Scheidegger-Spiess - noch nicht angekündigte Titel Herbst 2021

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WILd-Dēor-Nis, 2021
Acrylic paint on cotton fabric
60 x 60 in. | 152.4 x 152.4 cm.
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Director’s Acknowledgments
LESLEY DILL
MICHELLE HARGRAVE
Wilderness: Light Sizzles Around Me
Lesley Dill, Wilderness: Light Sizzles Around
Me features the work of multi-media
artist Lesley Dill, who works at the
intersection of language and fine art to
create sculptures and two-dimensional works that
them, we may share the experiences of these
individuals as well as a fuller and more nuanced
history of our region.
I would like to thank Andrew Wallace, Director
of Collections and Exhibitions, for bringing this
represent significant historical and fictional literary
project to the Figge, expanding the content to
figures. In this installation, Dill continues her
include personas connected to our region, and
exploration of early America's obsessions with divinity
skillfully and enthusiastically bringing the exhibition
and deviltry and how the “American” voice grew
and catalogue to fruition. Lesley Dill, Wilderness has
out of fears of the wilderness “out there” and
also benefited from the contributions of many
the wilderness inside us. She highlights how both
others inside and outside of the museum, and my
have shaped our history and the voices of these
thanks extends to all the Figge’s dedicated staff
remarkable people. In her personas, Dill employs
as well as catalogue authors Lesley Dill, Nancy
written texts and elongated clothing, two powerful
Princenthal, Juaquin Hamilton-YoungBird and two
tools of communication that both conceal and
incomparable contemporary poets, Ray Young Bear
reveal each figure’s identity, psyche, and faith. Her
and Tom Sleigh.
larger-than-life sculptures seem especially relevant
This project would not have been possible
at a time when many in our country are grasping
without the generous funders who understand the
with their own questions of identity, and words and
importance of Dill’s work and share our passion for
clothing are helping to establish kinship, spiritual,
it. I am deeply grateful for the support provided by
economic, and political associations for a new
Humanities Iowa and the National Endowment for
generation of revolutionaries, martyrs, religious
the Humanities, the John K. Figge Family in memory
leaders, warriors, and heroes.
of Mrs. Jean Nobis, Carolyn Levine & Leonard Kallio
Among the personas in Lesley Dill, Wilderness
Trust, and Linda and J. Randolph Lewis. Thanks to
are two made particularly for this exhibition: Black
their commitment, audiences in the Quad Cities and
Hawk and Dred Scott. These additions align with
the Figge’s commitment to present the culture
other communities across the country will have the
opportunity to experience her art firsthand.
and history of our region as well as voices and
My sincere appreciation also goes to my colleagues
perspectives that have often been neglected or
at our partnering institutions for bringing Lesley
misrepresented. We are honored that these works
Dill, Wilderness to audiences in the Northeast and
will debut in the Quad Cities and that through
South. We look forward to working with Angie
Anne Hutchinson Banner Set, 2021
Acrylic paint on cotton fabric
Story Banner: 36 x 144 in. | 91.5 x 365.8 cm.
Name Banner: 12 x 70 in. | 30.5 x 177.8 cm.
Date Banner: 6 x 22 in. | 15.3 x 55.9 cm.
Edward Taylor Banner Set, 2021
Acrylic paint and hand-cut paper on cotton fabric
Story Banner: 36 x 132 in. | 91.5 x 335.3 cm.
Name Banner: 12 x 67 in. | 30.5 x 170.2 cm.
Date Banner: 6 x 22 in. | 15.3 x 55.9 cm.
Anne Hutchinson 1591-1643
A Puritan wife and mother of 15 children, Anne Hutchinson
was charismatic and outspoken about her personal religious
experience. Her spoken words were transcribed from her
trial and are among the earliest recorded in America. Early
on, Anne Hutchinson had a Vision and experienced Grace.
From there, she began teaching in her home. Her personal
belief in grace and faith was a repudiation of the established
ministers' teachings. For this effrontery, she was taken to
trial and scorned and banished. One of her opponents stated
during the trial: “She had rather bine a Husbande than a Wife,
and a Preacher than a Hearer.” She was famously branded as
“this American Jezebel.” I honor her for having the courage
to be such an outlier and for continually affirming her view
of faith.
Flewentness of Tongue (Anne Hutchinson), 2017
Thread on fabric, wooden yoke, and shoe lasts
105 x 41.5 x 4 in. | 266.7 x 105.4 x 10.2 cm.
Edward Taylor 1642-1729
Among America’s first poets, Edward Taylor’s poems
were long hidden away and forgotten in his private diary.
The poems of the Massachusetts Puritan minister were
scribbled away in a private spiritual journal alongside his
sermons. In the poem painted on his clothing entitled
“Upon a Wasp Chill’d with Cold,” he writes of a tiny insect
gently being unfurled by the warmth of the sun. This
downy nimble Spirit with a vital grace “enravisht” is in
contrast to the poor crumpled spider scorched by hellish
spiritual fire in the writings of his fellow minister Jonathan
Edwards (1703-1758).
Flewentness of Tongue (Anne Hutchinson), detail, 2017
Northern Blast (Edward Taylor), detail, 2017
Northern Blast (Edward Taylor), 2017
Oil paint, ink, thread on fabric, wooden yoke, and shoe lasts
99 x 23 x 6 in. | 251.5 x 58.4 x 15.2 cm.
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See’rd (Jonathan Edwards), detail, 2017
Jonathan Edwards: Purity, 2018
Fabric, thread, balsa wood, and ink
14 x 9 x 2 in. | 35.6 x 22.9 x 5.1 cm.
An der Schnittstelle von
bildender Kunst und Sprache:
das Schaffen der
amerikanischen Künstlerin
Lesley Dill
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Mother Ann Lee; The Shakers Banner Set, 2021
Acrylic paint on cotton fabric
Story Banner: 36 x 144 in. | 91.5 x 365.8 cm.
Name Banner: 12 x 87 in. | 30.5 x 221 cm.
Date Banner: 6 x 22 in. | 15.3 x 55.9 cm.
Black Hawk Banner Set, 2021
Acrylic paint and hand-cut paper on cotton fabric
Story Banner: 36 x 144 in. | 91.5 x 365.8 cm.
Name Banner: 12 x 63 in. | 30.5 x 160 cm.
Date Banner: 6 x 22 in. | 15.3 x 55.9 cm.
Mother Ann Lee 1736-1784
One of the earliest figures who I wanted to investigate and honor is
Mother Ann Lee, the founder of the Shakers. The illiterate daughter of
a Manchester blacksmith, Lee came to lead a group of dissidents from
various religions who were called “shaking Quakers” for their ecstatic
forms of worship. After suffering at the hands of English authorities
for allegedly violating the tenets of the Church of England, Ann received
a Revelation from God telling her to emigrate to the American Colonies
in 1774. Ann Lee became the leader of the United Society of Believers
[in Christ’s Second Appearing] and was thereafter called Mother Ann.
Mother Ann believed that all animate life was both female and male;
therefore, God was manifest in both male and female forms. Mother
Ann was the first female to receive the fullness of the Christ Spirit
in the Shaker religion. “It is not I who speak; it is Christ who speaks
through me.” Through a series of visions, she became convinced
that the Divine was available to anyone who would take the Christ
Mother Ann Lee, 2021
Acrylic paint, hand-cut paper, thread on cotton fabric, wooden yoke, and shoe lasts
Mother Ann Lee, detail, 2021
Spirit into themselves, thus subverting the traditional role of the
male clergy. The full embodiment of the Christ Spirit was something
open to all who would be Shakers and each individual was capable of
communing directly with God.
100 x 40 x 4 in. | 254 x 101.6 x 10.2 cm.
Black Hawk 1767-1838
The Native American Sauk war leader, known in English as Black Hawk, was known
to his people as Mà-ka-tai-me-she-kià-kiàk. He was born in Saukenuk, near present
day Rock Island, Illinois, and later removed to the Iowa prairie until his time of death.
Like the other personas in this exhibit, he spoke and he wrote about spirit and justice
in his own language. His writings were translated into English by Antoine LeClaire, a U.S.
interpreter for the Sac and Fox.
Black Hawk is a warrior hero of his people. He grappled with the injustice of the
European-white people who hunted and massacred the American tribes in his writings.
“We can only judge of what is proper and right by our standard of right and wrong ....
we must continue throughout our lives to do what we conceive to be good .... The
Great and Good Spirit .... We are nothing compared to His power, and we feel and
know it .... How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make
right look like wrong, and wrong like right.”
His book concludes:
“I am now done. A few more moons, and I must follow my fathers to the shades!
May the Great Spirit keep our people and the whites always at peace—is the sincere
wish of Black Hawk.”
Black Hawk, Mà-ka-tai-me-she-kià-kiàk, detail, 2021
Acrylic paint and hand-cut paper on cotton fabric
100 x 60 in. | 254 x 152.4 cm.
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Walt Whitman Banner Set, 2021
Acrylic paint on cotton fabric
Story Banner: 36 x 144 in. | 91.5 x 365.8 cm.
Name Banner: 12 x 80 in. | 30.5 x 203 cm.
Date Banner: 6 x 22 in. | 15.3 x 55.9 cm.
Horace Pippin Banner Set, 2021
Acrylic paint and hand-cut paper on cotton fabric
Story Banner: 36 x 132 in. | 91.5 x 335.3 3 cm.
Name Banner: 12 x 54.5 in. | 30.5 x 138.5 cm.
Date Banner: 6 x 22 in. | 15.3 x 55.9 cm.
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Walt Whitman 1819-1892
Walt Whitman sprung fresh with a new and uniquely
American voice. He celebrated America and its men,
women, language, sensuality, and the “kosmos”, in his
song of words. Some of his verses read: “I am the
poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul” and
“The English language befriends the grand American
Expression.” In the time Emily Dickinson was writing in
her own fashion in relation to the American Civil War,
Whitman nursed wounded soldiers in hospitals. He
wrote, “I say where liberty draws not the blood out of
slavery—there slavery draws the blood out of liberty.”
Wanderer (Walt Whitman), 2017
Dyed horsehair, thread, oil paint on fabric, wooden yoke, and shoe lasts
99 x 22 x 6 in. | 251.5 x 55.9 x 15.2 cm.
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Horace Pippin 1888-1946
Horace Pippin is a truly original American artist. His paintings are poetic
and evocative, yet there is also a tense political edge to many of them.
He fought in World War I as part of the “Harlem Hellfighters,” the
segregated 3rd Battalion of the 369th infantry regiment, and received
the Croix de Guerre as well as the Purple Heart. He was wounded in the
shoulder and lost the full use of his arm for many years.
After coming back to the U.S., and to Jim Crow, he eventually
recovered enough to paint. When asked about his process, he said,
“Pictures come to my mind . . . and I tell my heart to go ahead.”
Here on the front of this sculpture are many of his words about faith,
loneliness, wisdom, and prejudice. On his back is my version of Victory
Vase, a painting he did of beautiful flowers. Amidst this beauty are two
soldiers at either side of the “V” of the vase. Below, in cutout silver
paper, is the emblem of the Double V—standing for Victory Abroad
Horace Pippin Banner Set, detail, 2021
and Victory at Home. This symbol was used by returning Black soldiers
to affirm their American heroism in the War and to emphasize the
continued fight for domestic racial justice.
Horace Pippin, 2021
Acrylic paint, hand-cut paper, thread on cotton fabric, wooden yoke, and shoe lasts
100 x 25 x 11 in. | 254 x 63.5 x 28 cm.
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