welcome, double agent

The War and Empire Summer Drawing Lyceum
(Re-Drawing the Vietnam Conflict)

El Circulo De Dibujo proudly sponsors The War and Empire Summer Drawing Lyceum, an opportunity to draw a series of films made during the Vietnam War (1954-1975)*. We are curious as to how and why a society entertains/distracts itself while at war and wonder what we can infer about our culture’s relationship to state- sanctioned violence by visually examining the forms our distraction takes. As we watch, we will sketch that which we can rapidly commit to paper.

By foregoing our present war and selecting the Vietnam War as our central framing device, hopefully we give ourselves the benefit of historic distance and can begin to interpret the visual coding of fear and faith. Much of the cinema produced at that time can be easily quantified as escapist (“Sound of Music”) and/or extremely violent (“Bonnie and Clyde”). By gathering various artists together, to draw these movies as they watch them, El Circulo de Dibujo, has several aims:

1. To offer a space for discussion and problem solving around notions
of war and empire
2. To provide a social context for investigating the relationship
between cinematic entertainment and politics
3. To promote a deeper level of comprehension of our cultural tendencies
4. To document our findings and prepare them for public interpretation

Screenings are held in various places during the summer months.
Please bring any materials you will need to draw.

Screenings: Godzilla (1954), Sound of Music (1965), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Shooting (1967)

Participants: Mary Walling Blackburn (Organizer), Paul Chan, Joel Ferree, Shelley Jackson, Sameer Kapoor, Sean Meyer, Julia Shirar, Leejone Wong.

* Date provided by Vietnamese Embassy in Washington D.C. Covert American intervention began as early as 1954.

“Approaching Humility/Its Hard to Be Humble” took place in 2003, on the eve of the anniversary of the September 11th attack on the WTC. As noted below, at that point in time, one could still earnestly wonder what the circumstances may have been if the US president, who is purportedly a Christian, had reacted with what is sometimes deemed as ‘true Christian humility’. A liberal response to this call for mediation via Christianity could often be characterized as a certain puzzlement steeped in secular associations with the Hebrew Bible; whereas the reaction from those raised in evangelical households is more likely to be ‘if only…”. Christian or no, it seemed not only tactical to investigate humility but potentially restorative.

Five years later, as the US economy crumples, it appears more likely that humility may be a state imposed from the top down, opposed to an ethical response originating from within and disseminating laterally.

The night of the lecture the room overflowed. Perhaps there were sixty people in that 19th century classroom. Diane Cluck turned the lights off after Paul Chan’s lecture. She lit a candle and played in the remedial light. Dave Deporis sang after Kathleen Graber’s lecture. His singing was raw and some audience members were visibly uncomfortable. Humility and discomfort were not necessarily at odds; they tag teamed one another.

Above: (exhibited at the event) Drawing created in empty truck bed with weights and lead while artist, Dave Ford, drives the vehicle. He was having trouble finding the time to draw given the work he had to do to survive; so he rigged this system within the commercial trucks he drove for a living. Once the goods were delivered, the drawing contraption could be installed for the return home and within these humble parameters, art work was produced.

Here is the description of the speakers and their lectures (Paul Chan, Kathleen Graber, and Joel Ferree), the musicians (Diane Cluck, Dave Deporis) and the artists (Holly Miller, Dave Ford, Austin Thomas, Goat Island): approaching-humility.doc

James Vicente was instrumental to the planning and orchestration of this event.