INTRODUCTION TO THE 1990 MILWAUKEE SHADOWS PROJECT CATALOG THIS SHOW WAS HELD AT THE WOODLAND PATTERN ARTS CENTER GALLERY SUMMER, 1990 By Karl Young, Curator The Manhattan Project was a microcosm of the nuclear age. It was conducted in secret. The American public did not know it was going on, nor did the majority of military and political personnel. Only two of the twelve men aboard the plane that dropped the first bomb knew what they were carrying when they took off. The American people were not asked if the bomb should be used -- they were not trusted to make the decisions that the president and a small circle of cohorts wanted. At the same time, the elite Manhattan Project scientists weren't trusted either: a secret army of spies kept them under surveillance. There you have three of the main characteristics of the nuclear age: secrecy, elitism, and exclusion. The next element, terror, also surrounded the Manhattan Project. The ostensible reason for using nuclear weapons was to terrify the Japanese into surrender. Japan's surrender, however, took a back seat to the need to spread greater terror in the Soviet Union. That worked so well that the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have spent the succeeding forty five years terrifying the world by inventing ever more fiendish ways of terrifying each other. But opposition has also been characteristic of the age. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, many of the Manhattan Project scientists wanted to stop work on the bomb. Although their protests were muzzled, it is clear that opposition to nuclear weapons began BEFORE the first one was tested and before the bombing of Hiroshima. The 1990 International Shadows Project represents a particularly appropriate tradition of opposition. For over a decade people around the world have gone about their communities outlining each other's bodies in memory of those Hiroshima residents who had been vaporized by the first bomb. Performance artists have joined this tradition. In the U.S., John Held, Jr. has been indefatigable in such efforts. Ruggero Maggi of Milan, Italy has not only been active in performances, he and Held have united Mail Art and Shadows Projects. Maggi sponsored several shows in Italy in the mid '80's, and took part in organizing a major show in Hiroshima in 1988. Work from this show passed on to a 1989 show in Calexico, under the curatorship of Harry Polkinhorn. The Calexico show in turn formed the nucleus of this year's expanded Milwaukee show. Mail Art is intrinsically opposed to the secrecy, elitism, and exclusion of the nuclear age. It is thoroughly unhieratic. It is not localized in centers of power and authority, but emanates from everywhere and can go anywhere. Mail Art matured and continues to have a large following in the Fascist dictatorships of Latin America, the totalitarian countries of Eastern Europe, the U.S.S.R. and other places where political commitment has been strong and the need to avoid censorship has been great. Many American Mail Artists see the genre as a means of confounding economic censorship. In addition to making a case against nuclear weapons, the show argues the case for freedom of every sort, including freedom from censorship, freedom from repressive governments, and freedom from class, race, and social prejudice. It does so by offering complete freedom of expression to participants. Although freedom from the terror of nuclear annihilation is foregrounded in this show, the desire for freedom from other forms of terror is also represented. For nearly half a century the human race has been enslaved by nuclear weapons and the world they have created. The nuclear virus has spread everywhere. Consider, for instance, that freedom from hunger is the most basic of freedoms. If the enormous resources devoted to nuclear weaponry had been directed toward agriculture and food distribution, we would live in a world free from hunger. If the ingenuity lavished on nuclear delivery systems had been used to develop alternative energy sources, we would be free from dependency on fossil fuel. Fissionable materials remain lethal for thousands of years. That means that we are not free to restructure society along different lines: someone will have to tend our nuclear wastes for millennia. Freedom from sociopolitical terror is also a basic freedom. Had we not carefully laid the foundations for terror as panacea forty five years ago, we would be closer to freedom from terror today, and terrorism would not have been elevated to the status of an ideology or a religion. The nuclear age has been alive with proposals for the elimination of nuclear terror. Ours is simple: to answer slavery with freedom; to answer elitism with universal enfranchisement; to answer exclusion with openness; to answer expensive weaponry with art that can be produced inexpensively; to answer terror with visions of peace. SURVEY OF THE 1990 SHADOWS PROJECT SHOW The Woodland Pattern Book Center consists of a book store and a gallery- performance area. You enter the gallery through a hallway from the bookstore. In the hall we hung a participatory piece, OUR SHADOWS STAND TOGETHER. This is a large cloth on which visitors could draw shadows around each other. Pens were left at the base of the piece to facilitate the drawing of these shadows. I had expected a static composite, defined by the largest and smallest participants, with line density increasing toward the mean size. Participants, however, positioned themselves in ways that kept their shadows from repeating those that had been made before. Some added drawings and messages. This collective and spontaneous effort shows that participants weren't going to stand still in the middle of the cloth and simply fill in a space. They had their own ideas of what they wanted to do and weren't going to try to figure out or obey what some absent authority figure expected of them. As a result, they created a much more lively and profound piece than I had expected. This optimistic piece emphatically underscored the point of the whole project. The gallery is a large, rectangular room. The design problem for the show was to use this space to best advantage. I made a number of preliminary sketches, contrasting areas of greater and lesser density with areas of negative space, working areas with a vertical orientation against horizontal and angular designs. Most design work beyond this was done on a day to day basis by Anne Kingsbury and Karl Gartung who worked out excellent solutions to difficult problems. Among the problems were how to keep small pieces from being overwhelmed by larger ones nearby, how to display envelopes, how to let each piece keep its individuality while interacting with the show as a whole. You enter the room from the west. At the center of the eastern wall we set up several cubes in the form of an altar. On the top of this we placed a garland of cranes made by Mizuho Kakiue specifically for this show. Mrs. Kakiue was a child on the outskirts of Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. A painting by nine year old Jules Villanueva- Castano, the youngest contributor at the time of the opening, was placed below this garland. Two other crane garlands were lent to the show by visitors. The altar was the exhibit's centerpiece, both underscoring the fact that Hiroshima victims included an inordinate number of children, and that the consequences of continued nuclear insanity will be a world in which there will be no future, in which the succession of generations will cease. The north and south walls worked out the patterns mentioned above. Cut out and painted shadows formed a motif through all the walls, culminating on the western wall. Here they not only reached their greatest density, some were bent around angles in the wall. No negative space was left as visual relief or visual silence on this wall. Many contributors did not address nuclear weaponry directly. Two large pieces by Clemente Padin of Montevideo traced shadows of Disappeared Persons in his country. Others addressed the same issue, as well as child and spouse abuse, censorship, AIDS, colonialism, and other horrors under the nuclear umbrella. These formed a second motif, asking the viewer not to see nuclear arms in too narrow a context. The show constantly changed. Work kept coming in past the deadline. Works not immediately mounted were placed on tables at the center of the room when it was not being used as performance space. Many contributors sent poetry, and some of the poems were initially placed on the tables. Later many were moved to the walls and eventually bound into books. Patrons of Woodland Pattern often sit in the store or the gallery and read available books. _The POETRY FROM THE SHADOWS_ books were read by many visitors, including those who wanted to sit down for a while before looking further, and by those who felt more comfortable reading poetry from books than on a wall. Though the world changed drastically after the first Hiroshima Day, life has gone on. Those of us who have participated in this project have done so in the hope that humanity can continue despite its present suicidal course. There's more than a little crazy optimism in this hope. Maybe that's what will ultimately save us from ourselves. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ TWO POEMS FROM THE 1990 CATALOGUE: from _THE SEVEN HELLS OF JIGOKU ZOSHI_ THE SEVENTH HELL: of smoke, where fire-raisers try in vain to escape from a shower of hot sand falling from a cloud BY JEROME ROTHENBERG The Houses of men are on fire Pity the dead in their graves & the homes of the living Pity the roofbeams whose waters burn till they're ash Pity the old clouds devoured by the clouds of hot sand & the sweat that's drawn out of metals pity that too Pity the teeth robbed of gold The bones when their skin falls away Pity man's cry when the sun the sun is born in his cities & the thunder breaks down his door & pity the rain For the rain falls on the deserts of man & is lost If the mind is a house that has fallen Where will the eye find rest The images rise from the marrow & cry in the blood Pity man's voice in the smoke-filled days & his eyes in the darkness Pity the sight of his eyes For what can a man see in the darkness What can he see but the children's bones & the black bones buried But the places between spaces & the places of sand & the places of black teeth The faraway places The black sand carried & the black bones buried The black veins hanging from the open skin & the blood changed to glass in the night The eye of man is on fire A green bird cries from his house & opens a red eye to death The sun drops out of a pine tree Brushing the earth with its wings For what can a man see in the morning What can he see but the fire-raisers The shadow of the fire-raisers lost in the smoke The shadow of the smoke where the hot sand is falling The fire-raisers putting a torch to their arms The green smoke ascending Pity the children of man Pity their bones when the skin falls away Pity the skin devoured by fire The fire devoured by fire The mind of man is on fire & where will his eye find rest @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ MY BEAUTIFUL HIROSHIMA TEACHER BY KEIKO MATSUI GIBSON Crimson sunset in Lake Michigan. I think of a beautiful woman in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. Was she fortunate not to be killed with the 200,000 others? Was she fortunate to stay alive? Bright light crushed her breath windows burst she went out she woke far off stuck all over with broken glass she couldn't scream in blood and pain no word would do or will ever do she felt the end of the world Fujiko is more beautiful because of her scars Fujiko is more beautiful because many men and women have loved her Fujiko is more beautiful because she has lived alone Fujiko is more beautiful because she has taught many students Fujiko is more beautiful because she has always loved Hiroshima Fujiko is more beautiful because she plans to live in a tiny farmhouse there Fujiko is more beautiful because she does not fear the inevitable cancer Fujiko is more beautiful because of her peace The wormy scar on her neck tells the folly of history. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ######################################################################## Poem by Jerome Rothenberg copyright (C) 1990 by Jerome Rothenberg. # Poem by Keiko Matsui Gibson copyright (C) 1990 by Keiko Matsui Gibson # ######################################################################## THE FOLLOWING RETROSPECTIVE APPEARED IN THE 1990 SHADOWS PROJECT CATALOGUE: SHADOW: THE INTERNATIONAL SHADOW PROJECT CALEXICO, CALIFORNIA, AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1989 BY HARRY POLKINHORN, CURATOR The Calexico Shadow Project took place in a small gallery environment at the Imperial Valley campus of San Diego State University. Located within walking distance of the U.S.-Mexico international boundary, the gallery featured works by artists from all over the world. During the planning phase, the organizers approached Ruggero Maggi of Milan, Italy, who has been a key figure in the International Shadow Project for several years now. Long active in mail art and underground networking of alternative art forms, Maggi forwarded many of the works exhibited in Japan during the 1988 event. The sponsorship of the Shadow Project by the California State University marks perhaps the first time that the Shadow Project's goals have been so supported by a public agency. Of additional significance, of course, is our location on the border. Those who live in a bicultural context are acutely aware of the conflicts between values, beliefs, and customs which residing on the border exacerbates; they are also aware of the interdependence of people, our compelling need to acknowledge difference in order to survive under its mandate. As a place with little history; a social laboratory made up of in-migrants from central Mexico who mix with Mexican American, Anglo American, and other residents of southern California; the abrasive divide between a developed and a developing economy, spanned by the U.S.-controlled mass media -- as all of this and more, the border provides a very appropriate setting for the objectives and ideology of the International Shadow Project. Another locus of conflict and accommodation which a border environment manifests is of course language itself. Visual art does not transcend the level on which such problems occur but substitutes alternative sets of codes for the verbal. Interestingly, much of the work in the Shadow Project features both visual and verbal systems, as if to underscore a drive to overcome the loss of communication which takes place between cultures, languages, and media. In spite of these preconditions, these works speak bluntly: the message is one of the necessity for tolerance of difference if we are to survive. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ CONTRIBUTORS TO THE 1990 SHADOWS PROJECT SHOW A. Peter Ahlberg (Sweden); Casteli Alberto (Italy); Ernest Alberto (Mexico); Josephina Alcala Lopez (Mexico); Charles Alexander (U.S.A.); Mark Amerika (U.S.A.); Michael Andre (U.S.A.); Komives Andor (Romania); Lengyel Andras (Hungary); Antler (U.S.A.); Atmosphere Controlled (Denmark); Avago (Austria); B. Kun Nam Baik (Korea); Anna Banana (Canada); Vittorio Baccelli (Italy); Ken Baker (U.S.A.); Claudine Barbot (U.S.A.); Gerard Barbot (U.S.A.); Vittore Baroni (Italy); Umberto Basso (Italy); Pap Bela (Hungary); Guy Beining (U.S.A.); Juan di Bella (Mexico); John M. Bennett (U.S.A.); Giuseppe Beoeschi (Italy); Carol Berge (U.S.A.); Martha Bergland (U.S.A.); Daniel Berrigan (U.S.A.); Carla Bertola (Italy); Guy Bleus (Belgium); Giovanni Bonanno (Italy); Dario Bozzolo (Italy); Anna Boschi (Italy); Cesar Brandao (Brasil); McCanon Brown (U.S.A.); Joseph Bruchac III (U.S.A.); Equipe Bruscky (Brasil); Dietrich Buhrow (W. Germany); Serfio A. Burguez (Mexico); Peter Van Beveren (Belgium); C. Glauco Lendaro Camilles (Italy); Terra Candella (U.S.A.); Michael Catsro (U.S.A.); Giuseppe Canzi (Italy); Bruno Capati (Italy); Jorge Caraballo (Uruguay); Center for International Education (U.S.A.); Che (U.S.A.); Ryosuke Cohen (Japan); Geoffrey Cook (U.S.A.); Antonio Cirao (Italy); David Cole (U.S.A.); Collective of the Italian Mail Art Meating; Flavio Coltri (Italy); Paul Cope (England); Michel Collet (France); Raimondo Cortese (Australia); Costis (Greece); Gincarlo Cristiani (Italy); Robin Crozier (England); D. Daniel Daligand (France); Guillermo Deisler (W. Germany); Raimondo Del Prete (Italy); Wally Depew (U.S.A.); Jean-Claude Deprez (Belgium); Carlo Desiro (U.S.A.); Rino de Michele (Italy); Marcello Diotallevi (Italy); Bill DiMichele (U.S.A.); Desirey Dodge [Peace Post] (U.S.A.); Marcello Diotallevi (Italy); Matthias Dreyer (W. Germany); Andrzej Dudek (Poland); Francoise Duvivier (France); E. John Eberly (U.S.A.); Egg (U.S.A.); Theodore Enslin (U.S.A.); Cesar Espinosa (Mexico); Ever Arts (Netherlands); F. FaGaGaGa (U.S.A.); Arturo G. Fallico (U.S.A.); Rob Finlayson (Australia); Charles Francois (Belgium); Mariagrazia Federico (Italy); H.R. Friker (Switzerland); Cesar Figueiredo (Portugal); Tetsuya Fukui (Japan); G. V. Gabriell (Yugoslavia); Jesus Romeo Galdamez (El Salvador/Mexico); Kenneth Gangemi (U.S.A.); Gene Ganow (U.S.A.); Karl Gartung (U.S.A.); Keiko Matsui Gibson (U.S.A.); Morgan Gibson (U.S.A.); Gino Gini (Italy); Luigi Giurandella (Italy); Bedeschi Giuseppe (Italy); Antonio Gomez (Spain); Rafael Jesus Gonzalez (U.S.A.); Mario Grandi (Italy); Anette and Michael Groschopp (E. Germany); Petra Grund (E. Germany); Pedro J. Gutierrez (Cuba); Graqciela Gutierrez Marx (Argentina); H. Mayumi Handa (Japan); Lotte Rosenkilde Hansen (Denmark); Mike Hazard (U.S.A.); He Mi ["Beauty Surrounding"] (Japan); Scott Helmes (U.S.A.); John Held, Jr. (U.S.A.); Red Herring (England); Hans Hess (E. Germany); Crag Hill (U.S.A.); Alexandra Holownia-Mattmuller (W. Germany); Gene Hosey (U.S.A.); G. Huth (U.S.A.); J. Lou Janac (U.S.A.); Janet Janet (U.S.A.); Miroslav Janousek (Czechoslovakia); Chris Jensen (U.S.A.); Ko De Jonge (Netherlands); Gregg Jupa (U.S.A.); K. Mizuho Kakiue (Japan); Ulrich Kattensroth (W. Germany); Kowa Kato (Japan); Karl Kempton (U.S.A.); Detlef Kappis (E. Germany); Roberto Keppler (Brasil); Bliem Kern (U.S.A.); Paulo Klein (Brasil); Eckhard Koenig (W. Germany); steen krarup (Denmark); Ilmar Kruusmae (Estonia - U.S.S.R.); Zvonimir Krtulovic (Yugoslavia); Jack Kronebusch (U.S.A.); Sadako Kurihara (Japan); Arto Kytohanka (Finland); L. La Follette/Silver Wind (U.S.A.); Kurt Landler (U.S.A.); James Lawrence (U.S.A.); Valeria Landolfini (Italy); Freddy Lapenna (Italy); Herald Lehnardt (W. Germany); Michael Leigh (England); Carmen Leon (U.S.A.); torbjorn lime (Sweden); Joel Lipman (U.S.A.); Oranzo Liuzzi (Italy); Richard Long (England); marco lorenzoni (Italy); Luce (Belgium); Serse Luigetti (Italy); Solamito Luigino (Italy); Freddy Lupenna (Italy); M. Jackson Mac Low (U.S.A.); ManWoman (Canada); Ruggero Maggi (Italy); Olga Maggiera (Italy); Reima Makinen (Finland); William Mann (U.S.A.); Roberto Marchi (Italy); Stephen-Paul Martin (U.S.A.); S. Martinou (Greece); Mata (Spain); Antonella Mattei (Italy); Alina McDonald (Australia); Herbert A. Meyer (W. Germany); Ruth Miles (U.S.A.); Cynthia Miller (U.S.A.); Angela & Henning Mittendorf (W. Germany); Kusacic Miro (Yugoslavia); Seiko Miyazaki (Japan); Adele Monaca (Italy); Rene Montes (France); Emilio Morandi (Italy); Chris Mosdell (Japan); Jack Moskovitz (U.S.A.); Rodrigo Munoz (Mexico); Roman Mszynski (Poland); Caroline Muchhala (U.S.A.); Nathan Muchhala (U.S.A.); Kazunori Murakami (Japan); N. Shigeru Nakayama (Japan); Steve Nelson-Raney (U.S.A.); Giorio Nelva (Italy); Rea Nikonova (U.S.S.R.); Mogens ollo Nielsen (Denmark); Norman Conquest (U.S.A.); Jean-Pierre Naud (France); Hugo Pontes (Brasil); O. Atsuko Ochiai (Japan); Aloys Ohlman (W. Germany); Makoto Okuno (Japan); Andrea Ovcinnicoff (Italy); P. Clemente Padin (Uruguay); Massimo Pattaro (Italy); Shane Paul (U.S.A.); Teresinka Pereira (U.S.A.); Michele Perfetti (Italy); Pawel Petasz (Poland); Michael Joseph Phillips (U.S.A.); Stuart Pid (U.S.A.); Barry Edgar Pilcher (England); bruno pollacci (Italy); Harry Polkinhorn (U.S.A.); Jeff Poniewaz (U.S.A.); Bern Porter (U.S.A.); Q. Julio Quispe (Peru); R. Robert Rehfeldt (W. Germany); Sherry Jo Reniker (Japan); Tulio Restrepo (Colombia); Harland Ristau (U.S.A.); M.P. Fanna Roncoroni (Italy); Waclaw Ropiecki (Poland); Salvatore de Rosa (Italy); Erika Rothenberg (U.S.A.); Jerome Rothenberg (U.S.A.); Rupocinski (Poland); S. Mako Sakoda (Japan); Loredana Sanganelli (Italy); Vesselin Sariev (Bulgaria); Marco Sbizzera (U.S.A.); C. Schneck (U.S.A.); Wolfgang Scholtz (W. Germany); Serge Segay (U.S.S.R.); Jan Serr (U.S.A.); Lucien Seul (France); Shozo Shimamoto (Japan); Shmuel (U.S.A.); Marie Snell (U.S.A.); Fulgor C. Silvi (Italy); Maria Rosa Simoni (Austria); Christopher Skiba (Poland); Valter Smokovic (Yugoslavia); Elson B. Snow (U.S.A.); John Solt (U.S.A.); Pete Spence (U.S.A.); Chuck Stake (Canada); Joachim Stangle (Italy); State of Being (U.S.A.); Manfred Stirnemann (Switzerland); Marcel Stussi (Switzerland); Giovanni Strada (Italy);Russell Swabe (U.S.A.); Arthur Sze (U.S.A.); T. Piero Tacconi (Italy); Mukata Takamura (Japan); Kazuyoshi Takeishi (Japan); Ruben Tani (Uruguay); Anne Tardos (U.S.A.); Nathaniel Tarn (U.S.A.); Harvey Taylor (U.S.A.); Andre Tisma (Yugoslavia); Jean Toyama (U.S.A.); Roberta Tyree/Holt (U.S.A.); V. Jose VdBroucke (Belgium); Franco Vallone (Italy); Alma Luz Villanueva (U.S.A.); Jules Villanueva-Castano (U.S.A.); Martha Villegas (U.S.A.); Justo Vigil (Peru); Stephen Vicary (U.S.A.); Alberto Vitacchio (Italy); Candido Vetia (Spain); W. David Waite (U.S.A.); Joy Walsh (U.S.A.); Tamotso Watanabe (Japan); Achim Weigelt (W. Germany); Franz-Milan Wirth (Austria);Don Wellman (U.S.A.); Peter Witkauski (U.S.A.); Phil Woods (U.S.A.); Ruth Wulf- Rehfeldt (W. Germany); Gerd Wunderer (Austria); Y. Richard J. Yost (U.S.A.); Karl Young (U.S.A.); Z. Maria Grazia Zamparini (Italy); Biro Zozsef (Hungary); Roberto Zito (Italy); @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ For more information on Shadows projects contact Karl Young karlyoung@delphi.com