JEFF SCHLANGER
CHILE•NEW YORK•GAZA
What comes from the depths of our lungs?
An idea is that it is the vehicle of expression for our voice, our song, our laughter, our anger, our cries, our grief.
A short list that brings us to the point: here are our emotions as they are expelled from our bodies, in the different forms of the breath.
Here are the lungs of the artist Jeff Schlanger, as heard through the didjeridoo. His breath has been a presence on the planet for over 80 years. His breath has earned the gravitas that a well-lived life gives: the experience of expressing all the emotions that one can feel in ones lungs, mind, organs, and heart. And it is with his breath that we illustrate what his hands have spent the last 48 years creating in clay. A medium that comes from the earth, is the outcome of a kind of alchemy, and can withstand the elements of time. And something that can be returned again, and again, to the hands. In its tactility we find comfort and connection. Much like the effects of the prosodic nature of the human voice.
CHILE•NEW YORK•GAZA is large scale installation of sculptural clay faces that has been shown under an evolving title (more on that history below), and has been a work-in-progress since 1973. In focused silence, Jeff has used the energy of indignation to pound, mold and fire clay to advocate for the innocence destroyed in the face of violent world conditions. We are met with these faces of in moments of pain, of horror; they are faces of fear, gaping mouths, teeth, misshapen expressions of bleak existences real, imagined, not yet conceived.
In the isolation of the pandemic, those faces became resolved in sound. His practice in “Tone World” experiments, a concept developed by the musician, writer, poet, activist, teacher, William Parker, gained even more importance as an organizing principle during this last worrying year. Pure breath. Pure expression. A validation of all the layers that describe tender human existence. Touch and breath. Two actions that can cure and give comfort, or harm and invoke fear.
CHILE•New York• GAZA: work and installation by Jeff Schlanger; photo: j. maya luz, 2021
This is a topic too big for this space, yet it is important to give some context. A simple history begins here:
It began in 1973, another time of social unrest. A friend, the poet, James Scully had just won a Guggenheim Fellowship to respond to what was then, a very exciting time in Chile. Under the newly formed government of Salvador Allende, the arts, music, poetry, theater, painting, were thriving. James and his wife, along with their two young children went to be a part of this special cultural moment. Yet, they arrived into an environment they did not expect.
“There were helicopters over the city with machine guns firing into workers neighborhoods. There were bodies floating in the river, which was right in the center of the city. And total fascism had been imposed. The president had been killed. The presidential palace had been riddled with bombs and bullets.”
Scully and his family stayed from 1973-1974, and he wrote poems (later published as “Santiago Poems”: Curbstone Press, 1975). The poems were sent out of Chile in envelopes with no return address (for safety) to Jeff Schlanger, and he in turn distributed them to professors of literature, poets and writers.
Cover to “Santiago Poems”: written by James Scully; Cover image: Jeff Schlanger
Deeply moved by newspaper reports about the plight of the Chilean people, who’s lives were being ravaged, and the poems he was being sent in the mail describing the scene on the ground in his dear friend’s voice, Jeff began to understand how some figurative works that he had already begun to develop, yet didn’t fully understand, connected. He knew that he needed to continue.
When Jim and his family returned to New York, there was a wave of Chilean refugees arriving as well. There began to be demonstrations and cultural events that combined speeches, poetry, song and art. And the faces that came out of the Santiago poems began to have a presence at these events in support of the Chilean people.
In 1976, the Victor Jara face along with the slab with James Scully’s poem were shown at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts (New York City) in an exhibition called “The Object as Poet”. This was followed by a show at the Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C. (near the White House) and then in South Carolina. The work was called ‘“JARA: Last Song/ NOW Sing”. The depiction of the dying Victor Jara set with the words of his colleague. It then became necessary for Jeff to attempt a greater challenge, ‘Jara CHILE Victor’, 1980—2021, (see image below). He now envisioned a form of the living Victor Jara that would be an homage to the man, to a culture rich in communal expressions as they were experienced by Jeff in so many demonstrations, and the power of the voice carried in song that his memory exemplifies.
The first working title for this group of forms was “Estadio Chile”. Under this title, in 1978, was an exhibition at the State University of New York at Alfred, the College of Ceramics, where about 300 faces were shown. The title is also a poem by James Scully. (An unrelated poem by the musician Victor Jara, who was assassinated in the Estadio Chile, with many other artists, students and intellectuals in 1973, is also known as “Estadio Chile”, as well as another name “Somos cinco mil”. It was a poem that was saved and given to Victor’s wife, Joan Jara, by a survivor of that detention.(Learn more about Victor Jara HERE)
“Last Song” : Ceramic Head & Tablet by Jeff Schlanger. Poem by James Scully: “NOW Sing”
“Tombstone”: by Jeff Schlanger
“Jara CHILE Victor”: Ceramic sculpture by Jeff Schlanger; photo by j. maya luz, 2013
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In 1980 the pieces were shown in an open atrium that ran across 42nd Street to 43rd Street in New York City at the City University Graduate Center. About 400 faces were viewed by nearly 4,000 people a day. It was here that live music began to express itself as a bigger part of this vision.
The 1970’s was an exciting time in New York for creative music, attracting people from all over the country. And there were many different places where musicians could go out and play. Jeff was a constant presence, painting and drawing gear in hand, recording the music as it was being made. (These images are the work of Jeff as musicwitness®. These paintings are a document of this time through to the present day of some of the most well-known and unknown musicians and poets in the avante guarde jazz world.) One of the best known, and greatest players of this music, Julius Hemphill played the music at the opening of this massive installation, and it was recorded (see below). It’s recording played in the installation space throughout the month. The combination of the sounds along with these faces was an incredibly powerful statement. And it gave Jeff another kind of window into the work.
This installation was in place for a month. In that time, Jeff went nearly everyday to observe, to “hang out”, to adjust the environment to the setting that changed each day with the passage of people and energy. Comments were shared with him. Some were angry, offended at the scene. Others thanked him. Some were survivors of the torture that occurred under the Pinochet regime, and they shared their stories - and their scars. (For first-person recordings from survivors you can see “Testimonios de la tortura en Chile” here)
A new recording by Julius Hemphill - even if it took 18 years to get here - is an event. This is music that was originally created as part of a sound-environment installation in the public space of the City University of New York Graduate Center Mall, music which "accompanied" more than 400 sculptures by Jeff Schlanger (famous for his in-the-moment paintings of musicians that grace many an album cover). This installation offered public recognition that the overthrow of the Popular Unity government in Chile and the murder of President Allende, through the twists and shouts of the Cold War, sooner or later would come to reverberate through New York City's streets. The subject dictated that this would not be light music, and this CD contains some of Hemphill's freest playing. Still, he was always a melodist: The beauty of his lines and the distinctiveness of his sound are ever present. This is an opportunity to hear Hemphill on tenor as well as on alto, and to overhear his experiments with flute and voice. Percussionist Warren Smith is also prominent here, and is given, perhaps, his best chance on record to shape a performance. In his record notes, Smith says that Hemphill played "opera on such a grand scale." No exaggeration, for Hemphill thought dialogically, richly reticulating his lines, always working conversationally; and since he frequently sings and overdubs himself for this work, this is musical drama of real consequence. It is also music of a place and time which can never be duplicated.
--- John F. Szwed, JAZZIZ Magazine Copyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc. -- From Jazziz
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There is a theme that holds the concerns we’ve already discussed, yet is something more pervasive: the destruction of culture. The disintegration of the “cohesive human fabric” that sustains human relationships, that forms societies, that is cultural legacy, is another consternation. It is a dislocation in-place. The place we know, because we know its predictable rhythms, becomes a place we no longer recognize. Predictability gone, one feels lost. The cornerstone of grief, is the loss of connection to what we know. We are describing the grief assigned an entire culture, to a nation. We get now to the Afghan/Iraq war. And more faces are produced.
In 2012, a major exhibition was installed at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, New York. This exhibition also with live music. William Parker, Roy Campbell, Joe McPhee, Bob Stewart, Bill Cole, Michael Wimberly are on the live recorded and filmed (by Michael Lucio Sternbach) DVD, under the title “CHILE•NEW YORK•AfghanIraq, released in 2013.
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The artist’s hands and the artist’s breath give this virtual installation a sense of urgency that is particularly descriptive of our current ordeals in 2021, while referring to the past and the prescience of his vision. A sad and enraging comment on one deeply engrained aspect of human nature. And now, as we begin to emerge from a time that has brought to the forefront of our consciousness the inequalities in just about every aspect of our social policies, laws and even between neighbors, it seemed a fitting moment to meditate with symbols of indignation over the senselessness of harm toward others. Either by governments or individuals, acts of terror are acts of terror.
Making art is “a way to pay attention, really pay attention”. In giving our attention, nuances are revealed, understanding is formed, new questions arise.
What began as the recognition of an internal response to the plights of people in other parts of the world, became a practice, and now demonstrates decades of intentional work animated in time and tone. CHILE•NEW YORK•GAZA asks us to question once again. For what purpose? What is left in the silence? It is a question that we must answer honestly at the highest levels if we are to compassionately address what it means for everyone to be safe and prosper on our planet.
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Links:
Learn more about Jeff Schlanger
Americanto: Compañero Victor Jara (with an interview of Joan Jara, 1974)
Americanto: Testimonios de la tortura en Chile
“Somos cinco mil” a poem by Victor Jara with music by Polo Martí
This program is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with, the City Council. Additional funding comes from the Jacob and Ruth Epstein Foundation and individual donations.
We Thank You!