{"id":902,"date":"2020-04-24T03:06:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T03:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/?p=902"},"modified":"2020-04-24T03:10:20","modified_gmt":"2020-04-24T03:10:20","slug":"margi-weir-bearing-witness-exhibition-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/2020\/04\/24\/margi-weir-bearing-witness-exhibition-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Margi Weir: Bearing Witness Exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Sophie Anderson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking\ninto \u201cBearing Witness: Installations by Margi Weir\u201d tension is already present\nbefore even processing the work. The floor is barren, except for a few low\nbenches for viewing. The bright lights amplify the empty distance between the\nwalls. Confrontational, bright, reflective artworks on plexiglass, bleed out onto\nthe walls with vinyl cutouts that mimic the patterns present in the works. The\ncomplicated patterns are reminiscent of a shiny, busy wrapping paper design. It\ntakes a moment to take in the artworks individually to break them down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

 The artist explains that her works are\npersonal. They are a way for her to process what angers and frightens her. They\nare political in many cases, but she is fighting the polarized nature of\npolitical discussion not trying to add to it. So much of political discourse is\ndone in bad faith. It is not designed to bring people together; instead, it serves\na way to create two increasingly severe parties. Weir is disturbed by this. She\nis not creating a call to action, but a path for viewers to question parts of\nour shared reality. She calls the main body of work exhibited, The Politics of Hue. <\/em>Each painting uses\na specific color, weaving its negative and positive associations together in a\ntextile-like pattern. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Weir, Better Red<\/em>, 2017, Acrylic on Plexi surrounded by vinyl on wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe center on the left wall Better Red<\/em>\ndraws my eye. It is big and red with bold black outlines. In the center, a priest\nand the devil stand side by side. They are surrounded by a pattern made from\nrobins, stop signs, sickles, hearts, and roses. On the bottom, in all caps, the\nwords BETTER RED THAN DEAD are underlined with dragons. Like the other works, a\nvinyl sticker, on the wall, borders the painting with word associations to the\ncolor represented, in this case red.  A\npattern of red crosses and cherries surrounds this, further blurring the line\nbetween the wall and the ride. The sheer number of objects presented opens the\nwork up to interpretation. For me, the work brings to mind the Catholic\nChurch\u2019s numerous scandals involving the sexual assault of children and the\nsubsequent protection of the abusive priests. The priest and the devil stand\nside by side with cartoon kissy lips at the eye level, bringing focus to what\nmight be, truly, on their minds. The hearts, juxtaposed with the stop signs,\nrepresent the love bombing process and the sexual abuse that go hand in hand\nwith each other.  It is easy to also make\nthe association with the \u201cred scare\u201d. The sickles and tag line, BETTER RED THAN\nDEAD, could convey a fear of communism for the American public. For me, the latter\nis more interesting and topical, given how highly publicized cases of abuse in\nchurches are.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Weir, White Privilege, <\/em> 2017, acrylic on Plexi surrounded by vinyl on wall <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A\npredominant theme of racial inequality runs throughout the surrounding works. Blue is Not a Neutral <\/em>addresses the pro-police,\nBlue Lives Matter, movement, created in protest of Black Lives Matter. The four\npredominate figures in this piece are silhouetted police officers in riot gear\non a background of a blue brick wall, referencing the blue wall of silence. The\nupper half of the image has some birds, a 1st<\/sup> place ribbon, and a\nblue commuter error screen; but none of the other imagery is as strong or as\npolitical as the police figures.   White\nPrivilege<\/em> and its counterpart, Black\nLives Matter, <\/em>reflect their names in a predictable, but well-executed, manner.\nWhite Privilege <\/em>does not have a\ncentral image that grabs the viewers\u2019 attention. From the top down, there\u2019s the\nwhite house with the words white wash written underneath, a clothesline, a\nwhite picket fence, chess pieces, and white bread. The white bread stands out\nas a humorous element, due to the modern association that something very\nvanilla, suburban, and middle class might be \u201cwhite bread\u201d. Smaller works to\nthe side address \u2018hands up don\u2019t shoot\u2019 and issues of gun violence directly.\nThe entire show is tied together by the installation on the right wall. This\nsection is Weir\u2019s most recent body of work and it focuses on the issue of\nborder control and the separation of refugee families. Watchtowers and a large\nwire fence with crows sitting on top spread over the wall like a mural combining\nthe three works. These are not as heavily patterned as the earlier pieces in\nthe show, and this sprawling line work design pulls them together.  The fluttering weaponized hands surround the\nsky, further reinforcing the combined theme of the show. Throughout Weir\u2019s work,\nshe addresses racism, gun violence, police brutality and privilege. This final,\nsprawling, work layers these themes purposely to bring attention to how often\nthese issues, that might seem separate, are actually intersectional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\nboth highs and lows, this exhibition succeeds where the artist has left some\nvagueness for the viewer to be drawn into, and it fails when there is no\ndiscovery to be unearthed with only one note ideas to be picked up on. Some\nrequire patient viewing for the onlooker to decipher all the objects in the\npatterns and the near pun tag lines that play on color. While staring at these\nslow burning pieces, the viewer can begin to see their own reflection in the\nPlexiglas and begin some introspection. The lows, for me, are where the\nartworks seem more like undeviating messages. Better Red <\/em>is strong because it uses so many politically and\nemotionally charged symbols that can lead to several interpretations, depending\non the focus of the viewer. Other pieces lack this level of depth and are much\nmore designated for single interpretations. Black Lives Matter is an\nundoubtedly important movement that, in this series, has been reduced to its\ntitle. The artist\u2019s goal of creating some sort of question is lost in the\ndirectness. A person aware of the political climate around these issues, of\nrace and the police force, will either agree with the work or disagree. There\nis no content in these lows that could take hold of someone and really\nchallenge them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Sophie Anderson is a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Valdosta State University focusing in the area of ceramics. She is originally from Thomasville Georgia and plans to return there after graduation and pursue a masters in ceramics at Florida State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sophie Anderson Walking into \u201cBearing Witness: Installations by Margi Weir\u201d tension is already present before even processing the work. The floor is barren, except for a few low benches for viewing. The bright lights amplify the empty distance between the walls. Confrontational, bright, reflective artworks on plexiglass, bleed out onto the walls with vinyl … Continue reading Margi Weir: Bearing Witness Exhibition<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":553,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-margi_weir"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/553"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":907,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions\/907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.valdosta.edu\/artcriticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}