victory hall.

one reviewer referred to allison smith’s victory hall as a “refreshing and sincere confrontation with the ephemerality of all notions of identity – national, sexual, and personal.” um. ok…let’s decode the art speak.  we think this just means that smith’s main goal is an examination of identity at different levels.  That is, her work strives to make the viewer question history, gender issues, and their own personal views and values.

naysayers!

another review of the work states the “installation borrows elements of martial decoration that smack of glorification, but are devoid of political content.” while smith makes a definite reference to some form of arms exhibition with her own display of weaponry, to say that her interpretation of the form is not political is absurd. ah.  even the art reviewers don’t always get the art.  we think looking at smith’s exploration of these three notions of identity will no doubt conjure some amount of political commentary.

identity: national

smith’s look into our national identity is the easiest to recognize and also where she is the most political. with her toy-like representations of civil war era weaponry and the way that they are whimsically arranged Smith is commenting on how we construct our national identity. Our militaristic history is definitely a major factor in how we view ourselves. By borrowing from historic forms that represent our history and presenting them in a new way, Smith calls her viewers to reconsider how our identity is constructed. the current climate in iraq is a definite parallel, perhaps our national identity draws from the darkest parts of our history.

erasing history. erasing identity.

for us the dolls explore all three notions of identity, national, sexual, and personal. the dolls are based on the zouaves and vivandières, obscure citizen soldiers of the american civil war era. Her subject choice is an exploration in our lesser known history. even having studied american history, we had never heard of the zouaves and vivandières. we think she is trying to emphasize the point that we need to reflect on our history. why have these soldiers been left out of history and what impact has it had on the creation of our national identity?  and what other groups haven’t had their stories told?

identity: sexual and personal

as noted by one reviewer, “smith’s objects infuse sexual ambiguity into america’s warring past, suggesting a critique on the male hijacking of history.” this sexual ambiguity is seen most obviously in the dolls created by smith. some of the dolls are male and some female, this alone alters ideas of the past — that only men fought in the civil war.  although they are presented male and female, they are all created in the image of allison smith herself. this further creates a sense of sexual ambiguity in our past. it could also be seen as the artist’s exploration of her own personal queer identity.

reviews:

Allison Smith, “Victory Hall” by Barbara Pollack

Bellwether, Allison Smith by Nick Stillman