ART APPRECIATION PREREADING QUESTIONS 1. Do you know what issue-oriented art is? 2. What do you think its purpose is? Issue-Oriented Art Duane Preble and Sarah Preble Many artists in the last bwenty years have sought to link their art directly ta impor tant of contraversial questions. Issue-oriented artists believe that if they limit their art to aesthetic matters, then their work will be anly a distraction fram pressing problems, Furthermore, they recognize that what we see has a powerful influence on how we think, and they do nat want to miss an opportunity to influ- ence both, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, spurred by Mew York's ongoing garbage crisis and her own experiences as a mother, began to consider the impar- tance to society of “maintenance work,” the repetitive tasks such as gatbage collection that are necessary for social functioning. Since 1978, Ukeles has been an unsalaried artist- . inresidence for New Yark Ciky "ele (ederan Ukeles. ve Department of Sanitation, where she gp.cusbie yard garbage eallction truck fitted wut makes pieces that are based on the —hand.tempered glass minor with additional strips apparent everydayness of Conceptual of mwrares erylie. Art. In 1979 and 1980 she joined the fv", bee Seas daily rounds of sanitation workers and their supervisors; then for eleven months she completed an eight-hour-a-day performance piece in which she shook the hands of the more than 8,500 workers taking care of New York's mountains af garbage, With each handshake she said, "Thank you for keeping Mew York City alive” For a parade, Ukeles cavered the sides of a garbage truck with mirrors, creating Tie sucIAL igo, The pigee enabled people to see themselves asthe starting paint of the process, the source of the garbage. In the 1990 piece Lavurmt choss sec1I6, she installed layers of a landfill, including its methane gas vents, beside a stairway so that viewers could see what happened to some of the waste that they generated. The result was nat only educational, but a surprisingly interesting visual campasition. id Feta Fire AsMiorle Codessman Ukekes, caviiis qouny eros JOE, with Mew Sark Citp Department af Sanitation, Garbage Dut Front: A New Era ‘of Public Gesigr, Murwejpst Art. Lopers of etays, soils, qnagynthatic maneriais muthane venting syetea. Photo: rims Doe Courtesy: Rav sets. Pew Sd Feulmam 4 Photographer Richard Misrach is similarly motivated by concern for the environment. His photograph surmercen Laweast, sagion sta Captures the silent yet ironic beauty of a small town in California that was flooded by a mis- guided irrigation system. In other works he has dacumented in chilling detail the bloated carcasses of animals killed on military proving grounds in Newada, His brand of nature photography is in oppo- sition to the common calendars that include soothing views of pristine land- scapes. He wants us to know that such scenes are fast disappearing. 5 Barbara Kruger was trained as a magazine designer, und this profession shows in her piece uramen (i shor THrReroat | aM). She invented the slogan, which sounds as though it came fram advertising. The position of the hand, tao, looks like it came: frons an ad for aspirin or sleeping medication. Our praducts define us, don't they? We are what we shop for, and often we buy a product because of what il will say about us and not for the thing itself, These are some af the messages present in this simple yet fascinating work. Perhaps its vulti- mate irany is that the arlist hed it silkscreened onto a shopping bag. Barbora Krager. saath 197 Photographic sifiscresstrvingl G18" x 113% rao: Coffectinn of che roan! A Foundiarion, nc frre nt Richard Misrach. cunnesezh aimente aura set, 198 Photegroph fehronhogenit enfar print Phiuia, Copynght Aichera? Miroeh 1863. Counlbsy Fraenkel Galery6 Artists who create works about racism and class bias have oiten attempted to show how common practices of museum display may unwittingly contribute to such problems, In 1992, the Maryland Historical Society invited Aftican-American artist Fred Wilson to rearrange the exhibits on one floor to create an installation called winiwc THe suseus. He spent a year preparing for the show, rummaging through — the Society's basement and documentary records; the results were surprising, He found no portraits, for example, of noted African-American Marylanders Benjamin Banneker (who laid out the boundaries of the District of Colum- bia), Frederick Douglass (noted abali- tionist and journalist), or Harriet Tubman (tounder of the Underground Railroad}, He found instead busts of Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and pee ititon, Napolean Bonaparte, none of whom petait of inse ever lived in Maryland. He exhibited — phstagraphs those three busts next to three empty cal s istorcal Soebety pedestals to symbolize the missing Airlean Americans. He set out a dis- play of Colonial Maryland silverware and tea utensils, but included a pair of slave shackles. This lesser-known form of metalwork was perhaps equally vital to the functioning of nineteenth-century Maryland. He dusted off the Society's collection ‘of wooden cigarstore Indians and stood them, backs to viewers, facing photo- graphs of real Native Americans who lived in Maryland. In an accompanying exhibition brochure he waole that a museum should be a place that can make you think. When sme mF Museum Was on display, attendance records soared. Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles communicates his cancerns about environmental destructinn through the impact of large-scale installations such as awino (ota). & conical form i992 fe Indians Facing Marplaneters Gitta Meireles. oun Wh. 1987-85. Hotive Amenican tert, kanknotas, bones, candles, soundtrack, (87! 2 315" evel Gatlece (i