March Issue 2000
Colonialism for a New Century at Mint Museum of Art in Uptown Charlotte, NC
As the fourth exhibition in the series, New Frontiers: elin o'Hara slavick the Mint Museum of Art, in Charlotte, NC, presents the most politically-engaged work in the series to date. An assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, slavick's multimedia installation includes photography, drawings, and conceptual work that explore on various levels the interconnectedness of the American military and American tourist presence throughout the world.
The artist asks the question - How does the way in which the United States military-industrial complex view the rest of the world correspond to the troubled manner in which Western tourists view the lands they experience? slavick's work suggests that the attitudes of 19th century Western civilizations toward the colonial cultures they dominated find contemporary realization in the practices of today's soldiers, travelers and civilizations alike. Invasion for the artist occurs at the numerous points in our society and is directed at various targets.
In her series of drawings, Everywhere the United States has Bombed, the artist creates vibrant, jarring interpretations of the geography that has served as the bull's-eye for many manned and unmanned bombing raids. In her Bombing Baghdad, The First 24 Hours, the artist provides an aerial view of the city of Baghdad, figuratively spotted with the red blood of the casualties. The importance of the map as the source of information connects these horrible images with the needs of the traveler, who must rely on cartography for guidance. The exhibition also includes a series of travel posters that the artist has created from photographs taken during her travels. By putting herself in the position as recorder, the artist opens herself to the same critique as an exploiter of "foreignness" that she wages at those who travel.
Like
the Bombing drawings, her photographs of the city of Fayetteville,
NC, explore the impact of the military on civilian institutions.
In this case though, slavick has replaced the aerial views of
foreign lands with figure-based photographs of neighbors. Along
with anthropologist Kathy Lutz, with whom slavick is collaborating
on a book about Fayetteville, the artist creates startling and
haunting images that serve as an indictment of the military's
impact on the social life of the city.
The recent protests at the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle have called attention to what might become the defining issue of the new century - turmoil in the stability of the world economic markets. Trend watchers, economists and political pundits alike have identified the growing rift between the industrialized world of consumers and the production markets as the site for the international unrest in the coming years. slavick's lightbox, "Global Economy", graphically exposes the inner workings of the international economic system that relies on exploitation for growth, literally laying bare the intricacies of the system.
Finally, the exhibition features a scrapbook of photographic imagery that has appeared in the British leftist weekly, the Manchester Guardian over the last year. slavick has recombined the images into telling juxtapositions about the media's role in supporting and maintaining the economic and political systems that codify the split between the haves and the have nots.
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or contact the Museum at 704/337-2000 or check out their web site at (http://www.mintmuseum.org).
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