By Michelle No
| Life & Style
| Reviews
| September 30, 2009
|
 Many people know Woody Guthrie’s song, “This Land Is Your Land.” Most of us sang it in grade school, with our eyes raised to the American flag and our hearts bursting with juvenile pride for our country. The majority of us, however, remain naïve to the fact that before entering mainstream culture, the song did not have the patriotic connotations that it does today. In Guthrie’s original version of the song the best known line was, “God blessed America for me,” a lyric that conveys the songwriter’s disdain for the unrealistic words of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”
Today, “This Land Is Your Land,” an exhibit by Los Angeles-based artist Nuttaphol Ma, hopes to convey a similar thought to Guthrie’s notion that “God Blessed America for me”.
Using Guthrie’s missing lyrics from “This Land Is Your Land” and an abandoned Japanese relocation camp Manzanar, Ma introduces the issue of displacement and migration. His subject is especially poignant at this time, when immigration reform is high on the political agenda.
Having recently graduated with an MFA from Claremont Graduate University, Ma is the current artist-in-residence of Pitzer’s Emerging Artist Series, now in its third year. However, he is no beginner with contemporary mediums. His dense resume is a telling catalogue of site-specific performances, solo exhibitions, and art installations that pack his relatively short art career.
“This Land Is Your Land” opened on Sept. 24 in Pitzer’s Lenzer Family Art Gallery. Ma’s solo exhibition uses mirrors, dirt, wood, and concrete—all mediums that reference landscape, property, and self—to pose the question that the original version of Guthrie’s song also posed: Is this land made for you and me?
In the first room is a projected image of the early American flag featuring a coiled snake with a caption below that reads, “DON’T TREAD ON ME.” Using stop-motion animation, the image of the snake is ripped, taped, and strung together. In one shot a baseball appears, to remind us its unifying significance in our society. Today, the snake flag is used to represent American patriotism; this piece expresses the fragility of that patriotism.
The same idea is carried through in an installation that lines one side of the main room. A diagonally stretched shot of Manzanar covers the wall, in front of which a row of eccentrically-assembled wooden stakes placed in dirt-filled concrete squares portrays a ghastly rendition of home. Phrases such as “If I had a hammer,” “our house,” and “tic tac toe wiggle my toes” are scribbled on the wooden stakes. These stakes suggest white picket fences, placing the image in an entirely new context.
Despite the United States’ self-portrayal as an accommodating country, Japanese-American residents during World War II were relocated to internment camps like Manzanar without ever being convicted of anything. By juxtaposing the historical event with the cultural perception, Ma’s installation asks whether foreigners can ever permanently claim a piece of American land for themselves.
On the opposite side of the room, aligned cut mirror and aluminum rectangles present a different kind of brick wall. Although a missing section of the wall may leave casual observers confused, an inscription next to the display reveals the brick wall to be a visual rendition of Guthrie’s missing lyrics. In childlike penmanship, the lyrics read:
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing;
That side
was made for you and me. The omission after “that side” in the stanza aligns itself with the omission on the walls. They ask their observers to fill in the blanks and interpret the line that has, by revision of its context, become one of the most famous patriotic lyrics in the country.
Finally, by orchestrating an installation of reflected light, distorted stakes, and plastic yarn, Ma alludes to the immigrant’s journey of the promise, the effort, the reality, and, finally, the hope. “This Land is Your Land” runs through Nov. 20. Lenzer Family Art Gallery is open Tuesday to Friday from 12 - 5 p.m.
|
|
|
|
|
Calendar: October 9 - October 14
By TSL Staff | Life & Style Friday, October 9TwentyEight: A second-year MFA ExhibitionHosted by the CGU Art Department.East and Peggy Phelps GalleriesThe Friday Boot- CARE-A-OKIEHosted by Sigma Tau and Challah for HungerDoms Lounge8 p.m. - 1 a.m.CCLA MovieThe Big LebowskiRose Hills7 p.m. and 10 p.m.Saturday, October 10A Trio of One Act PlaysSeaver Theater 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.Sunday, October 11Gym Class HeroesBridges Auditorium8 p.m.Tuesday, October 13Exhibit A: ...
|
|
At the LACMA: Heroes and Villains and the Battle for Good in India's Comics
By Cindy Hernandez | Life & Style “Heroes and Villains: The Battle for Good in India’s Comics” is one of the newest exhibitions on display at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art (LACMA). Located on the fourth level of the Ahmanson Building, the exhibition features a selection of comics, as well as sculptures, paintings, and other objects that illustrate India’s comic book history. The comic book exhibition ...
|
|
Calendar: November 13 - 19, 2009
By TSL Staff | Life & Style Friday, November 13Friday Noon Concert Series12:15 - 1 p.m.Balch Auditorium, ScrippsSnowstock6:30 - 10 p.m.Rose Hills Theatre, PomonaKeep it Cute or Put it on Mute: A Neo Futurist Play7:30 p.m.Seaver Theater, PomonaSaturday, November 14Festival Del Cuatro6:30 - 9 p.m.Scripps Performing Arts CenterMillennium Consort Singers: Music Across Five Centuries8 - 10 p.m.Bridges Hall of MusicEbony and Ivory9 p.m. - 1 a.m.Gold Student ...
|
|
Clubs on Campus: The Druids and Bottom Line Theatre
By Kaitlyn Casimo | Life & Style The Druids and Bottom Line Theatre (BLT), the two 5C theatre clubs, have a history in Claremont that goes back further than anyone can remember. The Druids, to the confusion of many new members, are not actually related to the shadowy priests of ancient Ireland. Rather, they act as liaisons between the student theatre community and the 5C Theatre Department, ...
|
|
Hauntings at Pomona and Scripps
By Mallory Smith | Life & Style From Ghostbusters and The Sixth Sense, to Casper and Patrick Swayze, ghosts and ghost stories are a significant part of popular culture, turning up in movies, books, and urban legends. With Halloween just a day away, it’s only appropriate to share some ghost stories of our own. Pomona and Scripps are home to lots of ghosts, but have no fear, ...
|
|
TV Review: "Gossip Girl" Provides Plenty of Drama
By Claire Berkman | Life & Style Guess what freshmen? You have some new classmates that you might want to meet. Yes, you have heard correctly, the irreplaceable characters of CW’s “Gossip Girl” have now entered the drama-filled domain of college. Though they are in New York City and not the sunny town of Claremont, they are still experiencing college like we do here on the West ...
|
|
5-C Students Participate in Unique Summer Internships
By Ann Mayhew | Life & Style Mention the word “summer” to any college student, and images of beaches, late-night pool parties, ice cream, and sleeping in are likely to come to mind. For many 5-C students, however, summer was spent hard at work participating in fascinating and engaging internships in a variety of fields. Maya Rosas PI ’10 spent her summer teaching ESL at the Pomona Day ...
|
|
The Great Claremont Fro-Yo Sho-Down
By Trevor Felch | Life & Style The 5Cs boast several intense rivalries that cause constant debate among students. There is, of course, the Sagehens vs. Stags rivalry as well as non-athletic hostilities like TNC or Pub? The Coop or the Mudd Hole at 1 a.m? However, I would argue that the most intense rivalry right now among students is centered just off campus: Yogurtland or 21 ...
|
|
|
|
|
