Art = Life: The Girl Show

Monday, June 2, 2003

Last year, Emily Lewis '02 went on a rampage in the Studio Art Department,defacing fifty-eight paintings, forty drawings, six collages, and several sculptures. Some she tagged with yellow paint, others were ripped to shreds. The studio artists were shocked, but they only had themselves to blame. Quang Truong '01 attributed the vandalism to 'a certain extreme element of ourselves.' They also expressed their compassion for the vandal. 'It was the expression of someone close to us, by an artist,' said Laura Tapper '02. 'A profound act was committed.'

Despite their empathy, Dartmouth's artists were devastated. But now, with Ms. Lewis safely deposed, they have rebounded with a new exhibition, 'The Girl Show,' staged in the 'area' student art gallery in the Hopkins Center. The hobbyhorse of Caitlin McNally '03, who devised the show in conjunction with her senior thesis on feminist art, 'The Girl Show' promised to be a creative extravaganza-—it would only be showcasing the work of Dartmouth's femme-artistes. As Ms. McNally explained to the Daily Dartmouth, 'I chose the gender focus because I wanted to set up people's expectations and blow them apart.' An aspiring artsy dilettante, I was ready for some hot girl-on-girl-on-girl action.

Clothespinned above the stairs ascending to the Top of the Hop dangled a sundry collection of panties and thongs. Visitors were provided with a helpful legend that allowed them to identify to whom the undergarments belonged. Pair number one, for example, was attributed to 'That demure Campus Crusade for Christ girl who's extremely hot but savin [sic] it for marriage.' Number eight belonged to 'The girl who lives next door to you who pays twelve times too much for her underwear by buying it from j. crew when everyone knows the same children in the same sweatshops make the knockoffs in WalMart for $2.' There was also a heroic pair of 'nuddypants,' which were 'Saving the world from buttfloss thongs, one pair at a time.'

I got there just in time, because some poetry was about to be slammed. A lanky young woman with closely-cropped hair paced across the stage, and began to recite some verse. 'We are children of Mother Earth,' she caterwauled. 'Our hearts still beat together as humans... get ready, Georgie Bush, for that!' The political character of her poetry could not be ignored: she was all about social justice.

It was a great thing that she was there, because the poetry wasn't going to slam itself. 'Find the beat,' the wordsmith implored, 'and take to the street and move!' 'Yeah!' one female in the crowd hollered at the top of her lungs. The cadence was fast, the delivery was intense, the verse was uninhibited, and the lyrics were obtuse but obviously profound. In short, that poetry was slammed. The eyes of the young man standing next to me welled up with tears.

She finished her piece and said that she would perform just one more composition, as she didn't want to take up much more of our time. The audience, though, was clearly jazzed up for more slamming. 'Take all the time you want, baby!' someone shrieked. During these next couplets, she disparaged the 'minefield of our machine minds, which just have got to go.' She raised the tempo to a fever-pitch, and audience members were swooning. At the end, they went wild with delight.

Her strophes completed, a disc-jockey manned the ones-and-twos; he certainly did not tolerate any diggity. Meanwhile, the milieu remained artistic. A projector televised vertiginous short films by women onto an oversized backdrop. One artisan hawked stylish bric-a-brac and other handmade curios. A mustachioed bartender dispensed drinks.

Near the back of the room, a sizeable rectangular box had been assembled from logs painted black and draped with sheer black fabric. Inside, a female student, limbs akimbo, danced about feverishly. I wondered aloud what was going on. 'Clearly, it's performance art,' the student standing next me hissed indignantly. She returned to being mesmerized.

On the corner of the stage, two females caught my eye. One ceremoniously raised a plastic rifle above her head while the other cowered dramatically. A sign revealed their purpose: 'How do you animate these figures? The most important part is YOUR interaction.' Spectators were supposed to pick 'two archetypal female roles'—the list included, among others, 'The Drunk Washed-Up Woman,' 'The Flake,' 'The Bad-Ass Butch,' and 'The Starlet'—for the thespians to improvise. Scattered at their feet were a variety of props: candles, a pong ball, the latest Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, a roll of tinfoil, a bucket, a brass bell, a bottle of Tylenol, a lollipop, a Boston Red Sox hat, and the Twister party game.

A participant picked 'The Slut' as an archetype, and one of the models whined, 'Why do I always have to be the slut?' Nonetheless, she picked up Sports Illustrated and made wacky facial expressions as she flipped through it. The other minstrel's rubbery mug soon did the same, and the two had a vaudeville-style discussion about whose appearance was most similar to that of the swimsuit models. When they climaxed, the girls around me applauded and laughed politely. Like the box-dancing, it didn't make much sense, but still, it was performance art at its best.

Dartmouth's haut-couture jet set promenaded around the room. The fashion was bon ton; the demeanor was effete and aloof. Modish goatees and black horn-rimmed glasses were clearly in vogue for the men. One boi sported a tight black turtleneck and a French beret tilted saucily askew; it was straight out of Gay Paree and seemed to scream 'Silence!' For the fashionistas, things were more eclectic. Several chic gurus were ravishing in their sartorial splendor. One wore a pastel pair of children's rain-boots. Another wore scandalous lace pantaloons. Some, however, were a little too hefty for such flair—there were more than a few pie-wagons in attendance—and were instead swaddled in baggy sweatshirts.

Luckily, there were plenty of hors des oeuvres to jam in their gaping maws. There was also a sprawling artistic recreation of the 'area' gallery; the medium was cake and frosting. The pastry was accurate down to the smallest details, including the paintings, bar, box-dancer, and 'area' logo. It was colonized by chocolate-covered gummi bears and plastic pigs perched on top of cupcakes. I asked the womyn next to me what she made of the cake. 'I think that the baker is implying that we are the gummi bears, while the artists are the pigs on the cupcakes,' she volunteered. I asked her what she meant. She replied, 'Because the artists are higher than the hoi polloi, they are subverting traditional patriarchal relationships.'

Speaking of the artists, I made my way over to the wall where the art itself was on display. It was a difficult maneuver, because music easels were obstructing the main lanes of traffic. The stands bore more poetry—printed on paper, not slammed. Needless to say, the poetry did not rhyme or use punctuation.

Perhaps the sole bright spot in the show was the work of Katie Van Syckle '05. Presenting three beaux-arts depictions of herself gyrating in black lingerie, rendered in vivid psychedelic shades, her work was nearly photo-realistic. Ms. Van Syckle's handiwork demonstrated uncommon éclat, direct yet subtle at the same time.

For the most part, though, I guess I lacked the aptitude necessary to appreciate the other works of art. Most were quixotic attempts to blow apart my expectations.

For example, there was a photo-montage of bare left breasts, arranged in a vertical column. Another project, 'form flow,' was a collage of pictures of a nude woman with an extensive floral tattoo running between her bosoms and snaking across her torso. Both her nipples were pierced. The composition was busty, the palette whimsical, the tableau pastose.

Frontal nudity was not a necessity, however. One neomodernist painting, titled 'untitled,' was little more than a turquoise backdrop featuring a blurry red streak horizontal across the middle. It was unapologetically brilliant: how do they come up with this stuff?

Another masterpiece was similarly breathtaking. It depicted several women frolicking in a dewy meadow, brandishing guns merrily. Their lifelong love affair with firearms was on display in the photos: one woman was tonguing a handgun; another was straddling a rifle seductively.

Luckily, there were plenty of patrons milling around to comment on the work, and by eavesdropping, I came a little closer to figuring out what the hell was supposed to be happening. One young woman, admiring the gun-toting free-spirits, breathlessly announced, 'Whenever I pick up a gun I feel like licking it too.' Another socialite agreed. His feet were rubber-banded with bread bags in lieu of traditional footwear, and he remarked, 'These really speak to me.'

As my whirlwind tour wound down, I was approached by a pencil-necked young man, who had an inquiry for me. 'My friends and I have a bet going that you're writing for the Review,' he indicated. I nodded; they must have spotted me taking notes. 'I win,' he said giddily, and scampered back to his clique of suitably multicultural friends. The gig, evidently, was up. I neglected to stay much longer, as the thrill was gone. Alls I can say is that Ms. McNally got at least one thing right: 'The Girl Show' definitely blew. . . apart my expectations.

Art = Life: The Girl Show

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