Americana

Linda Troeller (American, b. 1949)
Self-Portrait, Indian Mound, Syracuse, New York (1974)
from the series Personal Opera
Gelatin silver, 9” x 12”

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A Cursory Glance

This object is a black-and-white photograph taken in the 1970’s. The subject of the photograph is a white woman on top of a small hill. She is standing in an orans-like pose and is wearing a long white dress. Her boots match the color of the ground, and so she appears to be levitating upon initial glance. Judging from the background of the photograph, it seems that she is standing at a corner where two small roads cross. There are also two simple, older-looking houses in the back as well as a brick storefront that is aglow with interior lights. 

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Background Research

Linda Troeller is both the photographer and the model for this piece. On her website, she has included the photograph - entitled Self-Portrait, Indian Mound, Syracuse, NY 1975 - under the category of “Personal Opera” as part of her self-portraiture series. In one of her exhibitions, Self Portrait / Self Reflection, Linda wrote that she meant to present herself “as if she were going to be in a fashion magazine spread” in the photograph before elaborating on how she wanted to be like her fashion model cousin at the time. The same year this photograph was taken, she earned her MFA at Syracuse's College of Visual and Performing Arts, located near the site of her photograph.

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An Online Interview with Linda Troeller

Question: Did you personally [manage the sale of] the photograph to Bryn Mawr's collections?
Linda Troeller: I was told about the program at Bryn Mawr art collection where students are involved with this collection and started a dialogue with the curator, Prof. Carrie Robbins, which led to the acquisition of 60 photographs spanning about 50 years of self-portraits. One of the reasons I chose to place the work there that it would be seen and utilized, so voila.

Q: What was the decision behind your outfit?
L: The dress was vintage linen often used under ball gowns or often for sleeping as well. It was beautifully crafted, vintage.

Q: What was the decision behind your pose?
L: I chose to wear extra high-soled shoes hoping they would be barely seen and help to create the look like I was hovering. I took a straight on pose as I was to blend in yet other forces in the image would give the dress presence.

Q: How does this picture mimic a fashion magazine spread? 
L: It is most like a spread you would find in European magazines which I admire, whereby the clothes can sometimes participate in the entire visual process of the image and do not [need] to be positioned to stand out. 

Q: Why did you choose to stand on top of a Native American burial mound?
L: I wanted to bring attention to this 'mound' because it had no plaque and had not been properly noticed by the city[…] rumors [of] social and environmental issues have entered many of my photographs.

Q: Is the background/setting of the photograph significant?
L: I had been to the site area a few times in my quest for a setting for the dress. What I knew would be most important were street and car lights to add mystery and to show off the material's luminosity. The houses in the background added hints of possibly the model, me, sleepwalking, or that the homes in the background had some chance to give an emotion of haunted[ness].

Q: Is there a “message” in this photograph? 
L: I hope the image supplied the ideas of radiance, light, hovering - which to me give [the] outfit excitement and mystery.

Q: Would you consider this piece to be avant-garde art?
L: Yes, especially considering when it was conceived in comparison to American women's magazines because the photograph lets the clothes, atmosphere, [and the] model diffuse and evolve before the viewer's eyes.

Linda Troeller, interview by Alexis Pecknay, April 26, 2020.

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Americana Culture

I was initially drawn to this piece as it seemed to be a parody of Americana culture. The idealization of the 1940’s-1980’s has always fascinated me. When I was younger, I wondered if I missed out on as much as older generations - including my grandparents and even my parents - said I had. While I appreciate the aesthetics of the time (e.g. the resurgence of the “prairie” aesthetic from the 1970’s that has become widespread trend in fashion and art as of late), it is obvious that Americana culture is exclusionist and involves the erasure of non-white histories.
  I also chose this piece simply because it was a photograph. I feel that I have an easier time attempting to dissect non-digitally altered photographs, as the subjects are often based “in real life.” Additionally, the fact that photographs feel more personable to me makes them more enjoyable. Perhaps most importantly: what is more emblematic of 20th-century Americana than the family-friendly film camera?

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A Personal Interpretation of the Photograph

Donning the clothes of an ideal white, chaste all-American girl for this photograph, Troeller stands atop a Native American burial mound. With her white dress and white skin, she is a sharp contrast to the dark nighttime background behind her, and she seems to float above the ground like an angel. Both the setting and her pose seem to evoke ideas of (white) Christian holiness and purity.
During the 1970’s and the 1980’s, an ideology revolving around the romanticization of “small-town America” began to take root in popular culture. Within the concept of “Americana” was the subliminal desire to ensure the purity (re: whiteness) of American culture. The Midwest, with its largely Caucasian and conservative populations, was and still is often regarded as a haven of Americana. However, this romanticized idea of epitomical American-ness ignores the fact that Caucasians had originally immigrated to the Americas; that before North America was colonized, Native Americans lived freely without persecution from settlers. I believe that Troeller sought to subvert these ideas in her photograph, particularly given her response that the mound had largely been ignored by the city and that social issues often come up in her art.
A common thread in Avant-Garde art is to seek to subvert popular ideas or culture and thus to challenge what is considered “the norm.” The Neo-Avant-Garde movement in particular, which included feminist and political-activist writers in its ranks during the 1960’s-1970’s, was a politically progressive movement that perceived itself as separate from the government but intrinsically tied to the freedom of speech. The Neo-Avant-Garde was contemporaneous to Linda Troeller’s early collection of self-portrait photographs in the 1970’s - among which is the Self-Portrait, Indian Mound, Syracuse, NY 1975. In Linda’s photograph, she seeks to touch upon the issue of the erasure of Native American culture and history in America. Rather than make the photograph overtly political however, Linda modeled herself after a fashion magazine spread, masking the underlying issue with her pose and her outfit. Here arises an issue that many Neo-Avant-Garde artists struggled with as the 1970’s progressed: as art and pop culture became increasingly enmeshed, how does the artist make their art approachable to the general public while still managing to communicate a meaningful message? If art is commercialized (so that the artist gains funds in order to continue to produce work) then is it impossible for it to truly be a social or political commentary?
The truth is that when a political message is subtle, not all viewers will be able to fully understand the nuances of the piece of art. However, I believe that an artists’ earnest attempt at a dialogue with viewers through a work of art - even if it is understated - is better than no attempt at all. Even though Linda’s commentary on erasure in America is subtle, it is still impactful through her use of two (not one) subjects in her photograph: herself and the burial mound. The mound isn’t a prop – it is a subject that is as equally important to the composition as Linda. Linda symbolizes the oppressive and anachronistic whiteness while the mound symbolizes the repressed and diminishing Native American population. Her position upon the mound is to imitate subjugation, not to disrespect or literally trample upon the mound - all behind the guise of a fashion spread.

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Background Research Sources

Alexis Pecknay, Bryn Mawr class of 2020