venusian virtual vanguards
excavating & exhibiting exquisite corpses (& other experiments)
from Bryn Mawr’s Special Collections
This space exhibits the curatorial work that twenty-three students from Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College conducted in the Spring of 2020 to complete a seminar on Avant-Garde and Neo-Avant-Garde art and literature. The course, titled “A Gendered History of the Avant-Garde: Bodies, Objects, Emotions, Ideas” was designed to queer the hyper-masculine, essentialist, and anti-intersectional rhetoric adopted, particularly in Italy, by Avant-Garde movements, from Futurismo to Rivolta Femminile.
After six weeks of readings and discussions, the class visited the Special Collections Department at Bryn Mawr College, where a selection of objects based on the syllabus was prepared for them by Dr. Carrie Robbins and me. Some of these objects were paintings and drawings, some were photographs or prints, some were artifacts collectively produced by anonymous alumnae, some were signed by the most renowned artists of the last century. Each student selected an object and started working on it as a curator, asking themselves why they chose it and what place it could have in an exhibition about vanguardism.
A global pandemic prevented the class from meeting in person after Spring Break. From March 19 to April 30, the participants gathered online for three hours every week, connecting from various parts of the United States. Unable to access their chosen objects, students had to reflect on the real meaning of objecthood and curatorship, on the impermanent and non-exhibitable nature of some experimental works of art, on the difference between objects and their image. They experienced the fragility of the privilege that an accessible art collection affords. They exercised their memory, metacognition, and conjuring skills.
This digital incantation was performed throughout three weeks of online collective workshop and research. It is described by a poem and guided by a manifesto, both team-written by the students/curators through the Surrealist technique known as cadavre exquis. Seventeen objects are evoked in the virtual gallery: some of them are accompanied by more than one virtual caption. The nature of these captions varies: some are textual, some are auditory, some exploit the typographical possibilities offered by the virtual space, some allude to the experience of walking through a physical gallery reading labels. I leave to the exquisite corpses the task of introducing the exhibition.
Alessandro Giammei · Assistant Professor of Italian and Italian Studies · agiammei [at] brynmawr [dot] edu
exquisite corpse
The virtual excavation unearthed obscure bodies,
yellow bears balance bright umbrellas.
Memories and stories are told—
thoughtful pleasure seekers seeking strident knowledge—
the impervious Scalar will not stop vanguardist creativity.
Curious students interrogating peculiar art:
the buried truth is obvious!
The mad artist signed the lost manuscript,
the forceful artist will pursue the urgent moment,
disparate shapes combine into a unified whole!
Curly bangs twirl? straight bangs frame the face;
separate thoughts meld into the global Cyber
the discourse attacks the void:
the scholars conceive an avant-garde investigation.
Surrealist tragedy, queering Greek corpses,
created captions canvas categorical collections.
The students create a resilient exhibit ù
the postmodern gallery defies white walls
living archive unearthed by immaterial hands...
manifesto
Collective manifesto writing, 5x speed
We are describers, not prescribers. We are exploring the bodies of the avant-garde, while knowing that bodies themselves are amorphous things. We are spatially separated, physically connected by fickle lines of code yet intellectually united by the pursuit of the avant-garde.
We believe the Avant-Garde is to be understood by each individual and not to be defined by the institution. We believe in the careful consideration of all art forms: performed and lived. We believe in all genders in art. We believe in knocks on the table and xxx’s in the chat. We believe in what we believe, what do you believe?
We will present our work in an accessible format. We will attempt to provide a perspective or lens through which to view our object. We will not shy away from uncertainty. We will attempt not to assign unjust intention to artistic work. We will collaborate with our classmates, professors, donors, and artists. We will continue our exploration, inquiry, and experiment.
We love the accessibility that an online gallery allows for. We love having the freedom of creation available to us (no boundaries or confinement in our thinking or our work). We love that we can honor our thoughts and experiences with the work; we see the honesty of our educational interactions with one another and with the variety of pieces we study and the ways we can read & understand them.
We despise:
the alienation of online classes
condescension toward artists who are taking risks or operating outside of norms
misogyny and fascism in whatever forms they take
normalizing forces, influenced as they are by bigotry, intolerance, and discrimination
the attempt to anatomize or lobotomize the Avant-Garde!