“PBS Series AMERICAN MASTERS & FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., Reaches Record Number of Viewers: Over 16 Million.”

Fo Wilson 1. My artworks use the language of furniture

to investigate ideas around identity and

culture.

2. They are made of found objects collected

over a period of time.

3. Some include sound or video.

4. The elements are composed in small

wooden boxes on metal stands.

5. I focus on ideas of xenophobia, issues

of gender identification, theories of

harmonic dualism;

6. And looking as a way of seeing and

assimilating difference.

Afro-Surrealists strive for Rococo: the beautiful,

the sensuous, and the whimsical. We turn to Sun

Ra, Toni Morrison, and Ghostface Killah. We look

to Kehinde Wiley, whose observation about the

black male body applies to all art and culture:

"There is no objective image. And there is no way

to objectively view the image itself.”

A MANIFESTO OF AFRO-SURREAL, D. Scott Miller

ABC developed and aired a sitcom based on

Cho's stand-up routine. The show, All American

Girl, was initially feted as the first show promi-

nently featuring an East Asian family. The show

suffered criticism from within the U.S. East Asian

community over its perception of stereotyping.

Producers told Cho at different times during pro-

duction both that she was "too Asian" and that

she was “not Asian enough.” At one point during

the course of the show, producers hired a coach

to teach Cho how to “be more Asian.”

Margaret Cho: All American Girl (1994 TV series)

Tao HuangOverheard: “Asian employees are like

a piece of furniture, highly functional

and quiet.”

1. As an Asian immigrant, I can’t argue well

because of the language barrier, and

my Eastern-Asian culture dictates that I

should be modest and humble.

2. That means that I, as a Chinese person,

am supposed to keep to myself.

3. Am I furniture?

4. My functional sculpture is an

uncomfortable bench made of reclaimed

mismatched wood.

5. The base is transparent and resembles a

traditional Chinese fishing boat.

6. Virtual fish are inside the boat. Am I

the fish?

I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other

groups, that I can't construct identities through

elective affinity, that race must be the most

important thing about me. Is that what I want on

my gravestone: Here lies an African American?

Henry Louis Gates

DaWouD BeyMy two photographs from the series

"Strangers/Community"

1. Are about visualizing the complex thing

that is community. I wanted to do that by

bringing together two people from a given

community who did not know each other,

and having them sit together within a

particular space within that community to

jointly present themselves to the camera,

and by extension to the larger world.

2. Part of the process of making the work is

for the two people who have never met to

figure out how to present themselves to

the camera.

3. They are seated or standing quite close

to one another . . . enough so that one

person may end up mimicking the pose of

the other.

4. It became a sort of momentary bonding

with another human being, and

channeling that person's behavior, often

in a very uncanny kind of way.

*Excerpts from Community Pictures: Q+A with Dawoud Bey by Lisa Dent, Art in America, 07/06/12

Identity as cultural construction has been analyzed extensively over the

last fifty years. From the Black Power and feminist movements of the 60’s

and 70’s to the postcolonial and ethnic studies of the 90’s and queer

theory in the 2000’s, the issue of identity is at the center of our ever-

violent world. The artists in this exhibition focus on questions of identity as

modes through which an understanding of lived experience is transformed.

By exploring their subjective visions, they mirror our perceptions and

dismantle the named and mastered. By questioning their own assumptions,

they show us a fluid, permeable and poetic exploration of difference, while

simultaneously constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing the world.

Despite all our desperate, eternal attempts to separate, contain and mend, categories always leak.Trinh T. Minh-ha, Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism

C o n s T R u C T i o n ( s )

Exhibition and text curated by

Sabina Ott, an internationally exhibiting

artist and Professor of Art in the Art + Design

Department of Columbia College Chicago.

Melissa PoTTeRCome into my office and:

1. Participate while I use Dr. Sandra Bem’s

Sex Role Inventory text for my ongoing

project “Gender Assignment.”

2. Analyze the results of my test results

through images and quasi- scientific

essays and posters.

3. Combine the results of my Sex Role

Inventory Test

4. with the pivotal scenarios in my

life: marriage, career, interpersonal

relationships.

5. It’s all about me.

I feel much better now I've let it all out

He's got big biceps and a masculine shout

I’m not trying to sound like I'm trying to be mean

But he thinks he can be a girl better than me

Excerpt from Le Tigre, I Wish I Was Him

There is no gender identity behind the expressions

of gender... Identity is performatively constituted

by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its

results.

Gender Trouble, Judith Butler

A woman ought to have four qualifications: (1)

womanly virtue; (2) womanly words; (3) womanly

bearing; and (4) womanly work. Now what is

called womanly virtue need not be brilliant ability,

exceptionally different from others. Womanly

words need be neither clever in debate nor keen

in conversation. Womanly appearance requires

neither a pretty nor a perfect face and form. Wom-

anly work need not be work done more skillfully

than that of others.

The Views of a Female Confucian: Lessons for Women by Ban Zhao Pan Chao (c. 80 CE)

WenHWa Ts’aoMy 3 films, my 3 explorations into

experimental documentary filmmaking, my

3 subjects: mother, sister, father.

1. “FUNG TSAO THEORIES”—my mother’s

philosophy of life. 

2. “PEI PEI’S WEDDING”—my sister’s wedding.

3. “EXERCISE WITH CHING YUNG”—my

struggle with my father.

The notion of a universality of human experience is

a confidence trick and the notion of a universality

of female experience is a clever confidence trick.

Angela Carter

The Blind Black White Supremacist: The sketch,

“Blind Supremacy,” featured the life of Clayton

Bigsby (created and played by Chappelle), a biogra-

phy of a blind white supremacist who is not aware

that he is actually a black man. The character

Bigsby was raised at the Wexler Home of the Blind,

where he was the only Negro that lived there, so he

was told that he was white because it was easier.

He grew up to be an author of six books about

his distaste of the non-Caucasian man; four of

those books were published. Never seen in public

because he hasn't left his property in years, until

one day, he went to a book signing in town, and

when he was asked to show his face, he shocked

his audience with his black skin. Bigsby accepted

the fact that he is black, but divorced his wife

Prudence because she was a “xxxxx lover.”

Dave Chappelle

MyRa gReene My White Friends

1. This series of images explores the

challenges of describing whiteness and

assumptions about social circles.

2. For this body of photographs I ask those

close to me who identify as white about

the qualities of their racial identity.

3. These color images are attempts to

image a racial category that has an

intangible description.

4. Some images are documents of my time

with friends, others are performances of

whiteness by the sitter, and then there

are images in which I impose my own

stereotypes of white ness.

Whiteness does not exist at the biological level.

It is a cultural construct, yet whiteness defines

us and limits us. ……The tenets of postmod-

ernism apply to the study of whiteness. Jean

Baudrillard’s concept of the simulacrum as

a copy lacking an original (Simulacra) can be

applied to whiteness. The failed search of white

supremacists and others for a “lost pure white

race” proves this point. Whiteness lacks an

original, yet it is performed and reperformed in

myriad ways, so much so that it seems “natural”

to most. It is taken for granted—the norm that is

unmarked. To question white- ness is to question

the air around us; it’s always there, but nobody

acknowledges it. But air is real, unlike whiteness,

which has no biological basis.

Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/ Constructions in the Cinema, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, SUNY Series, In Post-Modern Culture, Chapter 1 Pg 2.

The point is not to stay marginal, but to partici-

pate in whatever network of marginal zones is

spawned from other disciplinary centers and

which, together, constitute a multiple displace-

ment of those authorities.

Gender Trouble, Judith Butler

RANK FRANCHISE EPISODE ORiG. AIRING EPISODE TITLE TOTAL AUDIENCE 18-49 DEMO%

1 RHoA 5 2012/13 19 3,054,842 1.47

2 RHoNJ 2 2010 18 2,718,556 1.38

3 RHoBH 2 2011/12 24 2,172,208 1.09

4 RHoNY 4 2011 18 2,039,833 0.93

5 RHOC 7 2012 23 1,947,130 0.97

6 RHoDC 1 2010 11 1,408,091 0.66

7 RHoM 1 2011 6 1,156,833 0.60

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COVER: Fo Wilson, The Nappys Revenge Queen Anne,

2011, Reclaimed curio cabinet, synthetic Afro wigs,

60” x 33” x 13”

D a W o u D B e yDawoud Bey, Professor in the Photography Department of Columbia College Chicago, began his

career as a photographer in 1975 photographing in the

streets of Harlem, New York. This five year project was

later exhibited in his first one-person exhibition, "Harlem,

USA" at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979. A graduate

of Yale University, his photographs are included in the

permanent collections of numerous museums, both in the

United States and abroad, including the Addison Gallery

of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn

Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Fogg Art Museum

at Harvard University, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta,

the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Museum

of Modern Art, NY, the San Francisco Museum of Modern

Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and other

museums worldwide. He has been honored with numerous

fellowships over the course of his long career, including the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship

(2002) and a fellowship from the National Endowment for

the Arts (1991).

Paula Beigelsen and Shirley Sims, Oxford, Georgia, 2010, 2013, Archival inkjet photograph, 32” x 40”, Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery

F o W i l s o nFo Wilson, Assistant Professor of Art in the Art+ Design Department’s Foundation Program of Columbia College Chicago, graduated

with an MFA from the Rhode Island School of

Design’s Furniture Design program in 2005 with a

concentration in Art History, Theory and Criticism.

Prior to her graduate studies, she ran her graphic

design consultancy with offices in New York and the

San Francisco Bay area. She writes and lectures

about art, design, and craft to international

audiences. Her furniture-based work is exhibited

nationally, and her design work is included in the

collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design

Museum.

Talking in Tongues, untitled (#1), 2013, Walnut, steel, antique doll head, bell jar, wooden cross, plastic babydoll, booklet, 34” x 14” x 15”

W e n H W a T s a oBorn and raised in Taiwan, Republic of China, Wenhwa Ts’ao

is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has received

numerous grants and scholarships such as the Illinois Arts

Council Fellowship, the Kodak Faculty Award, and the Chicago

Community Arts Assistance Program Grant. She is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Film and Video Department of Columbia College Chicago. Her films explore issues of gender and the Asian American

experience and have been showcased in the United States

of America, France, China, Romania, Mexico, Ecuador, Africa,

and at the Netherlands International Film Festival. Professor

Ts’ao is developing a feature script inspired by the historical

looting of the Silk Road Buddhist Treasure from 1885 to

1925, and a sci-fi film about a coming-of-age thirteen-year-old

cyborg girl.

LEFT: Video still from FUNG TSAO THEORIES, 1997

RIGHT: Video still from EXERCISE WITH CHING YUNG, 2003

T a o H u a n gTao Huang, Assistant Professor in the Product Design Program of the Art + Design Department of Columbia College Chicago

earned her PhD in Architecture + Design Research

from Virginia Tech. She holds a Bachelor's and a

Master's degree in Industrial Design from Beijing

Institute of Technology and Guangzhou Academy of

Fine Arts, respectively. Professor Huang has served

as Associate Chair of the Art + Design Department

at Columbia College Chicago and has recently co-

founded the Resilient Design Studio of Chicago.

Quiet Conversations, 2013, Reclaimed wood, lamps, mirror, metal, 56” x 15” x 18”

M y R a g R e e n eMyra Greene, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Photography Department of Columbia College Chicago, was born in New York City and received her BFA from

Washington University in St. Louis and her MFA in photography

from the University of New Mexico. Professor Greene's work has

been featured nationally in galleries and museums including

Williams College of Art, the Art Museum of the Americas in

Washington, DC, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in

Atlanta, the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco,

the Wadsworth Museum in Hartford, CT, and the Sculpture

Center in New York City. Her work is in the permanent collection

of the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the

Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the National Gallery of Art in

Washington DC in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas

City, and the New York Public Library.

My White Friends, J.S., Albuquerque, NM, 2008, Inkjet print, 20” x 20”

M e l i s s a P o T T e RMelissa Potter, Director of the Book and Paper Program and Associate Professor in the Interdisciplinary Arts Department of Columbia College Chicago, is a multi-media artist whose

work explores gender in its relationship to individual

expression, social interaction, and power dynamics.

Her work is expressed in paper, print, sculpture,

and video animation. She has exhibited at venues

such as the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and White

Columns, where she was featured in the exhibition

Regarding Gloria, one of the first survey precursors

to the 2007 “year of feminism.” Professor Potter is

a two-time Fulbright recipient. In her first award, she

founded a hand papermaking program at the Faculty

of Fine Arts at the University of Belgrade in Serbia.

Gender Assignment Performance, 2013, installation view

ar t + design

A + DAVERILL AND BERNARD LEVITON

A+D GALLERY

619 SOUTH WABASH AVENUE

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60605

312 369 8687

COLUM.EDU/ADGALLERY

GALLERY HOURS

TUESDAY – SATURDAY

11AM – 5PM

THURSDAY

11AM – 8PM

This exhibition is sponsored by the Art + Design Department at Columbia College Chicago. This exhibition is partially sponsored by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

ABOVE: Fo Wilson, Talking in Tongues, untitled (#3), 2013,

Walnut, steel, found French clarinet, Will Smith action

figure, gaf anscochrome slide viewer, 35mm photo of

Miles Davis (Francis Wolff, 1954), 44” x 12” x 13”

IN SITU PHOTOGRAPHY: by Jacob Boll (’12)

Sabina Ott, Professor of Art in the Art and Design Department of Columbia College Chicago, has exhibited her work internationally in

exhibitions such as the first Auckland Triennial in New Zealand, the Australian Contemporary Arts Center in Melbourne, as well as the Los Angeles

County Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, the Cleveland Center for Contemporary

Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her work is in the collection of the Corcoran Museum of American Art in Washington DC, the Los

Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Saint Louis Art Museum, the University Art Museum, University of California

in Berkeley, and the Orange County Museum of Art in California among others. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artists

Grant and a Howard Foundation Grant from Brown University, and has curated numerous exhibitions. Professor Ott is the Founder and Director of

Terrain Exhibitions, a front yard project space in Oak Park, IL.