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Asmat, Exhibitions, Graduate Student, Research, Students

Gretchen Burau: Among the Asmat: The Schneebaum Perspective

Gretchen Burau is the Curator for the exhibition “Among the Asmat: The Schneebaum Perspective,” on view in the Gallery of the Anderson Student Center from September 4 to December 20, 2013. Mrs. Burau is the third graduate student to develop an exhibition for the American Museum of Asmat Art at the University of St. Thomas.

Before applying to St. Thomas I was unfamiliar with Asmat, having spent most of my academic career focused on Western art. After learning about the AMAA@UST’s extensive collection of Asmat Art, I decided to enroll in Dr. Julie Risser’s “Presenting Pacific Collections” course in Spring 2012. It was my first semester at St. Thomas and I was thrilled to be exposed not only to Asmat culture and art, but also individuals who aided in the preservation and commissioning of many objects now owned by the AMAA.

While researching for my final paper, I came across the work of artist and anthropologist Tobias Schneebaum, who first came to Asmat in summer 1973. It was during this time that he became involved with the Catholic mission and was introduced to Bishop Alphonse Sowada and Father Frank Trenkenschuh. Through this encounter, Schneebaum came to live and work in Asmat, eventually becoming the Assistant Curator of the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress in Agats, Indonesia. One of Schneebaum’s finest contributions to the museum can be found in the skillfully executed drawings he made for Asmat Images, published in 1985. His illustrations were among the first published documentations of Asmat art and were instrumental in making the objects accessible to interested individuals who might not have had direct access to the art.

Through these drawings, Schneebaum would gain a detailed understanding of repeated imagery and was eventually able to decipher specific symbols and their meanings. Consequentially, he formed connections that helped tie certain villages and specific artists to their art, which was carefully recorded for the museum. The importance of the images has increased with time, as many of the cataloged pieces were made for ceremonial purposes and were not designed to endure after fulfilling their ritualistic tasks. As the years passed, many of these artifacts have deteriorated due to insects and the harsh jungle climate. Thankfully, Schneebaum’s drawings remain to attest to a distinctive art style made by a culture that today is rapidly changing.

Tobias Schneebaum, Drawing of Spirit Mask

Beside drawings, Schneebaum wrote several books, including Where the Spirits Dwell, highlighting his time in Asmat. His autobiographies were written with an artist’s sensibility, as shown in Secret Places: My Life in New York and New Guinea, where Schneebaum recorded:

Asmat bewitches me.

I often feel possessed there, but what it is that possesses me is unclear. The forest churns up my insides when I am in the midst of immense trees in soggy soil, vines, and plant life that exude odors of decay. The forest continually draws me into conjuring up dreams of living naked, hunting wild boar and cassowary, birds and possum, and spending days in blinds awaiting whatever animal would come, killing it, skinning it, roasting it, eating it.

At times when traveling with no one but my paddlers, I sit in the canoe or lie down on my pandanus mat in the men’s house and allow my mind to wander at will. I am impressionable: I am a million miles or more away. I am on some star of Orion or perhaps it is Sirius, brightest of them all. Perhaps I become one of the daughters of Atlas in the cluster of the Pleiades, or I am in some distant nebula, hurling myself headlong into the Void, through the night sky, a meteorite of myself landing easily on a star.

Throughout my life, I have been searching for a way to connect with other human beings. Suddenly, I find myself in a forest among the Asmat, living in their world of spirits, where I lose my insecurities and am content.

What brought me to this stage in the history of my life? Where did I go right? How did I finally choose a path out of oblivion, the path itself so marvelous to behold? I would not change that path even if it were possible to do so. (1)

Because of his tireless efforts, many museums, including the American Museum of Asmat Art @ UST and The Metropolitan Museum of Art have more diverse Asmat collections, with rare objects not to be found elsewhere. While traveling, Schneebaum was careful to record pertinent information: “I wrote in my journal several times a day; I put down everything I could remember of the trip from Agats and began taking notes on whatever I saw in the house: the sago bowls of wood and leaf in the racks, the digging sticks, the drums and spears and bows and arrows. I recorded the way the house was constructed, the number of adults and children; I made a plan of the fireplaces, with the names of those who sat and slept there, and I tried to make out how the food was divided, a complex subject I was never able to understand.”(2)

Tobias Schneebaum, Biwar Laut, Sasco, 1973

As a practicing artist, I had a natural affinity for Schneebaum’s drawings and observations. His work provided an avenue for me to access Asmat art and after completing Dr. Risser’s course, I was curious to learn more about the culture. I applied for the Assistant Curator assistantship at the AMAA and was fortunate to receive the position, quickly going to work on the fall 2012 exhibition, “Building the Collection: Recent Gifts and Purchases.” Having previously curated two-dimensional art exhibitions, this experience exposed me to sculptural objects and the challenges related to their mounting, transportation, and presentation.

As the academic year progressed, I assisted with Rachel Simmon’s exhibition “Wowipitsj: Man, Myth, Legend.” While working on these two shows, I continued to research Tobias Schneebaum and discovered that the University of Minnesota’s Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection houses his personal papers. Purchased from Schneebaum by University Libraries in 2004, the collection contains 33 boxes of personal correspondence, illustrations, and other materials related to various aspects of Asmat Art. Most notably, the collection contains a drawing Schneebaum made of Amandos Amonos, the main carver of the wuramon or soulship owned by the AMAA@UST.

Drawing of Amandos Amonos by Tobias Schneebaum

Wuramon/Soulship – AMAA@UST

These curatorial experiences combined with academic research led me to propose an exhibition of AMAA@UST art objects, illustrations, text, and video related to Schneebaum’s time in Asmat. “Among the Asmat: The Schneebaum Perspective” is a comprehensive showing of AMAA@UST art related to the work of Tobias Schneebaum. Arguably the most ambitious Asmat exhibition to be shown in the Gallery, it features twelve shields, two large carved crocodiles and many other objects that have not previously been on view at the University of St. Thomas.

I plan to use the Asmat-related information and experiences I have acquired over the past two years to prepare for my final qualifying paper in the M.A. program. Recently I contacted the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a Schneebaum archive that includes his personal documents and art objects. I hope to travel to New York during the next academic year to do research for my final research project and to provide the AMAA@UST with additional materials related to the Asmat.

NOTES

(1) Tobias Schneebaum, Secret Places: My Life in New York and New Guinea (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 3.

(2) Tobias Schneebaum, Where the Spirits Dwell (New York: Grove Press, 1988), 39.

August 21, 2013 by m9stansburyo

Faculty, Graduate Student, Research, Students, Uncategorized

Victoria Young et alia: On Site in New Orleans. Art History Beyond the Classroom.

This past spring of 2013, I taught a graduate seminar on the history of the built environment in New Orleans. The class was a natural progression from my own research on Frank Gehry and his domestic work, as tenants have recently moved into a Gehry-designed duplex in Brad Pitt’s Make it Right Foundation in the Lower Ninth Ward, an area decimated by the wall break in the Industrial Canal at the time of Hurricane Katrina. I realized last fall, however, that student interest in going to New Orleans was great when I was conducting advising sessions (in my role as Director of Graduate Studies) so I decided to put some things together for those wanting to make the trip. Students paid their own way to NOLA and spent time during the early part of spring break week researching their own projects. The latter portion of the week was spent in group activities. The Art History Department supported this trip by funding a five-hour long bus tour of the Lower Ninth Ward homes led by the Make it Right Foundation’s executive architect, John Williams, a long time New Orleans designer. I also arranged a walking tour for students to lead, a visit with a local preservationist, as well as a tour of a local cemetery. Here’s a look at our experiences as seen through the eyes of three of the students on the trip!

Victoria Young

NOLA trip group photo in front of New Orleans Cathedral

On the Ground in New Orleans: Architectural Walking Tour By Ava Grosskopf

The first class gathering of the trip was a walking tour of New Orleans. The tour took nearly four hours and spanned the French Quarter, the Mississippi riverfront and the Central Business and Warehouse Districts. We began at the famed Café du Monde and ended at the World War II Museum. Each of the nine students on the trip was assigned a specific building or public space to research and share their knowledge with the class in a brief five-minute presentation on site.

Dr. Young presented us with a challenge to do the research of the location we were assigned but not to visit the location beforehand., so that we would incorporate into our five minute presentation our reaction to the site upon seeing it for the first time. The most common effect to this directive was that many of us found ourselves reacting to how much smaller a building was than we expected. It seems that New Orleanians have become very adept at making small spaces look much larger than any photo depicted. As a result, the city holds an immense amount of American history in only the few square miles we covered on the tour.

A number of the other buildings intrigued us on the walk, particularly those we had studied in class. The discussions about these structures were enjoyable and interesting. Although the walking tour was not directly related to my research topic, Planter’s Grove, it did provide exposure for the class as to how the landscape of New Orleans is laid out, and how the residents interact within it.

Students at Piazza d’Italia.

Make it Right: Touring the Lower Ninth Ward By Soren Hoeger-Lerdal

During registration for spring 2013 courses, the prospect of a New Orleans spring break vacation to supplement our NOLA architectural history class was exciting, to say the least. When, in the spring, Dr. Victoria Young announced that the Department had won, via auction, a bus tour of the Lower Ninth Ward, an unparalleled adventure was added to an already crowded itinerary.

So when the Friday morning of our tour arrived, we began our venture at the offices of Architect John Williams, the principal architect of the Make It Right project and master planner of the entire Lower Ninth Ward. After a short but exceptionally informative and eye-opening presentation, accompanied by incredible images, we got on a bus donated by Tulane University. John first took us to the Global Green Homes, a LEED Platinum development focused on sustainability, replicability and affordability. Next, he took us to meet and pick up J.F. “Smitty” Smith, a slightly less than optimistic Lower Ninth Ward resident, who at times commandeered, to our delight, both the talking aspect of our tour as well as the very cooperative bus driver’s route (it was Good Friday, her day off, after all). In fact, one of the most eye opening and memorable aspects of the tour was an impromptu detour to Chalmette in St Bernard Parish, neighbor to the east of the Lower Ninth. Smitty called this area “Bush’s Children” due to former President Bush’s lobbying for the area’s recovery. The parish is near complete restoration and evidence of the hurricane was nowhere evident.

We then returned to the Lower Ninth and visited the House of Dance and Feathers, a museum-shed created by Ronnie Lewis preserving the history of Mardi Gras Indians and Lower Ninth residents. His vibrant optimism stands in direct opposition to Smitty’s, yet they have mutual goals and such stunning determination. Another shocking aspect of our tour was John explaining visually the actual lot sizes in the Lower Ninth Ward. At just 30 feet wide, the extent of the pure destruction can only be grasped on the site. Blocks, which were previously lined with wall-to-wall homes, are now lucky to have two occupied buildings; many blocks have none. Brick staircases that lead to nowhere, overgrown lots of grass and weeds, and still shuttered homes marked with the infamous “X” of the first-responders still dominate the landscape. John explained the significance of the numbers located in each quadrant of the spray painted “X”. Although number of dead was the bottom number, I think the most shocking to us all was the number located at the top signifying the date that the home was first checked. We were all left in disbelief to see many of the Lower Ninth Ward homes were not entered until nearly a month after the storm, some as late as October.

Our next stop was to meet “Johnnie” at the Bayou Bienvenue. John Taylor (everybody has a fun nickname it seemed) is the guardian of a platform that sits between his native Lower Ninth and his true home, the bayou. John told us stories about his childhood, when the now scattered baldcypress stumps were a full-grown forest in the freshwater bayou. He would spend days away from home at the bayou until his brother would be sent as a lone search committee.

Finally, we ended at the Make It Right project and no, there was no Brad Pitt sighting. After a brief history and walking tour, we were surprised and honored when John allowed us to tour an under construction home. This was especially special considering the first non-residents were allowed to tour the homes only three months prior. This was not due to secrecy, John said, they simply did not want to waste any time getting people back home. Although a few of us questioned the aesthetic longevity of the extremely modern style of the homes, the sustainability and green focused collection of homes is absolutely unprecedented and will unquestionably serve as a precedent for future neighborhood design. Simply stated, this was a dream tour.

This photo, taken by graduate student Lauren Greer, shows the new construction of the spot where the levees broke, flooding the Lower Ninth Ward. An attempt is being made to Landmark the spot, peculiar both for the timeframe (far too recent) and construction type (it is a concrete wall, after all).

The tour group with John Williams (center) standing in front of the Frank Gehry- designed Lower Ninth Ward residence. Photo by author.

While snapping this photo, Smitty smirked while asking me “Do you get it?” Of course it signifies that FEMA is in the doghouse for all Lower Ninth Residents. A visual defiance of the way the government handled their neighborhood. Photo by author.

Cemeteries on Paper and In Person: Lafayette Cemetery #1 By Sandy Tomney

New Orleans has much to discover. Our trip included an itinerary of an architectural walking tour, a tour of the lower ninth ward, a meeting with a preservationist, and a tour of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. All of the activities were based on concepts and themes we have been studying in class and each was interesting. Since the research I am conducting concerns the Garden District’s Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 during the antebellum years, this trip was a great opportunity. It gave me a chance to become more familiar with how the cemetery fits into its context. Doing site visits at both St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and Lafayette also made it possible to compare two similar sites located in different parts of the city. Our tour guide at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 was affiliated with the organization Save Our Cemeteries. He pointed out the four basic above ground interment types in the cemetery – wall vault, family, and society tombs, as well as the coping style grave. He also explained how the family tombs functioned. Another highlight was the explanation as to why family tombs were often found in groups of four. Contractors and/or speculators would buy cemetery lots in groups of four, erect family tombs on them, and resell them as needed. This helped to answer a question I had concerning the relationship between similar tomb styles located within the cemetery and the ethnicity of the families interred in them. Since our guide is a resident of the neighborhood next to Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, he ended our outing with a walking tour of the upscale area adjacent to the cemetery, with homes of John Goodman and Sandra Bullock among others.

Save Our Cemeteries guide Val Connolly explains how family tombs function. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, LA, 2013. Photo: Sandy Tomney

Wall Vaults. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, LA, 2013. Photo: Sandy Tomney

Family Tombs. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, LA, 2013. Photo: Sandy Tomney

Henry Dick Tomb. Probably designed by J.N.B. DePouilly. Italian Marble. St. Louis Cemetery #1, New Orleans, LA, 2013. Photo: Sandy Tomney

June 19, 2013 by m9stansburyo

Research, Students

Amanda Lesnikowski: Entering the Museum World as a New Graduate

Amanda Lesnikowski will be undertaking an internship at the Whitney Museum in New York after her graduation (see previous blog on her senior paper). As she mentions in her blog entry, Amanda also received a research grant from the Luann Dummer Center for Woman last year.

When I declared my major in art history three years ago, I made my decision based on how I felt and not on my plans for the future. I had come to the conclusion that if I was going to spend four years studying one thing, I wanted to enjoy the courses and look forward to even the 8:00AM meeting times. Majoring in Art History is one of the best decisions I have made thus far in my life. It has made me a happier person, and it has helped me mix work and play. As a future Curatorial intern at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, I am confident in saying that you can have an enjoyable major and still have a successful future.

One of the high points of my undergraduate work was how I spent the summer 2012, when I traveled to Alabama to meet and interview the quilters of Gee’s Bend. My research, The Freedom Quilting Bee in the 1960s and Today: The Quilters of Gee’s Bend as Artists, Merchants, and Activists, taught me a great deal about myself and about the world of research. It was one of the main reasons Claire Henry, curator at the Whitney, wanted to meet me. I am very thankful that Dr. Heather Shirey guided me through the process of applying for a grant from the Luann Dummer Center for Women for the project, and later helped me to produce something I am proud to share with others.

Being able to add on-site research experience to my resumé has been indispensable and often came up in interviews when I began applying for internships the first semester of my senior year. Many institutions did not post internship possibilities until October, while larger institutions had deadlines as early as the first few weeks in January. I applied to the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, the Frick Collection, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I flew out to New York on two separate occasions for interviews. Because of my future with the Whitney, I will just describe my experience there.

After ranking the Whitney’s departments in order of my preference on the application, I was asked to interview with both the Registration and Catalogue/Documentation departments. This was exciting, but when I got there I was surprised with a third interview in the Curatorial department. I loved all three areas and felt very comfortable with the interviewers. When I first met Claire Henry, she told me that it was my research experience that impressed her. She is working on a catalogue raisonné of Andy Warhol’s original films. The first volume has already been published, but the Whitney is working with MoMA to compile a second publication. I will spend my time traveling with Claire uptown to MoMA and the rest of the time at the Whitney’s offices on Park Avenue South during my internships.

I cannot believe this wonderful opportunity I have been given. I know that my internship with the Whitney is only the beginning. I hope that at the end of my time there, I will find a more permanent place within the museum world.

April 29, 2013 by m9stansburyo

Conference Presentations, Presentations, Research, Students

Amanda Lesnikowski: Rembrandt’s Two Lucretias

Amanda Lesnikowski is a senior art history major who will graduate in May 2013. Her senior paper and presentation, on Rembrandt’s paintings of Lucretia, was presented at a research conference at Baker University in Kansas and a symposium at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Her senior presentation will be on May 17.

When the senior paper began popping up in conversations about a year ago, everyone kept telling me not to “reinvent the wheel.” At the end of my junior year, I knew that I wanted to elaborate on a paper I had already written, but I was not sure what that paper would be. During the fall 2012 semester I was enrolled in Robert Ferguson’s Baroque and Rococo course. We were required to choose a work from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and use it as the basis for all of our research. Portraits having a special place in my heart, I claimed Rembrandt’s 1666 Lucretia. The semester went quickly, and my final paper only left me with more questions and bigger ideas than answers.

It was at this point that both Robert and I knew this paper had more potential than just a final classroom essay. After asking him to be my advisor, we began brainstorming what new questions we wanted to answer. This process left us with two areas of study: theatricality and family in Rembrandt’s two Lucretias (see images below). Rembrandt is known by scholars as having included great amounts of theater into his paintings, whether it be live gestures, the implication of speech, or even his application of lighting. When it came to family, Rembrandt had a very colored history. He saw his family as one of the most important parts of his life, and it was often seen in his art.

Rembrandt, Lucretia, 1664. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Rembrandt, Lucretia, 1666. Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Through further research, we discovered another important part of Rembrandt’s art: the tronie. A tronie, a Dutch word for face, is used as a term to describe a combination of portraiture and history painting. Here is an excerpt of my paper detailing Rembrandt’s invention:

Rembrandt “combined theory and practice” and invented the “tronie,” a combination of portraiture and history painting.(1) Martha Hollander spoke highly of the seventeenth-century, Dutch history painting. She explains the genre’s power and the ability to move an audience: “History painting was an opportunity to tell a story on a grand scale, combining anecdotal and archaeological details with displays of eroticism, violence, and powerful emotion. Successful compositions required strong stage-managing skills.”(2) As seen in these two portraits of Lucretia, the background is bare, almost completely faded to black. Hollander attributes this to Rembrandt’s style: “Rembrandt’s method, demonstrated in his history paintings [. . .], is to imply, rather than describe, a space.”(3) This pushes the actor, or subject, to the front of the stage. Rembrandt clearly saw his studio as a stage, where the model’s purpose was to perform.(4)

Rembrandt’s depiction of St. Bartholomew is a wonderful example of the tronie (see below). The painting, from 1661 and now at the J. Paul Getty Museum, is apparently a character study, but is converted into a history painting by adding a single prop: the knife. Rembrandt uses the prop to bring the audience full circle. The knife allows the audience to complete a mental image, one of a man everyone knows. Without the knife, this would just be a portrait, albeit of a particular person. The man in the painting gazes out towards his audience with a look of contemplation. Holding his head in his left hand, his emotions are hard to classify. His look of self-reflection is a feeling anyone could relate to. Like the Lucretias, Rembrandt’s lighting emphasizes the subject’s face. It is here that the viewer is drawn first, and only then, down his right arm and along the draped fabric where they observe that he is holding a knife. Now they identify that this man is St. Bartholomew, the martyr who was skinned alive.

Rembrandt, St. Bartholomew, 1661. J. Paul Getty Museum.

Writing this paper has taught me how to be a better art historian, a stronger writer, and a more eloquent speaker. I have had the opportunity to present my paper three times: at the ACTC and Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) symposium, at the Baker University Art History Conference, and at the St. Thomas undergraduate symposium. I was honored to be asked to speak at the ACTC/MIA and represent St. Thomas. I am so grateful that the department chose me. I heard of the Baker University conference through a department e-mail. I sent in a five hundred word abstract and title, then a few weeks later heard I was chosen to speak. I traveled to Kansas at the end of April to present along with other undergraduate researchers.

The undergraduate symposium at St. Thomas is also a celebration as well as a presentation. It is a wonderful opportunity to show your peers and professors what you have been working on the past year, and to hear your friends speak and to get their opinion on your own work.

Research always brings more questions than it does answers, but, hopefully, your own paper is able to answer someone else’s question. Attending these symposiums has been inspiring, humbling, and exciting, but they have prepared me for my next steps as an art historian.

NOTES

(1) Simon Schama, Rembrandt’s Eyes (New York, 1999), 660-663.

(2) Martha Hollander, An Entrance for the Eyes: Space and Meaning in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art (Berkley, 2002), 16.

(3) Hollander, 67.

(4) Svetlana Alpers, Rembrandt’s Enterprise (Chicago, 1988), 58.

April 29, 2013 by m9stansburyo

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