For what it’s worth…
Rena Detrixhe, whose “Red Dirt Rug Monument” won both the Public and Juried awards for her category, reflects on ArtPrize and the power of art, labor, and place.
My studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma is located near the intersection of Brady Street and Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. Brady Street was originally named for W. Tate Brady, a founder of the city, a known leader of the KKK, and an instrumental orchestrator of the so-called 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, a violent pogrom by a white mob of the prominent Black neighborhood of Greenwood. The entire community was burned to the ground and at least 300 people were murdered; it remains the deadliest act of racial violence in our country’s history. Recently, the street was ‘renamed’ by the city council to honor Matthew B Brady, a Civil War photographer with no ties to Tulsa, a decision that would be characterized as ‘intellectually dishonest.’ Until recently, the neighborhood I live and work in as an artist in residence — which borders historic Greenwood — has been called the ‘Brady Arts District’ also after W.T. Brady. At the intersection just outside my studio window, MLK Jr Blvd ends abruptly. The MLK signifier only exists in North Tulsa, the predominantly Black neighborhood. When you continue — across a bridge over railroad tracks that fewer than a hundred years ago demarcated the line of segregation — through downtown Tulsa and into South Tulsa down the same street, the signs read ‘Cincinnati.’ Of course, many cities have a Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard or Street or Avenue and not surprisingly it often happens to be a line that segregates. (Chris Rock famously had a bit about it.) Ironically, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Division Avenue shares the commemorative designation of MLK. Despite pressure the actual name has not been changed.
This year in Grand Rapids, for three weeks every day I would ride my bike down Wealthy Street and Division Avenue, to install an ephemeral installation made of dirt at West Michigan University. The exhibition was a part of the city’s annual ArtPrize event. Each day in the quiet gallery space I would spread a thin layer of meticulously sifted red earth onto the floor and carefully stamp a pattern into its surface. Slowly, the form of an ornate carpet sculpted in this fragile loose soil would grow to cover 1000 square feet of the space. Throughout this process, viewers were invited to witness my labor, a slow deliberate performance of careful gesture and delicate mark-making.
I originally collected the red dirt in central Oklahoma and transported it to my studio in Tulsa, where I would spend three months refining, grinding, sifting and re-sifting the soil into the finest, softest dust. Red dirt is a geographic feature that makes up much of the landscape of the state, but it is also a cultural signifier and part of the everyday nomenclature. It is ubiquitous. It is understood. Its symbols are manifold: grit, perseverance, sorrow, pain, spirit, resilience.
As an artist who is sensitive to place and interested in history, I find myself deeply concerned with the significance of these names, these signifiers. Places and names hold power, hold resonance. Landscapes have memory, places have memory, the earth has memory. There is a reason we say something happened on our home soil. Soil has memory, too.
Once the dirt rug was complete, the space was opened for visitors to walk around the piece. The first day it was open to be experienced up-close in all its delicateness and vulnerability, a few disruptions occurred. As the artist, I expect them, invite them even. A man’s footprint clipped a corner, the edge was fingered by a curious hand. One viewer rolled a coin across the floor and it traveled easily through the loose earth carving a 12-ft gouge into the carpet’s surface, a harsh line leading to a small silvery punctuation mark.
At first I found this particular instance of vandalism devastating. It was so deliberate, so specific, though I soon realized its poetry. It was a scar, a wound, a fold perhaps. Whether inflicted out of curiosity, disregard, malice, or accident, it was unquestionably there as evidence of an action. A wound inflicted by human presence, US currency as the weapon. What better metaphor for our relationship to the earth, to the land, to systems of value and wealth? What better allegory for human impact? A perfect tangent, quick and dirty, to weeks of slow and gentle mark-making. When a local television news station reported a short piece about my work, they did not mention the coin, but perhaps to provide levity, pointed out that the material is “…light enough if you sneeze, you could ruin the entire piece.” An interesting illustration to suggest that a sneeze, an act so involuntary and uncontrollable, so free of personal responsibility, might be the thing which destroys the work. If it happened, we would all say “bless you.”
So much of this work is about impermanence and how we perceive and define value. In relation to land, to the earth, to people and memory and our history. Value is not always defined by what can be bought or sold; it is expressed through experiences and relationships and care and empathy and memory. This work is not a traditional art object… it is temporary, it is ephemeral, and for people to find the experience of spending time with it “valuable” is remarkable. I am touched and grateful that my work has resonated with people. I hope that the beauty of the piece is merely an entry point for deeper reflection. It is beautiful, yes, but that beauty is superficial in the true sense of the word. It rests precariously on the surface. Beneath that surface it is a mournful piece, a sorrowful piece. It is also a hopeful piece, a gesture and a suggestion of a more careful, sensitive, empathetic kind of action.
My own participation in ArtPrize had little to do with winning awards and everything to do with the opportunity to realize my work on an ambitious scale and share it with thousands of people. I had more remarkable personal interactions throughout the process than I could have imagined. There is no other art event that I am aware of in which artists give so much of their time and generosity to the public through speaking openly about their practice, sometimes for weeks on end. I answered the question “How long did that take you?” no less than one thousand times and though I was happy to talk about my work and process, it made me curious about how we as a society value art and artists, labor and time. In the Midwest, hard work is held in the highest regard; in Oklahoma, the state motto is “Labor omnia vincit” which roughly translates to “Labor conquers all.”
So what conquers all at ArtPrize? ArtPrize asks the public to decide what is valuable and what is worthy of recognition. It is an oddity, unlike any other art event in the world. Viewers of all stripes are drawn by diverse and engaging work but also by participating in awarding huge cash prizes, per an arts organization largely funded by billionaires. “See as much art as humanly possible and vote for the artwork you think deserves a spot…” A Grand Prize of $200,000 and several other smaller awards illustrate, in the minds of both the general public and an expert jury, what is most meaningful.
The Grand Prize Jurors selected “The Heartside Community Meal” by Seitu Jones, an expansive 300-foot table uniting hundreds of locals to join in conversation about food and social justice over a locally-grown meal. An excerpt from Jones’ statement says the meal, “[unites] us in a beautiful, poetic, artful experience across the table that exposes our differences and inequities, illuminates our similarities and connections, and builds bridges of understanding between us.”
The winner of the Public Vote Grand Prize was Richard Schlatter, for his large-scale portrait of Abraham Lincoln made with tens of thousands of pennies. The artist expressed his love and admiration for the 16th president, and described finding joy in educating children about his legacy over the 3-week exhibition. Lincoln, one of our country’s most beloved leaders, is remembered for his thoughtfulness, his humanity, and preserving the Union during the Civil War and ordering the emancipation of enslaved people. He also ordered the largest mass execution in US history, of 38 Dakota Indians in Mankato Minnesota in 1862, just five days before the Emancipation Proclamation. Earlier this year, an artwork that referenced this history, depicting parts of the scaffold used in this and other notorious executions, was met with outrage from Native Americans and other activists when it was installed in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden after being acquired by the Walker Art Center. In a somewhat unprecedented outcome, the work was removed and is to be ceremoniously buried by the Dakota people, in agreement with the artist who apologized for his thoughtlessness.
At the end of ArtPrize, before my “Red Dirt Rug Monument” was removed, a small ceremony was held to commemorate the work, meditate on its intention, honor the memories embedded in the soil and to reflect on the anticipation of loss and a more mindful approach to our surroundings. Our group was a handful of friends and strangers, young and old, who felt a connection to the work. We said a few words, read a couple of poems, felt the earth with our fingers and toes, and swept up the piece together. The Executive Director of ArtPrize was present, and as we began to sweep the soil he ventured out to retrieve the fugitive coin and handed it to me. It was a penny.
Note on the author:
Rena Detrixhe is an interdisciplinary artist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Detrixhe received both the Public Vote and Juried Awards in the Time-Based category of ArtPrize Nine for her time-based installation, “Red Dirt Rug Monument.” Her work was supported by an ArtPrize Pitch Night Grant, West Michigan University, and the Tulsa Artist Fellowship.
