Media Literacy Exercise
After viewing numerous pictures on our D2L site I’ve chosen to comment and view into further detail two specific pieces that I found to be of the most interest. Fred Wilson’s “Guarded View,” from 1991 and “Four Sacred Colors,” by James Luna from 1992, both stood out to me as being very controversial and racially motivated. Analysis and consideration through image codes justifies the controversial connotations produced within racial motivations.
In decoding James Luna’s piece, “Four Sacred Colors,” I found in our readings he focused heavily on racial topics, mainly being Native American. When I initially viewed “Four Sacred Colors,” I noticed the people in the picture wearing colors of clothes that stereotype their “race.” The faces of the individuals have a plain look of disconnection from themselves and their surroundings. It’s as if the colors of their clothes speak for them and who they are.
If you notice the gentleman wearing black has his arms behind his back; I believe this is trying to symbolize the stereotyping of the African American male in mainstream media. On the other hand, the blonde woman in white is wearing a wedding dress, which white symbolizes innocence, again with the wedding dress symbolizing purity. This picture helps to label what some to believe as a stereotypical picture of not seeing what is underneath those clothes, but only the color of them.
Overall, this picture represents a great deal of the 1960’s and the civil rights movement. It all started with the Black Power Movement, hence why the gentleman in the black has his hands behind his back. This possibly may represent the fact of so many blacks being prosecuted and arrested in the 1960’s for standing up for their rights. Second, the Native American in the Red brings to mind the Red Power Movement and the fight the Indians fought to regain their self respect. Also, you notice his hair is long only giving more credibility of stereotypical labeling. Third, taking after the Black Panther’s movement the Asian community started the Yellow Power movement in the late 1960’s giving shape to their civil and moral rights movement.
I found in both pictures the framing, angle and focus were relatively the same. The pictures both have a direct angles and framing with the main focus being the four objects in the picture. The outlines of the objects however in Fred Wilson’s “Guarded View,” are much more distinct. The lighting in Wilson and Luna’s pictures are focusing on the objects of the piece and not the backdrop. The lighting is dull, not giving much emphasis to the detail in the picture; it draws the viewers entire thought on the objects themselves.
The setting of “Guarded View,” is to focus on the costume and performance of the mannequins in the picture. The backdrop and flooring are both white, which really brings out the deep colors of the museum guardsman’s suits. As you can see the mannequins are black and all wearing suits, which make me wonder if this piece is meant to apply that “blacks”, are only seen as viewing museums from a workforce perspective? I ask this, because Fred Wilson initially worked in many different museums and through his time noticed the ideologies and racial biases throughout displays and museums in whole. I wonder at this point what great pieces of art these museums are hiding from us. Quoted from our reading, “the reading of the portrait may be constrained by the culturally sanctioned, institutionally supported categories of race and ethnicity.” (pg. 72 Luna)This piece helped me realize that even one’s own expression, that being “art” is censored and scrutinized to fit the views of the founders, fundraisers and board members of these museums.
The viewpoints of my two pictures are the ideologies, racial motivation and controversial connotations our society blatantly stows in our lives. The history of photography is inseparable from the history of racial discourse. (pg. 72 Luna) To represent the history of a subject for whom ethnic stereotyping is a common obstacle, it may be necessary to take into account the problem of an institutional gaze that forms the contours of an imagined subject. (pg. 72 Luna) In these pictures Luna and Wilson both try to bring to the floor-front the problems still facing our society with racism and the sheltering of our societies. It’s as if “they,” the conservative mindset of our nation doesn’t want everyone’s viewpoint, but rather give the viewpoint in which they want us to have.
