a pile of paper somewhere in an archive. In other works, more formal elements fulfill the role of suggesting new interpretations. The addition of text – like Magritte's "not a pipe" – can shift the image, as seen in Lisa Winstanley's work. Or the unsettling use of light and symmetry in the works of Eric Sung. Distortions of perspective, time, color, narrative, and other parameters disturb the logical coherence of an image.
All of this constitutes the freedom today's artists enjoy rather than the perfect use of visual rhetoric artists of the past used to convince viewers of a specific idea. Historically, art has often been used as propaganda. Today's use of visual keys to challenge the viewer not to accept their first interpretation opens up the image for other meanings, other stories. This, in turn, requires visual competency from the viewer, who must work out and appreciate the image with all of its implications.
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SELECTED ARTISTS
Faizan Adil
Gulbin Ozdamar Akarcay
Islam Allam
Michael Arrigo
Donna Marie Beauregard
Daniele Bongiovanni
Susan Jane Britsch
Bryce Culverhouse
De Ferrier
Mille Guldbeck
John Kinney
June Yong Lee
Gary McLeod
Barbara Miner
Ghafar Mohiudin
Nick Mullins
Deborah Orloff
Jennifer Scheuer
Eric Sung
Barry Whittaker
Lisa Winstanley
Isabel Zeng
AWARDS AND HONORS
1st Place - Eric Sung (Public Library)
2nd Place - Deborah Orloff (Young Boy)
3rd Place - Susan Jane Britsch (Stems)
Honorable mention - De Ferrier (Brookshire)
Honorable mention - Daniele Bongiovanni (Cloud And Rain Behind The Glass)
Honorable mention - Faizan Adil (light_space_gravity_3)
Honorable mention - Lisa Winstanley (Hope Is Not a Strategy)
EXHIBITION JURY
Petronio Bendito
Peter Carpreau
Debra A. Davis
Alison Huftalen
Kate Nearpass Ogden
Dana Statton Thompson
.
.
EXHIBITION COMMITTEE
Petronio Bendito, co-chair
Karen Tardrew, co-chair
Peter Carpreau
Geri Chesner
Debra A. Davis
Alison Huftalen
Kate Nearpass Ogden
Dana Statton Thompson
Michelle Wendt
ONLINE VR INSTALLATION TEAM
Petronio Bendito, coordinator
Geri Chesner
Debra Davis
Karen Tardrew
CONFERENCE PLANNING CHAIRS
Michelle Wendt
IVLA President
Technology Integration Specialist & Adjunct Instructor
Stockton University
Dana Statton Thompson - Conference Chair
IVLA Vice-President
Research and Instruction Librarian & Assistant Professor
Arthur J. Bauernfeind College of Business
Murray State University
Heidi Appel - Steering Committee Chair / Professor of Environmental Sciences / Dean, Jesup Scott Honors College
/ The University of Toledo
Mike Deetsch - Steering Committee Chair / Emma Leah Bippus / Senior Director of Learning and Interpretation / Toledo Museum of Art
Eric Pilcher - Programming Committee Chair / Literacy Lecturer – Department of Teacher Educationn / The Judith Herb College of Education / The University of Toledo
Debra A. Davis - Keynote Committee Chair / Professor
/ Department of Art / School of Visual and Performing Arts I CAL
/ University of Toledo
Alison Mejias Santoro - Logistics Committee Chair / Academic & Adult Programs Coordinator / Toledo Museum of Art
Karen Tardrew - Art Exhibit Co-Chair / Chair, Learning Sciences in Education / Associate Professor, School of Advanced Professional Programs / National College Of Education, National-Louis University
Petronio Bendito - Art Exhibit Co-Chair / Associate Professor Visual Communication Design / Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance, College of Liberal Arts,
Purdue University
INTERNATIONAL VISUAL LITERACY ASSOCIATION
The International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA) is an interdisciplinary organization of professionals working toward a fuller understanding of the way we derive meaning from what we see and the way we interact with our visual environment.
IVLA MEMBERSHIP
IVLA members represent a wide range of disciplines including arts, sciences, communication theory, semiotics, graphic design, photography, videography, media studies, digital technology, architecture, business, education, educational technology, instructional design, health, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, cultural anthropology, brain research, computer applications, museum studies, and more. In addition to regular membership, IVLA offers student, retiree, life, and institutional membership.
https://ivla.org
https://ivlaconference.org
CATALOGUE
Sharable download link to PDF Catalogue on Google Drive
https://tinyurl.com/jvhuxu6t
