Silent Witnessing: Questioning Sacred Spaces (review)

SILENTWITNESSING: Questioning Sacred Spaces \Jit I M C U I C C I I New Haven, Connecticut March 2001 Rush Arts Gallery, NY L In March of 2001, I was introduced to Bradley McCallum at the Ford Foundation. He spoke at a roundtable discussion of the particular challenge of presenting large-scale public artworks addressing socio-political issues, focusing on the needs of individual artists in today's art community . Witness: Perspectives on Police Violence, is an illustration of this type of artwork done in collaboration with his wife, Jacqueline Tarry. His words proved timely. The following day, Witness, installed at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York City, was thrust center stage in New York's media arena. The installation caught the attention of then Mayor Rudy Guiliani, who opposed the work calling it "political propaganda," and used it to seek the creation of a "decency review panel." McCallum and Tarry recently completed the first installation of Silence, a meta-artwork that continues their investigation of socio-politics, amplifying the voiceless in what they have coined "performative sculpture." The impetus for their work is the desire to uniquely commission public sites as "sacred," bringing awareness to issues of civic concern , as well as using religious sanctuaries (representing a sacred home) to highlight the spirit that underlies the art. These sites inspire individuals and communities as they seek to reclaim history, and bring to the forefront histories and realities that are generally avoided. The first installation of Silence took place in the historic Center Church on the Green, in New Haven, Connecticut. In this work, the artists used the history of antebellum America, the gradual emancipation of slaves and the Underground Railroad to address race relations today. The installation focused on a period in 1820 when the members of African descent petitioned the church elders to sit in the central pews on the ground floor. The petition was denied, thus the members were required to sit in the balcony, continuing the commonly held practice of segregated seating. The decision led a number of the members to establish the first black Congregationalist church in America known today as the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church. The installation had three components. First, photographs of contemporary African American members of the Dixwell Avenue Church represented their ancestors whose images were placed on pedestals and "seated" in the pews of the main floor. Also, a series of granite "memorial " plaques were etched with the biography of the original church members of African descent. Finally, an address given by Reverend James Wright to the Anti-Slavery Society in 1834 was read. The granite plaques, part historical record and part appropriated text from other memorial markers in the church, served as an acknowledgement to the African members of the Center Church, which were installed in the balcony. On November 9 t n , the Board of Stewards, the church governing body, elected to remove portions of Silence. Specifically, the series of photographs were removed from the central seating area and placed in the balcony. In response, the artists shrouded the memorial plaques that remained installed in the balcony . The balcony windows were shuttered and the audio component continued. During the final weeks of the installation McCallum and Tarry held three discussions in the church that brought together twenty-three artists, curators, scholars, historians, and community members to talk about the underlying issues addressed in Silence. What follows is an associative edit by the artists to give the reader the experience of eavesdropping on the conversations . Represented are: Dori Laub, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, Johanna Bodenstab, Freelance Journalist; Patricia Phillips, Dean, SUNY at New Paltz, Visual and Performing Arts; Donna Harkavy, Independent Curator; Eathon Hall, Curator of Education, Bronx Museum of the Arts; Caron Atlas, Arts Consultant; Rev. Samuel Sly, Pastor, Yale University; Norman Frisch, Executive Director, Snug Harbor Cultural Center; Nadine Wasserman, Curator, Samuel Dorskey Museum; Helen Kauder, Executive Director, Artspace; Rev. Sheppard Parsons, Center Church on the Green; and Wayne Winborne, Dialogue Mediator. Jacqueline Tarry: When artists use history, what is off limits? What is culturally sacred? Eathon Hall: I think it is the artists' job never to...