Student Picks: VISUAL PROTEST - A Walk in the Wonderland of Sarcasm

color image of Mao walking on grass in front of crowd under a low red tile roofed building on left; black and white image on right of same image of Mao with two other figures walking on grass with him

2009

Zhang Dali

Chinese

born 1963

Gift of Pace Editions Incorporated and Ethan Cohen Fine Arts courtesy of Ann and Richard Solomon (Ann Weinbaum, class of 1959) and Ethan Cohen

Student Picks is a SCMA program in which Smith students organize their own one-day art show using our collection of works on paper. This month’s student curator and guest blogger Lingxuan Li '17 discusses her show “VISUAL PROTEST - A Walk in the Wonderland of Sarcasm” which will be on view FRIDAY, October 3 from 12-4 PM in the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. We hope to see you here!

Art has always been one of the most effective mediums for protest. Caricature, or drawing with exaggeration of its elements, is high on the agenda of activist artists. Just like roses with thorns, the art of sarcasm attracts people because of its brilliant ideas, but provokes them with its deep-seated expression of social ills. My personal interest in satire art pieces stems from my own preferred way of expression, using dry humor, and from my ambition to have a career in government and economics related fields.

aqua ground with bust image of man with braids and elaborately decorated clothing. text reading "OCCUPIED / SINCE 1625" in white over his chest

^{John Emerson. American, b. 1973. Occupied Since 1625, from Occuprint Portfolio, 2012. Screenprint in two colors on moderately thick cyan colored smooth paper. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. Purchased with the Katherine S. Pearce, class of 1915, Fund. SC 2012.30.15.}

This show exhibits sarcastic artworks created across time and countries. Their targets vary hugely from politics to art museums. By applying techniques such as color variation, collage and miniature painting, these pieces take diligent notes of the time periods they were created, and directly “speak” to modern viewers.

yellow background, Ingres nude at left with guerrilla head lying on pink cloth, text across top and right: Do women have to be naked to / get into the Met. Museum? / Less than 3% of the artists in the Modern / Art Sections are women, but 83% / of the nudes are female. / Statistics from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, 2004 / Guerrilla Girls CONSCIENCE OF THE ART WORLD / www.guerrillagirls.com

^{Guerrilla Girls. American, 20th century. Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?, from Guerrilla Girls, Most Wanted 1985 - 2006, 1989. Photolithograph printed in color on paper. Purchased with the gift of the Fred Bergfors and Margaret Sandberg Foundation. Photography by Petegorsky/Gipe. SC 2006.44.7.}

I hope you can begin your journey in the wonderland of sarcasm as soon as you walk in the exhibition room, and enjoy the walk surrounded by stories that are always silent, no matter how strong they are.

Student Picks: VISUAL PROTEST - A Walk in the Wonderland of Sarcasm

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