A panel discussion in conjunction with Depleted Selves
Mission 17
Saturday Nov 22, 2008
www.mission17.org
Steven Wolf, a former newspaper reporter turned art dealer, led a discussion about facts and fact-checking as a part of journalistic investigation at Mission 17. Topics ranged from significant "facts" that have shaped our contemporary world, like the WMDs that justified the U.S. invasion of Iraq, to discussion of the ways in which artists may choose to use or dispute factual material in support or as part of their work.
The discussion took place at the closing reception for Cheryl Meeker's Depleted Selves, a photo project inspired by the U.S. military’s use of munitions made with depleted uranium, and their purported contribution to birth-defects in Iraq, including some children born without eyes. The show featured "anti-portraits" of people with their faces and/or eyes covered; and it included an archive of hotly-contested research materials about the use and effects of depleted uranium (DU), which raises the question: what we can confidently take to be true in this internet age? How much do we know about our military’s activities, and what information has been withheld?
Wolf's discussion of the use by artists of archive materials, politically or socially sensitive content, and artist's investigations of the veracity of received information made compelling associations with his articulation of the current state of information as compared with newspapers' mission statements. This presentation provided tools for better negotiating the uncertainty of these "facts."
Steven Wolf has a BA in philosophy from New York University. From 1985-1992 he was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor specializing in politics and urban affairs for weekly newspapers first in New York and then Los Angeles. He worked as a private dealer specializing in 20th-century painting and sculpture before founding Steven Wolf Fine Arts as a contemporary art gallery in 2004.
