Brad Kahlhamer and the Amalgamations of Existence
A bit of boy stands tall beside a Saguaro cactus in an enlarged black and white picture contained in the Tucson Museum of Artwork. Born in 1956, the boy is Brad Kahlhamer, a mixed-media artist based mostly in New York and Arizona whose artistic apply displays his on a regular basis makes an attempt to seek out and create his personal identification. The exhibition Brad Kahlhamer: 11:59 to Tucson is called for the time and place of the artist’s start but additionally references the 1957 movie 3:10 to Yuma, which was set within the American West.
Kahlhamer was born to Indigenous dad and mom whose tribal affiliation he’s by no means identified, and adopted as a child right into a German-American household who would ultimately settle within the Midwest. Therefore the hybridity that serves as a by line in his physique of labor comprising primarily work, sculptures, mixed-media works, and installations. Greater than 60 items created between 1996 and 2018 exhibit the methods he’s tried to make sense of his private historical past and the ambiguities in his life.
They embody “Outdated Tucson III” (1996), a mixed-media set up that {couples} romanticized notions of “Outdated West” cities with Kahlhamer’s recollections of fashions he constructed throughout childhood, and two suspended sculptures, every titled “Chandelier Nest”(2013), wherein birds and nests set inside human types sign the interaction of nature with know-how. Hung in reverse corners of a small passthrough, they forged shadows onto partitions like whispers that may echo for generations.
One of many first works viewers see is “Cranium Venture” (2003-2004), which is made up of a whole lot of cranium renderings. This graphite, ink, gouache, and watercolor on paper piece reveals the methods Kahlhamer makes use of expressive marks to always rework his personal tentative assumptions and discover his feelings.
In one other gallery area, a wall set up titled “Neighborhood Board” (2002-ongoing) speaks to the methods identification is fashioned in relationship and group reasonably than isolation. The “Board” consists of his personal artworks, images, and different gadgets he has saved by the years, in addition to objects contributed by different folks he’s met throughout his travels. A live performance poster hints at his deep curiosity in music, whereas a Ted DeGrazia paintings suggests his considerations concerning the methods mainstream tradition stereotypes and seeks to revenue from Indigenous tradition.
Connections to Indigenous types of cultural expression abound on this exhibition, which is one among two solo exhibits the artist opened in Arizona this spring. Inside a show case, “Nomadic Studio sketchbooks 1-12” harken again to Indian ledger drawings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The books are stuffed with phrases and sketches realized whereas touring or mountaineering, serving to chart the course of Kahlhamer’s curiosity.
Behind a small gallery wall with a poem written by Natalie Diaz, the museum is displaying “Tremendous Catcher The Solar Weave” (2018), a dangling sculpture manufactured from wire, jingles, and pow wow bells that ornaments the type of a woven dreamcatcher to dramatic impact. The katsina dolls Kahlhamer first encountered on the Heard Museum in Phoenix impressed him to create the “Subsequent Stage Figures” (2013-2014), mixed-media items that he conceived as companions whose tribal ambiguity mirrored his personal.
Twenty of the figures created with supplies akin to wooden, material, wire, and hair are being proven in Tucson, the place a grouping within the middle of a museum gallery suggests an informal gathering of pals who welcome those that stroll amongst them. Elsewhere within the exhibition, figures are exactly lined up; the symmetry of their association suggests the function of guardian.
All through the exhibition, the artist makes masterful use of repetition. A number of artworks incorporating the phrase “Ugh” name out stereotypes of Indigenous peoples, and quite a few items with painted, drawn, or sculptural hair tackle the affect of look on identification.
Two quick movies that includes music written and carried out by Kahlhamer bookend this compelling, complete exhibition. Within the museum foyer, viewers see pictures of the artist and his work flash throughout the display in “Bowery Nation” (2014). One other video, titled “Darkish Hair” (2010), performs inside a gallery area, the place folks repeatedly hear the chorus “darkish hair, darkish eyes” as they’re shifting between artworks that immediate them to think about methods the artist’s identification, and their very own identification as effectively, should still be a piece in progress.
Brad Kahlhamer: 11:59 to Tucson continues on the Tucson Museum of Artwork (140 North Primary Avenue,
Tucson, Arizona) by September 25, 2022. The exhibition was curated by Julie Sasse, PhD.