Tag Archive for: Visual Culture

Picture shows the gallery, including four of Jaynes’s seven installations on view. In the center foreground is Jaynes’s Gift#1 on display on a flat, horizontally-angled rectangular table with a dark wood base. A white and brown paper owl rests on a cylindrical stand to the left of a large open book under a rectangular, clear acrylic hood. To the right of the display with the owl stands Jayne’s Gift #5, a map representation of the travels the 19th–century blind surveyor John Metcalf. It is a vertically-positioned, large rectangular table composed of a a linen top and a light brown wood base. A multi-color grid, outlines of geometric shapes, and green porcelain geometric shapes adorn the linen top. In the center background, on the back wall painted off-white, is Jayne’s Gift #4, a visual transmutation after the musical work of blind African American musician Thomas Wiggins. It is three horizontal and three vertical rows of prints in a geometric interplay of greens, browns and yellows. To the right of the prints on the wall is a small wooden frame in which brass musical notes are displayed. To the far right background is a view of Jaynes’s Gift #6, the scent mechanism the olfactometer, in a niche in an off-white curved wall. The floor of the room is covered with a tan colored carpet. [end of description]

Common Touch: Coda

Picture shows the catalog cover illustrated with a profile, close-up of Teresa Jaynes’s Gift #1, a brown and white paper owl. Text in red letters is printed to the upper right of the image of the owl. Text reads: Common Touch [next line] The Arts of the Senses in the History of the Blind. [end of description]

Common Touch Catalog Coming Soon!

Picture shows exhibition installation shot of Touching the Book: Embossed LIterature for Blind People, taken from the back of the room and facing the exhibition entrance at the further end of the room on the right hand side. The flooring is light wood, and the walls are painted white. The photograph shows three free-standing display cases all containing 4-5 books opened and resting on cradles; two framed items on the right hand side of the wall as well as a large vinyl graphic of Moon's alphabetic system; and information panels are installed on the wall. At the further end of the room, and to the left of the entrance, is a large fixed display cabinet with three shelves holding artifacts (books and a writing frame). To the left of the cabinet is a blank TV screen and below that a table with a red covering that has been laid out with glasses of wine. [end of description]

Touching the Book: Curating a History of Blindness

Picture shows a close-up of a section of text from an 1863 playbill. Text reads from top to bottom: Part Second [next line].Overture, ---Orchestra. [next line]Comic Song,--- P. Williamson. [next line] Guitar Dnet [sic], ---Marion Brothers. Slight Skirmish: or, the Best Way to Settle It. [next line] George White and P. Williamson. [next line] Ethiopian Jig, - - - J. H. Barleur. [next line] Pathetic Ballad, - - - Billy Rose. [next line]. Seeing the Elephant, [next line] Hilfrem, Hirst and Burr. [next line] Comic Song - - - Ed Shaw [next line] Essence of Old Virginia, - - - J. H. Barluer [next line] [image of pointed finger] Black Blunders, [image of pointed finger] [next line] Geo. White and P. Williamson. [next line] Song and Dance, - - - Ed. Shaw [next line] Overture, - - - Orchestra. Text is surrounded by a rectangular-shaped border composed of two parallel black lines, one thick and one thin. [End of description]

Seeing the Elephant

Picture depicts the black and white cover of Ann Millett Gallant’s book “The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art.” The illustration is a reproduction of Joel Peter Witkin’s 2003 photograph “First Casting for Milo.” The image shows a female model with shortened arms, standing, her skin painted white to resemble marble. She wears a white-powdered wig of wavy hair styled into a low bun; a white, structured bra; and a grey, heavily wrinkled large piece of fabric that is bunched and cinched at her waist to create a floor-length skirt. Her head is turned in profile to the viewer’s left. Her right arm, shortened just below the elbow, rests slightly away from the right side of her body. Her left arm, shortened above the wrist, extends from her left side and rests on the top of a pole. A branch with flowers emerges from the pole. She stands on a marble pedestal. The top is barely discernible. A small dog stands at an angle beside her, at her feet, and to the viewer’s left on the pedestal. The pointy-eared, squat dog is completely white except for black patches around his eyes and his left ear. The dog looks to the viewer’s left. In the upper left, across from the model’s right shoulder is a disembodied hand holding a film director’s clapboard upside down. Grey and silver splotches create a spectral background. In the top left corner, is the text: The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art. Above the head of the dog and in the center-left edge of the cover is the text: Ann Millett Gallant. [end of description]

On Art and Life