Arts Visual Arts Whitfield Lovell: One Man’s Treasures
Whitfield Lovell: One Man’s Treasures
Monday, 23 November 2009 19:25 | 
Author: Betsy DiJulio | 
There is no question that Whitfield Lovell, the so-called “master of the found object” is deserving of his 2007 MacArthur Fellowship, better known as a “genius grant.” His body of work ingeniously juxtaposes large charcoal paintings of African-American men and women from an earlier era on warn and scuffed wood panels with psychologically-loaded and, sometimes, perplexing found objects.
But this installation—despite meeting professional standards within a beautiful setting—does the work little justice because of the similarity of the pieces chosen. First introduced to Lovell’s work through two dynamic and interactive site-specific installations at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, I wasn’t prepared for this static display in which a dozen similarly-sized and evenly spaced pieces line the gallery walls. Handsome and stately, each pairing of portrait and object is poignant but, as a group, predictable. Though no two are alike—and the differences highly significant—they read as somewhat redundant: portrait + found object = artwork.
Considered individually, though, each piece is inventive within the fairly narrow parameters Lovell has established for himself. Poetic and captivating, the works reveal the subtleties and complexities of Lovell’s metaphorical use of space, image and object to create layered relationships between past and present, “them” and “us.”
With titles like “Destiny,” “Fortune,” “Patience,” “Salvation,” “Temptation,” and “Freedom,” the pieces are informed by Lovell’s interest in history and collecting and are ripe for interpretation. Found objects such as a stack of books or a spinning wheel, a rifle or a radio, and a balustrade or bottles on a ledge provide a bridge between our space in the present and a pictorial space which harkens to the past. Although the found objects are part of the here and now, they too appear to have belonged to a previous generation.Additionally, the way the artist draws the charcoal portraits on the wooden planks, allowing the aged natural or painted surfaces to show through, renders each realistic representation a benignly haunting presence. By seeming to neither reside completely on the wood nor in the wood, each portrait resists categorization as either image or object and, rather, seems to hover between the two. It is that suspended visual quality in which these unknown personages seem to be emerging out of the wood or becoming submerged within it that serves as a metaphor for mediation between historical, social and psychological realms.
But what does it all mean? Together, the portraits, the objects and the titles provide clues, yet all are ambiguous, some more than others. For example, “Cada Dia,” or “Every Day,” depicts a young male in a wide brim hat. On the floor in front of the portrait is a rocking chair. Associated with the very young and the very old, as well as motherhood, rocking chairs bring to mind notions of contented passage of time, waiting or marking time and, when empty as is this one, bereavement. Perhaps that is about the best we can do in our search for initial meaning.
However, occasionally, as in “Fortune,” the artist gives us a clue. In this case, he links the image to a book entitled Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow and “an account of how angry white store owners became when black women came in to buy crocheting needles. Crocheting was considered too delicate an activity for black women. This was part of what I was thinking about when I made this piece…” But only part.
The rest of the interpretation is up to us…and worth every bit of effort.
Whitfield Lovell: One Man’s Treasures
Through November 28
Hampton University Museum
Hampton University
11 Frissell Avenue, Hampton, VA 23668
757.727.5308
Last Updated ( Monday, 23 November 2009 22:27 )
