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Their view: Voter-suppression tricks are on the ballot, too

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Crestwood students to return to class Friday, with two-hour delay

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Look at the statue, and your eyes will be drawn to the one spot the artist made bright red.</p><p>&#8220;We have these really bold lips,&#8221; Sordoni Art Gallery curator Heather Sincavage said earlier this week as she gazed at Alison Saar&#8217;s sculpture of a sturdy woman, apparently standing on a slave-auction block. &#8220;I like to think it&#8217;s an &#8216;I&#8217;m not ever going to be silenced&#8217; kind of idea.&#8221;</p><p>That sentiment suits the Sordoni&#8217;s current exhibit, &#8220;Loud Silence: Expressions of Activism,&#8221; which showcases the work of 40 artists who represent people whose voices have not always been heard, among them women, immigrants, people of color and members of the indigenous and LGBTQ communities.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so excited about this,&#8221; said Sincavage, who spent more than a year assembling the exhibit, which opened this week and runs through Dec. 16.</p><p>Moving from piece to piece, the curator pointed out one fascinating detail after another.</p><p>In &#8220;Casta?&#8221; for example, Nashville artist Juan Logan&#8217;s 20 panels of handmade paper &#8212; each a slightly different hue &#8212; represent the skin tones people of mixed race might have.</p><p>&#8220;He made the paper by grinding up the Confederate flag,&#8221; Sincavage said.</p><p>Another wall contains an example of Lakota artist Cannupa Hanska Luger&#8217;s &#8220;Mirrored Shield Project.&#8221;</p><p>Fashioned from plywood and reflective Mylar, the shields were light enough to carry and shiny enough to serve as mirrors when protesters demonstrated against the Dakota Access Pipeline at North Dakota&#8217;s Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 2016, in an effort to protect water resources.</p><p>&#8220;They could hold them up to the riot police as if to say, &#8216;Look what you&#8217;re doing to us,&#8217; and &#8216;you need water, too&#8217;,&#8221; Sincavage said.</p><p>Nearby, Nicholas Galanin&#8217;s &#8220;Indian Children&#8217;s Bracelet&#8221; rests on a stand. It&#8217;s actually a set of handcuffs that represents the government&#8217;s efforts in the 19th and early 20th centuries to &#8220;civilize&#8221; indigenous children by taking them away from their families.</p><p>&#8220;They &#8216;civilized&#8217; them by cutting their hair and not allowing them to have tattoos,&#8221; Sincavage said, explaining Galanin carved Tlingit symbols onto the handcuffs to claim them as part of his people&#8217;s history and honor the children who had suffered.</p><p>A more light-hearted piece depicts a white police officer striking a dance pose while a black gang member holds out his tattooed forearms as if a tango is about to start. &#8220;It&#8217;s about resolving conflict through a dance off,&#8221; Sincavage said of Los Angeles-based artist Alex Donis&#8217; silkscreen-on-paper picture of &#8220;Spider and Officer Johnson.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s so fun,&#8221; she added.</p><p>Many of the pieces in the show depict the human body in some fashion, from Nancy Spero&#8217;s image of powerful female bodybuilders to Helen Zughaib&#8217;s silhouette of a burqa-clad woman, which she compiled from newspaper headlines about the Middle East.</p><p>The body turns up in pieces as diverse as Kiki Smith&#8217;s pictures of internal organs &#8212; &#8220;It shows we&#8217;re all the same on the inside,&#8221; Sincavage said &#8212; and married artists Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger&#8217;s photos of the couple lying in graves in Basel, Switzerland, and holding hands through a tunnel they dug.</p><p>&#8220;They&#8217;re saying &#8216;We are gay&#8217; and &#8216;we love each other&#8217; and &#8216;we&#8217;ll be together in the afterlife,&#8217; &#8221; Sincavage said of the two men, who were photographed during a 2008 performance piece.</p><p>The exhibit is filled with different ways the artists found to show respect to people who have been marginalized, from Hung Liu&#8217;s oil-on-canvas portrait of a Chinese prostitute to Bettye Saar&#8217;s mixed-media portrait of an African-American laundress on a vintage washboard.</p><p>&#8220;She&#8217;s reclaiming the dignity of the women who did household chores, working with the stereotypes,&#8221; Sincavage said of the latter. &#8220;She&#8217;s done a lot of (other) work with images of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben.&#8221;</p><p>The image that&#8217;s been used to advertise the exhibit is a giclee print by Galanin, the artist of Tlingit ancestry, which suggests filmmakers appropriated the image of an indigenous princess to give the first &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; heroine her regal look and distinctive hairstyle.</p><p>&#8220;And I always liked Princess Leia,&#8221; Sincavage said ruefully.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Shields from artist Cannupa Hanska Luger&#8217;s &#8216;Mirror Shield Project,&#8217; which protesters used in 2016 as they demonstrated against the Dakota Access Pipeline, are among the work of 40 artists curator Heather Sincavage brought together for the Sordoni Art Gallery&#8217;s exhibit &#8216;Loud Silence: Expressions of Activism.&#8217; </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1__SordoniExhibit1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Shields from artist Cannupa Hanska Luger&#8217;s &#8216;Mirror Shield Project,&#8217; which protesters used in 2016 as they demonstrated against the Dakota Access Pipeline, are among the work of 40 artists curator Heather Sincavage brought together for the Sordoni Art Gallery&#8217;s exhibit &#8216;Loud Silence: Expressions of Activism.&#8217; </caption0><photoCredit0>Sean McKeag | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1__SordoniExhibit2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Marveling over Faith Ringgold&#8217;s painted story quilt, curator Heather Sincavage said the smokey connection between the torch the dark-skinned Statue of Liberty is holding and the slave ship in the harbor suggests she may have set it on fire.  </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1__SordoniExhibit2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Marveling over Faith Ringgold&#8217;s painted story quilt, curator Heather Sincavage said the smokey connection between the torch the dark-skinned Statue of Liberty is holding and the slave ship in the harbor suggests she may have set it on fire.  </caption1><photoCredit1>Sean McKeag | For Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1__SordoniExhibit3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Kiana Honarmand&#8217;s ceramic and terra cotta pieces are her response to the treatment of women in Iran&#8217;s society. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1__SordoniExhibit3.jpg</photo2><caption2>Kiana Honarmand&#8217;s ceramic and terra cotta pieces are her response to the treatment of women in Iran&#8217;s society. </caption2><photoCredit2>Sean McKeag | For Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1__SordoniExhibit4.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Kara Walker, whose lithograph &#8216;I&#8217;ll Be A Monkey&#8217;s Uncle&#8217; is on display here, is the second youngest recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation &#8216;genius&#8217; grant. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1__SordoniExhibit4.jpg</photo3><caption3>Kara Walker, whose lithograph &#8216;I&#8217;ll Be A Monkey&#8217;s Uncle&#8217; is on display here, is the second youngest recipient of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation &#8216;genius&#8217; grant. </caption3><photoCredit3>Sean McKeag | For Times Leader </photoCredit3></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1__SordoniExhibit6.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The title of Alison Saar&#8217;s sculpture, &#8216;Of Strong Robust Constitution,&#8217; refers to the kind of phrase once used to describe a slave on the auction block. Along with many other examples of artwork in Wilkes University&#8217;s Sordoni Art Gallery&#8217;s latest exhibit, &#8216;Loud Silence,&#8217; the piece uses a painful image to honor people who have been marginalized throughout history. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo4>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/web1__SordoniExhibit6.jpg</photo4><caption4>The title of Alison Saar&#8217;s sculpture, &#8216;Of Strong Robust Constitution,&#8217; refers to the kind of phrase once used to describe a slave on the auction block. Along with many other examples of artwork in Wilkes University&#8217;s Sordoni Art Gallery&#8217;s latest exhibit, &#8216;Loud Silence,&#8217; the piece uses a painful image to honor people who have been marginalized throughout history. </caption4><photoCredit4>Sean McKeag | For Times Leader </photoCredit4></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Exhibit at Wilkes&#8217; Sordoni Art Gallery through Dec. 16</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mary Therese Biebel</p><p>mbiebel@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>IF YOU GO</strong></p><p><strong>What:</strong> &#8216;Loud Silence: Expressions of Activism&#8217;</p><p><strong>Where:</strong> Wilkes University&#8217;s Sordoni Art Gallery, 141 S. Main St., Wilkes-Barre</p><p><strong>When: </strong>10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays and noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through Dec. 16</p><p><strong>Info:</strong> 570-408-4325 or wilkes.edu/sordoniartgallery</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT</p></shirttailMeta></div>

‘Loud Silence’ exhibit at Wilkes University’s Sordoni Art Gallery