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Message Board

Gerard Hanson | 30.11.2007 18:18 | Anti-racism | Culture | Social Struggles | Oxford

Your being watched!

Miss Chin & Calvin
Miss Chin & Calvin


'Message Board' provides a format for Billboard sized photographs of original artworks. Removed from the studio, gallery and museum by a process of mechanical reproduction these intimate works are converted to grand themes in a public setting. Artist from Baltimore U.S.A. are exhibited together in a series: Zoë Charlton, Sam Holmes, George Chang, Joyce Scott, Linda DePalma plus Gerard Hanson from Oxford. The common theme of their artwork is, in the words of Kerry James Marshall, a "Fusion of the Classical and the Vernacular": works that are savvy, sophisticated and 'Folk'. Often highly crafted they are the products of un-alienated labour, produced in regional centres by artists who think independently and have room to 'Breath'. To make art in Baltimore as an artist of colour is to work in a city with a formidable Black History. Frederick Douglas in his 'Narrative of the Life of an American Slave' gives a searing description of his dehumanising experiences. Reading his words we are able to appreciate that the artists in this show have had to travel considerable cultural distance.

Gerard Hanson
- e-mail: info@gerardhanson.com
- Homepage: http://www.gerardhanson.com