Longing and Belonging: The Faraway to Nearby. - book reviews

Afterimage, Sept-Oct, 1997 by K. Johnson Bowles

Published in 1996 by SITE Santa Fe, Longing and Belonging: The Faraway to Nearby documents an event that focused on the phenomenological relationship between people and their environment. The book includes a portfolio of color photographs documenting works (mostly installation) by the 31 artists included in the exhibition of the same name (July 14 to October 8, 1995) at SITE Santa Fe and the Museum of Fine Arts/Museum of New Mexico. It includes essays by Dick Hedbige, Lucy Lippard, Reesa Greenberg and Bruce W. Ferguson and Vincent J. Varga; excerpts from the symposium "The Place of Place" held in conjunction with the exhibition; as well as succinct statements by the artists and brief biographies. Among other things, the format of the book is refreshingly atypical and seeks to document the exhibition as an experience. Like for many documents of ground-breaking significance, however, one must have faith in the inspired title and commit oneself to forge through a visually and verbally dense terrain.

The organizers included Lippard's essay, "Around Here/Out There Notes From a Recent Arrival," even though it criticized their project. Significantly, Lippard discusses Wendell Berry's "place ethic" and chides organizers for embracing the art and nature rhetoric without considering essential communal responsibility, respect and empathy. She states, "In conventional theme shows like 'Longing and Belonging,' outsiders may bring fresh eyes and insights, and may make wonderful things that have little to do with the host site." And adds, ". . . it included site-specific (but not place-specific) works." More significantly, Lippard points out, "it would seem a common courtesy to invite the participation of a token number (at the very least) of artists and other people who live in a place that is about to be highlighted, especially those who have lived there long enough to know the place well . . . Any place is diminished when it becomes a mere backdrop for mainstream art." Lippard ends with "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Her acerbic pen seems justified when one considers that there was only a one-line mention of an exhibition of 200 lowrider cars during the event. in fact, Lippard could have been more critical, especially since Francis Aly's is given full credit for a mural painted in collaboration with lowrider artists Dennis, Randy and Nolan Martinez. The Martinez's names are in tiny type under the media description, yet it was their vision and painting of Aly's topic.

One of the most successful aspects of the book are the carefully photographed, selected and placed images of each installation. The images flow with a mesmerizing ability to hold the viewer's attention. However, there is an overload of quotations and the book begins to be reminiscent of a school yearbook. Each essay has a solid-colored divider page with quotations. The repetition of images in Lippard's essay are a bit too school portrait-like. Finding the table of contents on page 67 was also quirky. Trying to give the reader an experience of an experience is laudable. Unfortunately, it was not entirely successful and visions of National Lampoon's 1964 Yearbook became too vivid.

Another design issue is Hedbige's essay, "On Tumbleweed and Body Bags: Remembering America," which in itself is difficult to evaluate because of the design. Hedbige's essay is a free-flowing, pensive compilation of quotations (about 65 in 21 pages) and observations that related to the exhibition's title. The switching back and forth between his voice and the voice of others is distracting and difficult to follow. Its difficulty seems to be what it is all about in the end:

Suddenly it's time to leave home again and come back here to where I live, and as I replace the receiver I catch myself, reflected in the mirror by the mantelpiece, face cracked open in the goofy, oafish, adolescent grin I recognized from ancient schoolboy portraits in the family photo album. . . My accent has slipped so far back down towards its 1950s cockney origin that the attendant at the Arco station, where I stop several hours later to by gas, cannot understand a single word I'm saying.

Though it never formally discussed the exhibition or concept, Hedbige's essay is a unique and effective tool to express the essence of the title Longing and Belonging. The problem for the reader is getting to the end of the essay as designed in print. It would be easy orally; however, this remains a book, not a video, and the tools for the designer are font and style changes.

The real problem is how the curators Ferguson and Varga discuss the works in the exhibition. "Long and Belonging," the inaugural exhibition for SITE Santa Fe, was comprised of works by 31 national and international artists using a variety of media. The information provided on the frontispiece about the exhibition states that the works addressed "personal, political, social, and group identities in the complex and increasingly global environment." This statement does not do justice to the profound and poetic nature of many of the works. However, the key flaw is hinted at in this statement. This exhibition tries to be too inclusive. Its openness is its demise, as Ferguson and Varga have difficulty embracing the whole at times.