Courage at Our Core

Steve Mumford

Entrance to Baghdad National Museum, May 10

2003

ink and watercolor on paper
11 inches x 14 inches

(b. 1960 — Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.) Steve Mumford traveled to U.S.-occupied Iraq from 2003 to 2013, beginning with the U.S.-led invasion, Operation Iraqi Freedom. He came of his own initiative, not sponsored or embedded, to attempt to capture this moment in history. He explains, “I figured since I had never been to a war zone, that I would just see how it went, see what my comfort level was, and see if I could even draw in that situation.” His first day was in a hospital in Basra, overrun by injuries from the war. The scenes were so visceral that he questioned if he should be there. But in that moment of panic in the hospital, he made his first drawing. Mumford continued making ink drawings and watercolors of daily street life in Iraq for the next 10 years, a model of taking personal initiative and reporting what one sees. Here are notes from his journal that correspond with this piece:

Entrance to Baghdad National Museum, May 10: “None of the reporters were getting past this entrance. Rumors circulated that the loss of antiquities to looting wasn’t as bad as originally reported. Nevertheless, the mood was grim and some of the employees seemed near tears.”

Ann Hamilton

Phora #3

2005

iris print on Somerset velvet paper
33.75 inches x 46.25 inches

(b. 1956 — Lima, Ohio, U.S.) Ann Hamilton’s work captures the almost religious ritual of verbal communication. Here, there’s a nearly literal illustration of the act of seeing and speaking. She created these photographs by using a video camera to capture the features of figures in Swedish medieval reliefs. Their lack of focus gives them movement and mystery.

For Ann Hamilton, public life implies construction. Collectively, we construct space through our buildings and institutions, we construct thought, we construct language to express these thoughts, and we construct meaning through our interactions. And it’s these constructed elements that give each of us voice. Hamilton elaborates by making a metaphorical connection between doorways and our mouths: “The threshold, like the mouth, is the limit and the boundary that distinguishes and bears the between. Demurring and exclaiming as one mouth turns toward or away from another, the possibility of a first speaking.” In Phora #4 and Phora #3, there’s an encouragement to commune and communicate.

Ann Hamilton

Phora #4

2005

iris print on Somerset velvet paper
33.75 inches x 46.25 inches

(b. 1956 — Lima, Ohio, U.S.) Ann Hamilton’s work captures the almost religious ritual of verbal communication. Here, there’s a nearly literal illustration of the act of seeing and speaking. She created these photographs by using a video camera to capture the features of figures in Swedish medieval reliefs. Their lack of focus gives them movement and mystery.

For Ann Hamilton, public life implies construction. Collectively, we construct space through our buildings and institutions, we construct thought, we construct language to express these thoughts, and we construct meaning through our interactions. And it’s these constructed elements that give each of us voice. Hamilton elaborates by making a metaphorical connection between doorways and our mouths: “The threshold, like the mouth, is the limit and the boundary that distinguishes and bears the between. Demurring and exclaiming as one mouth turns toward or away from another, the possibility of a first speaking.” In Phora #4 and Phora #3, there’s an encouragement to commune and communicate.

Michelle Blade

The Time the Earth Moved

2008

watercolor on paper
15 inches x 15 inches

(b. 1981 — Los Angeles, California, U.S.) Michelle Blade’s work speaks to the moment of taking a leap of faith in life with the hope that you’ll be supported by the interest and efforts of your community. She explains, “I’m interested in building a practice based on exploration and questioning … The images I create are imbued with transcendent experiences, filled with fireworks, piercing light, explosions, and natural phenomena. They are investigations into the magic of these moments, tinged with a hint of sorrow for their brevity and eventual disintegration—a push and pull between a utopic and dystopic content. The reality of these works oscillates between a past which has seen the accomplishments and failures in movements toward collectivity and equality, and a present filled with hope and disillusionments for a promising future.”

Steve Lambert

It’s About Power

2009

laser cut acrylic, wood, lights,
41 inches x 41 inches x 4 inches

(b. 1976 — Los Angeles, California, U.S.) Steve Lambert’s work is concerned with advertising and how it impacts the way we understand ourselves and our shared public space. He explains, “For me, art is a bridge that connects uncommon, idealistic, or even radical ideas with everyday life. I carefully craft various conditions where I can discuss these ideas with people and have a mutually meaningful exchange. Often this means working collaboratively with the audience, bringing them into the process, or even having them physically complete the work. I intend what I do to be funny, but at the core of each piece there is also a solemn critique. It’s important to be able to laugh while actively questioning the various power structures at work in our daily lives.” Lambert’s Capitalism Works For Me!—a large voting machine where viewers are invited to select “Yes” or “No” in response to the statement in the title— exemplifies this. In It’s About Power, the question is begged, “What is about power?” and even further, “What isn’t about power?” Lambert might answer, “Exactly.”

Faris McReynolds

Lake Bavaria

2006

oil on canvas
76 inches x 62 inches

(b. 1977 — Dallas, Texas, U.S.) Faris McReynolds’ heavily layered, gestural paintings depict ambiguous scenes that he often takes from television. The blocks of color used to render the individuals have a distorting effect, like partially downloaded images. In Lake Bavaria, it’s unclear if the police officer is arresting or helping the fallen figure, and if the figure is bloodied or wearing a red scarf and hat. There appears to be a mood of violence and even abuse, but the third figure’s disinterest suggests that this could be something the viewer is bringing to the scene rather than the truth of the matter. McReynolds’ paintings give us a quick snapshot of potentially exciting scenes, positioning us as viewers and, perhaps, voyeurs. They highlight our responsibility to actively assess situations, while exposing the difficulty in separating truth from fiction.

Ed Drew

Technical Sergeant, Weapons Mechanic, Helmand Province, Afghanistan

1981

pigment ink print from unique tintype plate
20 inches x 16 inches

(b. 1981 — Brooklyn, New York, U.S.) These are the first known tintypes created in wartime since the American Civil War. A tintype is a photographic process in which an image is captured and developed on a thin sheet of enamel-coated iron. Tintypes enjoyed their widest use during the late 1800s.

While the depicted could be viewed through a simplistic, jingoistic idea of courage, Ed Drew invites us to look at them as individuals, providing a richer, more conflicted idea of courage. He explains, “The whole idea to do tintypes came from the fact that I was going to Afghanistan and I wanted to record the people who I worked with in the most humanistic way possible. I really wanted to focus on this brotherhood I belong to, these combat rescue individuals ... My tintypes for Afghanistan were about the timelessness of war, how it’s followed us since civilization began, and how it will continue to follow us. My purpose is not to glorify anything; it’s to celebrate people because we’re all essentially just human.”

At the time the artworks were acquired by Progressive, and the course of almost 13 years of conflict, 831,5776 service members had served in Afghanistan and the U.S. Department of Defense official statistics listed 19,775 service members wounded and 1,819 killed in action.

Joel Holmberg

Things Don’t Change People Change

2014

oil on canvas
72 inches x 48 inches

(b. 1982 — Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.) Joel Holmberg uses humor to illuminate how our identities and interactions with one another can be scripted by popular culture, institutions, and technology. In Things Don’t Change, People Change, the title—a cliché itself—is wryly undercut by Holmberg’s use of a formulaic advertising photo of workers within an already-out-of-date website interface. Here, technology is changing at a speed that may be hard to keep up with, but the stereotypical depiction of collaborating workers feels locked in time. His deadpan depiction both skewers these artificial roles and inspires something more human.

Mildred Beltré

Dream Workers (Claudette Colvin)

2014

mixed media
dimensions variable

(b. 1969 — New York City, New York, U.S.) As an artist and activist, Mildred Beltré is interested in how we can work toward the world we want to live in. For her, one of the central tools is the act of dreaming to dreaming about the world we want. In “Freedom Dreams,” Robin D.G. Kelly explains, “Without new visions, we don’t know what to build, only what to knock down. We not only end up confused, rudderless, and cynical, but we forget that making a revolution is not a series of clever maneuvers and tactics, but a process that can and must transform us.”

Part of Beltré’s work is sharing her own dreams of social engagement and justice. These collages depict civil rights activists (Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, Assata Shakur, Kathleen Cleaver, and Huey Newton) from the ’60s and ’70s—models of people speaking out in difficult circumstances. In her process, her work models our potential engagement with one another, starting with simple rules and then making sensitive adjustments as developments progress. Beltré is not comfortable, however, telling us what to do or think. In her use of abstraction and materials as diverse as cross-stitch and her own hair, there is a quiet humbleness. Instead of being didactic, her work is meant to make us think and to promote the work of dreaming our own positive future.