VivirLatino

VL Interview: Missing Stereotypes Doesn't Miss the Point

08:00 H | Topics: Arts

Bill Fisher and Chicano Richard A. Lou, both artists, collaborated on creating public art that deconstructed the very public tale of Jennifer Wilbanks, the white runaway bride who used the media and wove a story about being kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a Hispanic man instead of telling the truth.

While your first reaction may be to chuckle at the posters with an image of a wide eyed privileged Georgia girl Wilbanks smack between Desi Arnez and Lucille Ball, thinking about the images and how simple and easy it was for Wilbanks to use the stereotype of the hot blooded (sexually and violently speaking) man and how easy it was for media consumers to eat her story up, you stop laughing pretty quickly. It's also no laughing matter that the artists were censored when Missing Stereotypes and other collaborative and solo works were pulled from the Quinlan Visual Arts Center of Gainesville, Georgia's show "Celebración" earlier this year. Not surprisingly this was done under the orders of the Board of Directors of the art center who just happened to be friends of the Wilbanks family.

Artists Richard Lou was kind enough to send a statement regarding his work.

Richard A. Lou sent the following statement: In order for our democracy to work we must engage in a dialogue that is clear of false claims and misunderstandings. As artist/citizens we use the visual language to hopefully create a clear path towards this unbiased, anti-hierarchical, and truly democratic space where we can all engage in healing the dysfunction of our society that has a distinct history of exploiting people of color.

Bill Fisher, born in California and raised in Virginia, had parents that encouraged formal arts training from the early age of about 8. He lived in Japan for 5 years and apprenticed with the Yoshida family at their Tokyo woodcut studio. Currently he is the Assistant Professor of Art at Georgia College & State University and was recently appointed Under Secretary of Southern Cultural Hegemony and Rural Visual Authority by the US Department of Art and Technology. He considers his most important collaboration to date to be with Ilse Padilla Fisher: Emma, 2 years old, and Max, 6 months.

VL: Why explore stereotypes through your art , more specifically dismantling/deconstructing Latino stereotypes like you and Richard Lou did in Missing Stereotypes?

Bill Fisher :The society we face today in America is characterized by the conflicts of contradiction and hypocrisy. Vietnam war hero and respected congressman John Murtha is branded as unpatriotic, Darwin is a myth and Adam and Eve are real, Democracy is Capitalism, The Geneva Conventions are "quaint," debate is traitorous, divisions in our classless, colorblind society continue to widen along lines of race and socioeconomic class.

We see stereotyping of people as further example of the fundamental inequities in this culture of great, if not cynical, promise. Georgia-based Chicano artist Richard Lou initiated the project "Missing Stereotypes" following the arrest of "Runaway Bride" (and Georgia native) Jennifer Wilbanks for issuing false statements to the police, specifically her claim that she had been abducted and sexually assaulted by a Hispanic male and heavyset white female. We agreed that this further marginalization of the marginalized (Hispanics, women and mixed-race couples) was worth investigating, especially considering how little time was devoted to this aspect of the story by the mainstream media.

The subject of our critique was the mechanisms of racism inherent in Missing White Woman Syndrome

The majority of the news reports I saw focused on the anger of Hispanics, reinforcing the stereotype and spinning Wilbanks as the "victim" of Latino outrage. The subject of our critique was the mechanisms of racism inherent in Missing White Woman Syndrome, the American obsession with the white Damsel-in-Distress, and in other cases involving the invented villain, the Dark Other conjured up to distract and elicit sympathy.

Susan Smith, Jesse Anderson, Charles Stuart and Jennifer Wilbanks all falsely blamed their transgressions on minority members, putting people of color clearly in harm's way. The blood of Emmett Till, of the residents of Rosewood, Florida, of the six Hispanic migrant workers brutally murdered in Georgia this year, and, as this country's demographics continue to evolve, the sharp rise we see nationally in attacks on Hispanics all attest to the urgency of this issue and the necessity of ongoing discussion.

VL: You have faced censorship in Georgia because of the "political" nature of your work and because obviously the Wilbanks have connections, but what has been the wider reaction in the art community in general and more specifically in the Latino community?

Bill Fisher: Following its removal from the Quinlan Visual Arts center (and the following punitive removal of the rest of Richard's solo and collaborative work from "Celebracîon," a survey of Latino art), the work was solicited by the Athens Institute for Contemporary Art for the exhibition "RACE (Enter Personal Politics)," with director Lizzie Zucker Saltz and curator Drék Davis generously inviting us for a special Q&A and panel discussion.

The events have been widely reported by the Georgia press and TV news media, and by the Associated Press, and interviews were given to Mundo Hispanico

Invited "Celebracîon" exhibitor Valerie Aranda removed her work from the Quinlan exhibition in a brave show of solidarity. The events have been widely reported by the Georgia press and TV news media, and by the Associated Press, and interviews were given to Mundo Hispanico. Support has generally been strong from the Latino and greater arts community but some interesting "hate mail" from artists and others has come in, all documented at http://billfisher.dreamhost.com/missing.html.

Most of the negative reactions have to do with the aesthetic merit of the work, or express dismay that we'd "ignite racial tension" in an otherwise idyllic community. The blogworld has been active in spreading the word of both the original project and its censorship, derailing attempts by the Quinlan to silence this discourse.

VL: Why public art?

Bill Fisher: I see the accessibility of public, "free" art as a statement of inclusiveness and a rejection of cynicism. The public can be thoughtful, accepting, generous and willing to be challenged and engaged, when given the opportunity. As the arts in this country continue to be maligned, underfunded, and cut from school programs, public art may allow for greater participation by those typically denied access to "Art," and rejuvenate public support of this important cultural institution

VL: Who do you see as your audience?

Bill Fisher: The sane

Check out and support Missing Stereotypes and other thought provoking art at Bill Fisher's website.

Related

• No love lost between Chavez and RCTV (Friday, Jan 19 2007)
• Frida's "Roots" sets record (Monday, May 29 2006)