©Keith Byrd |
The
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©Keith Byrd |
The
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Our belongings or lack of belongings, whether gathered carefully or unconsciously, whether chosen or inherited--or even just dreamed of --are in large measure what define us both as individuals and as members of a group.The possessions we surround ourselves with -- including our houses themselves -- are a vast unspoken symbolic system by which we attempt to understand ourselves and one another.
These possessions constitute a public and private language by which we convey concepts of memory and meaning, declare social status, formulate family histories, encourage patterns of exchange, and define values. Through them we both p reserve the past and prepare for the future.
"The Collecting Impulse" exhibition at the Center for Documentary Studies offers a brief examination of this phenomenon through the work and personal belongings of three artists and photographers.
William Christenberry's enameled metal signs are a direct expression of consumer culture, but one that is specific to the American South in this century. Originally intended for public use along rural roadsides, the signs take on new meanin gs when gathered together on the walls of his home.
Beverly Buchanan's contribution to the show is a selection of items inherited from the two families in which she grew up: a family Bible, collections of letters, canes, arrowheads and toy vehicles, a moonshine still, some items of furniture, a radio, a mantel clock. Taken together, a portrait of her own past begins to emerge.
Max Belcher's photographs of the interiors of houses built by Americanos -- free black Philadelphians who emigrated to Haiti in the 1820's -- show belongings in context. The objects seem literally to own the spaces they occupy: they seem to possess, just as much as they exist as possessions. Through the choice and placement of these objects, such as a picture of the White House or a skating scene (in a land without snow), much is revealed about the individuals who own them. The Collecting Impulse is intended as a compliment to House and Home an exhibit recently featured in the Duke University Museum of Art, which consists of photographs and replicas of structures from the American South and from American emigrants in Liberia. Where House and Home explores the buildings and spaces in which we live, The Collecting Impulse explores the interior of these spaces through the art and collections of the contributors to House and Home.
-- Roger Manley, Curator