Jericho SadorraArtist Lecture Critique #1

Leslie Umberger Davidson Math and Science Center Room 110PowerPoint presentation on 'Shifting the Mainstream Narrative in American Art Five Self-taught Artists Who Made a Difference'10/15/15 @ 5:30PM

Leslie Umberger, through a PowerPoint presentation that touched on several artists who never went through a formal artistic education, but instead taught themselves. She stresses the fact that they're "organic" and that they "reinvent culture and America itself." Leslie tried to persuade the audience that these artists shifted the mainstream narrative by the use of rhetoric in order to tell the life story of these artists and showing pictures of these artists making their work. Her first example was an artists who had the nickname "El Italiano" who was proclaimed to be an engineering genius in which he created the first earthquake proof building and the person who built the largest structure by himself. This explanation of his work certainly took a hit on me-- he was bullied, a creative, bullied by his neighbors in fear that the towers he built were spy towers for the Germans during World War II. He abandoned his project and this instigated the city of Los Angeles to issue destruction of his work. Despite the city wanting to take down the three towering steel towers, grassroot efforts stopped the destruction with the argument that "no one should be able to take down art." No one should ever be able to mute an artist-- and to be bullied out of your project, to be harassed and taken away from your work is the most offensive thing you can do to an artist. Umberger certainly invoked and delivered the message there: Art then wasn't respected compared to now. David Butler liked to be surrounded by pretty things and liked to be busy. His work used motion and surprise, which he thought that it warded out evil spirits. All his work contained biblical aspects. He suffered from nervousness and built his art to keep him safe. Again, Umberger uses rhetoric to tell his story and make the audience feel pity for him. Because Butler was African American, whites took his work to the point where Butler was depressed and he never recovered. Umberger uses his story I order to again underline the lack of respect people have for art, and even more the lack of respect people have for the artist. People just walk over artists, and I agree with that- the message Umberger delivers. Her presentation moves on to Emery Blagdon who lived most of his life in the rugged west. He was a free spirit and the embodiment of western ruggedness. His work, The Healing Machine, was an experimental space was place of solace that he built in order to relieve arthritis pain that ran rampant in his family. The room was literally electrifying, and his methods were very misunderstood by the public. This story delivered by Umberger underlined the misunderstanding of an artist's work. While people can view art as a form of art- something to look at, works can do something deeper. Blagdon made The Healing Room in order to treat and help his parents which suffered from immense disease-related pain-- and when he died, his pieces were only auctioned off as "scraps." This infuriated me; who do people think they are? This was profoundly annoying on a different level. I never knew people were so ignorant to pieces of art- to how people don't respect enough, or even try to understand something that looked completely different to usual "art." James Hampton made tinfoil art that portrayed Hampton's visions of the third heaven. These works were ahead of his time, and in due time, these works were displayed at the Smithsonian. This is a centerfold of her presentation because this is the first time an artist who was self taught received recognition from an institution as big as the Smithsonian. This

showed me that through time, people can come to understand-- however slow, people will come to understand art. Lonnie Holley explored identity and explored a harsh world. Holley's works are active, "a memory given form," and "maps his existence to others." Through his metaphors, his art, he delivered messages that were logical-- something different from the other artists. Umberger and Holley have the same mission: make people understand. Despite having his work destroyed, destroyed, and destroyed again, he kept rebuilding. Holley made art to protect art and through this, he gained traction in the artistic world. He wanted to make people understand, and if that isn't enough- having an artist to never cease to give up. This presentation shown a light to America's culture-- how a consumer nation can easily put down an artist. Umberger uses Holley's story as a tool to impact our daily reality. She makes us remember that we live in a socially stratified world and that society ignores its perils at other's costs. I definitely agree. This lecture certainly opened my eyes to the world we live in and how the world views art- and how it treats it. No matter the artist, art is art. It deserves a respect that is limitless. Art isn't contemporary- it's a living, breathing thing that we as a society have to adapt to understand, but people are scared to understand the unknown, so progress is slow. We as a people are only beginning to understand some art that was made only fifty, sixty years ago.