41786 artMattersV2 - School of the Museum of Fine Arts

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spatz-rabinowitz, Untitled, 2005. Mixed media on Stonehenge. 11 x 15 inches. ➧elaine For the vast majority of artists, their response to war is just that, a response—to images, words, politics, and emotions—public and private. They don’t need to visit a battlefield or fire a weapon to immerse themselves in conflict. Elaine Spatz-Rabinowitz (Master of Fine Arts ’74) made fifty drawings during the summer of 2005 based on daily news reports of global events. “Violence seemed ubiquitous—Iraq, Madrid, London, Russia, Israel,” she says. “And as it filled the world, so did it fill my consciousness.” Unlike Francisco y Lucientes Goya, who, of his series of etchings Disasters Disasters of of War said, “I saw this,” or “I was there,” everything Spatz-Rabinowitz did was mediated. “What I was really drawing was my own sense of rampant violence,” she says. “It is only in my interior landscape that time is compressed and victims of current events become interchangeable with those from earlier wars. In this landscape, violence seems timeless, changeless, and everywhere equally horrible.” gingrow, Little Girl, 2006. Conte and charcoal on paper. 61 x 42 inches. ➧alex The large charcoal drawings in Alex Gingrow’s (Post-Baccalaureate Certificate ’04) Victim Series grew from her frustration with the current Bush administration policies and the disenfranchisement of the Iraqi victims of war. “These are people with families and lives and loved ones,” she says. Each image— a little boy, a bloody man—appears to crawl with maggot-like shapes and swirls. They are realistic portraits, unmistakably vivid and rooted in place and time. 8 artMatters “ What are we but mere decorators if we as artists choose to ignore the world around us?” Gingrow says. “It is our duty to attack issues and create dialogue and inspire critical thinking.”
➧ The omnipresence—the familiarity of war and devastation—makes it possible to take images out of context and extrapolate common themes. Like Spatz- Rabinowitz, who uses life models to recreate searing images in her studio, Meryl Blinder (Master of Fine Arts ’99) takes images she culls from daily newspapers and paints them into imagined landscapes. “Taken out of context,” Blinder says, “these ubiquitous images of flames, smoke, and floods still carry strong associations of current world events, but they also resonate with the timelessness of their natural surroundings.” Blinder began incorporating actual newspaper photographs in her art after 9/11. New York Times photos inspired her pencil drawings of the universally recognized linear rhythm of the buildings’ facades. “The evocative quality of the photo overlaid with iconic birds, fires, and figures have influenced my painting and drawing ever since,” Blinder says. meryl blinder, Kirkuk, NYTimes, 2006. Oil and gold metallic on gesso board. 8 x 8 inches. www.smfa.edu 9
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Page 5 and 6: Brianne Brophy Given the choice of
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Page 9: ➧ In August 2006, the public open
Page 13 and 14: Oil on canvas. 30 x 24 inches. ➧j
Page 15 and 16: left: natalie alper, Oct. #1 (detai
Page 17 and 18: Nan Goldin (Dip ’77, FY ’78) wi
Page 19 and 20: left: chaco kato, Spider’s whispe
Page 21 and 22: above left: ariel kotker, Sneaker (
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41786 artMattersV2 - School of the Museum of Fine Arts

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