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Making a Difference:
The Without Sanctuary Project
If in the last few months you visited The
Andy Warhol Museum via the Seventh Street Bridge from Downtown, you passed
beneath a banner claiming
"United We Stand." This post-September 11 attitude,
flapping on plastic in the stiff breeze off the Allegheny River, was the
same idea that motivated The Warhol to present Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America.
The exhibition on the
museum's sixth floor, which ran from September 22 to December 31, 2001, was
a visual and visceral reminder that when people divide because of race,
they are capable of falling into an almost unimagined cruelty.
While the horrible
scenes presented in Without Sanctuary
went beyond the imagination of most, they were not artistic expression but
historical reality: 100 photographs, many formatted as actual postcards,
showing the deaths by hanging of mostly black American men from 1870 to
1960.
According to Margery
King, co-director of Without
Sanctuary, it was not easy for The Warhol staff to decide to show this
difficult material in a public gallery space. In retrospect, however, it
has been a highly successful venture for the museum for several reasons.
First of all, the exhibition both increased and diversified the museum's
audience. "The audience has definitely changed," said King.
"We've had more viewers specifically interested in this subject, for
instance African Americans, academics, and people interested in history.
Our attendance has risen since Without
Sanctuary opened," she said. "We've seen a range of different people we don't usually see at
the museum on a regular basis." One visitor, a young man of Indian
descent, struggled to express his reasons for visiting: "With things the
way they are, I felt I should come," he said. "I just felt I
should see it."
Seeing it, however, was
not the only opportunity The Warhol provided. The museum also offered
viewers the chance to discuss and document the unsettling emotions
engendered by the subject matter. Forums, films, performances, a visitor's
book, video diaries, and a daily public dialogue were all ways in which the
museum's staff allowed those witnessing the exhibit to work through, both
alone and with others, the disturbing feelings caused by the photographs.
To plan these programs,
The Warhol created a Community Advisory Committee and partnered with many
groups outside of the museum. Developing this cooperation was another
success story from Without Sanctuary.
"I think people who came to the museum specifically to see Without Sanctuary, and also the
people who have been so active on the Community Advisory Committee, will
definitely remain friends of the museum and be more attuned to what's going
on at the museum in the future," King said. "With this show
people found out that there's a lot more going on at The Warhol than they
thought."
This expanded interest
occurred in the media, as well. As a result of Without
Sanctuary, The Warhol was talked about not just in art sections, but in
columns, editorials, news stories, history features, and numerous letters
to the editor in varied publications. "The museum is to be commended
for having the courage and the leadership to take on this
important humanitarian
task," wrote Art Critic Mary Thomas in the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The YWCA went even further
in its praise, giving the museum a 2001 Racial Justice Award.
"What was really
important about this project was the way people came
together," King
said. For those who experienced Without
Sanctuary, it
turned the sentiment
"United We Stand" from words on a banner into words to live by.
The
Without Sanctuary Project was supported, in part, by the Animating
Democracy Initiative, a program of Americans for the Arts, funded by The
Ford Foundation. Additional support has been provided by The Jewish
Healthcare Foundation of Pittsburgh, Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, and The
Three Rivers Community Foundation.
Fresh Off the Wall
Performances from Experienced Women
The Andy Warhol
Museum's Off the Wall series
begins 2002 with two seasoned women artists. Each works solo, observes her
chaotic life as a Manhattan resident and citizen of an international art
scene, then fashions her perceptions into a brave and revealing performance
piece.
Penny Arcade has been around the block more than a few times
and has plenty of wicked and wrenching tales to tell about it. Defying Andy
Warhol's prediction that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes, this
Superstar has been confronting audiences for 30 years with her sometimes
lurid, always candid recollections.
At 8 p.m. on January
19, Penny Arcade, a.k.a. Susana Ventura, will present New York Stories, a new work in which she brings to life a
whole cast of Manhattan's
underground characters.
Arcade's introduction
to the Manhattan underground took place when she was 17 years old and ran
away from home to join John Vaccaro's Playhouse of the Ridiculous. Thriving
in New York City, the Connecticut native became an Andy Warhol Superstar
(starring in his film Women in Revolt),
as well as an original member of LaMama theatre.
Since then Aracde has
continued as a writer, director, and performer. She is most noted for her
show Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!,
which began at New York's PS 122 and toured internationally. The work,
which touches on censorship, homophobia, AIDS and prostitution, among other
things, has been called "gritty, honest, audience-friendly
theatre" and Arcade's performance described as
"irresistible."
Holly Hughes, another very well known
performance artist,brings her show Preaching to the Perverted
to The Andy Warhol Museum at 8 p.m. on February 23.
Hughes broadened her
fame when she (along with Tim Miller, Karen Finley, and John Fleck) sued
the National Endowment for the Arts for withdrawing grants on the grounds
of indecency. Although in 1998 she lost her case, Hughes has won many fans
by turning her battle with the Supreme Court into a piece of theatre.
In the funny yet
furious Preaching to the Perverted,
Hughes shoots at targets such as Jesse Helms, Bill Clinton, child
pornography, lesbian chic, and the Teletubbies. She has been noted
nationally for the accuracy of her aim and described as "lyrical,
scathing, and hilarious."
Presented in
collaboration with New York's PS 122, tickets for Off the Wall are $15; $10 for students. A meet-the-artist
reception follows each performance For
more information call 412-237-8300 or visit www.warhol.org. This
series has been supported in part by an anonymous donor. Pittsburgh City Paper is the media
sponsor for the Off the Wall
series.
big Burrito meets Andy Warhol
There's big news about
the little restaurant on the lower level of The Andy Warhol Museum. The 40-seat
Warhol Cafe is now being run by big Burrito Restaurant Group, the highly
successful local outfit responsible for several of Pittsburgh's most fun
and fashionable eateries.
The big Burrito empire
began with the original Mad Mex in Oakland, which has become the city's
essential late-night bistro. The elegant Casbah in Shadyside, exotic Kaya
in the Strip District, newly renovated Soba and Umi on Ellsworth Avenue,
and Mad Mex satellites in North Hills and Robinson are also owned by big
Burrito.
Chris Noonan, the
former sous chef at Casbah, has taken over in The Warhol Café kitchen. He
has brought with him several of the restaurant group's signature dishes,
including Kaya's Cuban Sandwich (ham, turkey, roast pork and cheese grilled
on flatbread with stone-ground mustard) and Casbah's Arugula Salad. In
addition to supplying the café's light meals and beverages, big Burrito's
Fresh Innovative Catering has become the museum's events caterer.
The Warhol Café is open
the same hours as the museum (Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5
p.m.; 10 p.m. on Fridays) and can be visited without paying admission. To
inquire about holding a private event at the museum, call 412.237.3431.
The Warhol
Honored with Racial Justice Award
156
words
In October, The Andy Warhol Museum received a
2001 Racial Justice Award from the YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh. Among the
five honorees recognized for involvement in the struggle to eliminate
racism, The Warhol was the sole institution in a group of individuals.
"I think it's really unusual for a museum
to receive this kind of honor," said Margery King, associate curator
of The Warhol, who accepted the award along with Jessica Arcand, the
museum's curator of education. "It was a direct result of bringing a
lot of people together to discuss Without
Sanctuary, and of people seeing that we were taking it really
seriously. It was a huge honor," King continued. "It really
integrated the museum into the community."
Also attending the October 17 awards banquet
at the Pittsburgh Hilton and Towers were Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh
President Ellsworth H. Brown and staff from The Warhol.
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