2008 Woodie Awards
Artist brings provocative exhibit to Emerson
Renowned artist Karen Finley's multimedia installation Nation Building on display at Tufte building
Terri Ciccone
Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: Arts and Entertainment
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When creating her exhibit Nation Building, Karen Finley, Emerson's School of the Arts visiting artist-in-residence, said she asked herself, "What can I be doing to further the conversation to get it to be a discourse, to get it to be a political work?"
She certainly did just that in her artistic response to the conditions of power in the United States and the war in Iraq. More than simply furthering conversation, her exhibit evokes much emotion and brings remarkable images to a political view.
Finley often wells up with emotion as she explains some of her pieces. Regardless of your opinion on the war, Nation Building provides a visual and artistic take on what we see on the news and read in the papers.
The distant and haunting sound of a printer that never stops producing lists is the only sound that can be heard upon entering Finley's exhibit in the Huret and Spector Gallery on the sixth floor of the Tufte Building at 10 Boylston Pl.
In this installation, "Business as Usual," two computers continually print the death tolls of both Iraqi and American soldiers, evoking an eerie and empty feeling.
When each printer runs out of paper, a pile of lists is stacked in the corner. The idea is that this is the reality Americans face when we hear of soldiers dying. Here we see that this is a business, this is merely someone's job, just another day at the office.
No human body is seen, no personal connection is conveyed, and just a simple pile of paper is produced.
"[It] kind of angers me because it's so inhuman," said senior theatre studies major Anna Haas. She realized that this was the intention of the artist, and related the pile of lists to the ones she had seen in Prague of those who died in the Holocaust.
The idea that death is desensitized is a theme constant throughout the exhibit.
Emerson College Archivist and Curator of the Huret and Spector Gallery Robert Fleming approached Finley at Harvard University, where she previously displayed her work, realizing this exhibit could greatly influence, inspire and provoke the community at Emerson.
She certainly did just that in her artistic response to the conditions of power in the United States and the war in Iraq. More than simply furthering conversation, her exhibit evokes much emotion and brings remarkable images to a political view.
Finley often wells up with emotion as she explains some of her pieces. Regardless of your opinion on the war, Nation Building provides a visual and artistic take on what we see on the news and read in the papers.
The distant and haunting sound of a printer that never stops producing lists is the only sound that can be heard upon entering Finley's exhibit in the Huret and Spector Gallery on the sixth floor of the Tufte Building at 10 Boylston Pl.
In this installation, "Business as Usual," two computers continually print the death tolls of both Iraqi and American soldiers, evoking an eerie and empty feeling.
When each printer runs out of paper, a pile of lists is stacked in the corner. The idea is that this is the reality Americans face when we hear of soldiers dying. Here we see that this is a business, this is merely someone's job, just another day at the office.
No human body is seen, no personal connection is conveyed, and just a simple pile of paper is produced.
"[It] kind of angers me because it's so inhuman," said senior theatre studies major Anna Haas. She realized that this was the intention of the artist, and related the pile of lists to the ones she had seen in Prague of those who died in the Holocaust.
The idea that death is desensitized is a theme constant throughout the exhibit.
Emerson College Archivist and Curator of the Huret and Spector Gallery Robert Fleming approached Finley at Harvard University, where she previously displayed her work, realizing this exhibit could greatly influence, inspire and provoke the community at Emerson.
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