As I stepped into the show “Martha Rosler: Irrespective” in the Jewish Museum, I came across a variety of different art forms that were very new and unfamiliar to me. There was a huge mobile prosthetic leg, a set dinner table, videos, photomontages, hanged diaper cloth, and more. The entire show presented me with a whole new experience as an observer, since my previous museum experience only consisted of paintings. Martha Rosler’s art can be constituted as avant-garde art since her art is both experimental and unconventional in the art world. Rosler’s art was pushing the boundaries of traditional art works, and causing observers such as myself to reevaluate our understanding of “what is art?”
The piece in the show that grabbed my attention was the artwork titled “Point and Shoot” from the House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home series. This piece was made in 2008 and is an antiwar photomontage during the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rosler’s unorthodox materials consisted of a series of cut-and-pasted printed paper from magazines on photos from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In this piece, we see a war-stricken area in which American soldiers are directing the civilians to move ahead from a tank by pointing their weapons at them. The civilians in the background of the the photo are predominately male and are all looking back at the scene in front of them. There is also a male civilian beginning to walk across the tank, but the American soldiers’ attention lies elsewhere. Rosler had pasted a black and white cut out of a mother and child hand in hand coming face to face with the American soldiers. The mother and child are both holding papers, and the mother’s body language looks as though she is desperate to keep moving forward. Another obvious magazine cut-out pasted on this photo is the model posing in a white dress and black bag. The whole war scene brought before the viewer’s eyes is sort of interrupted with the large cut out of the posing model. The model’s presence is grabbing our attention and the way the model is pasted into the scene seems as though this is just another runway. This avant-garde art is also abstract art since its not following the traditional art guidelines, but rather creating its own rules. The combination of the model cut out and devastating war background do not coincide with each other and that works since it is abstract art. This piece goes beyond imitation art in order to raise awareness to issues that seem ignored or forgotten.
Rosler’s method of cutting out pictures from magazines and pasting them onto photos from the Iraq and Afghanistan war is meant to convey a political statement. This form of photomontages shares similar visual strategies to Rosler’s previous antiwar art on the Vietnam war. She is using her art as a way to criticize the country’s repetitive geopolitics and continuous engagement in one war after the other. Her art is powerful and its experimental aspect helps bring social awareness to the war going on out “there,” by pasting a picture that we are looking at “here” in a typical American magazine. Everyone in the art work are focused on the mother and child and our attention veers off to the model on the left. The photomontage is presented in a way that our attention lies on the model, while there is a whole war in the background that goes unnoticed. Rosler wants to get the political message across that the experience we have viewing this art is similar to the way Americans are viewing the wars. We are spending our time focusing on materialistic things like clothes and magazines, when we should be aware of the politics and wars taking place.
I had a similar experience when I first walked into this exhibit, it took a bit of time for me to get used to these new forms of art. I loved your analysis of this piece. This was one of the pieces that overflowed my senses—I wasn’t sure where to look or where to start. Your description of this art makes sense to me; I understand this piece a lot better now. I didn’t even recognize that the mother and child were holding papers, but I did see their desperation. The model with the white dress and black bag was extremely attention-grabbing; it’s interesting that you saw her as a model. I just saw her as a white tourist walking around and ignoring all the violence and chaos. But I definitely see how the model could be seen as walking across the “runway”. This was a great post! It was wonderful how descriptive you were about this piece of art.
I too had a similar experience when I walked into the exhibit and saw this collection of photos. My blog post was done using a different photomontage that showed the same message of bringing the war back home. You spent a lot of time commenting on the mother and child in the background, and shockingly enough that was not even the first thing I saw. wonder if that is saying something about me, or if that is exactly what Martha Rosler wanted us to experience. When I first looked at this image the only thing I saw initially was the model in the long white dress, that you say, is walking down a runway. Only after a took a second glance did I notice the background of the tank and the soldiers, but the mother and child still didn’t appear to me until much later on. I think part of me is trying to push away the atrocities of war, while you beautifully describe Martha’s method of art, that we cannot ignore the fact that we constantly go to war. It has to stop, stop being so normal. Very well said!
I would like to agree with your analysis of this art piece by Rosler and your initial reaction upon viewing this piece at first. I was taken aback by its avant-garde nature as well and the presence of the model really does seem like a prominent part of the pieces while adding to the message that it takes away form the real issue presented in this piece. Additionally, I agree with your avant-garde analysis of this pieces in the sense that by presenting the cut out of the model at the foreground of the piece, Rosler tries to present the political message that in our society, our lifestyle and showmanship of our entertainment industry forces us to overlook the various injustices and atrocities committed by the United States. I would also like to praise your analysis of Rosler’s message that it should not be okay to overlook the imminent war and the ongoing injustices going on in our society, whether it be racial inequality or social injustices. I agree that we should all take a moment to notice our surroundings. Overall, you have written a very well crafted and thoughtful piece!