Pop Culture and History Collide

by Damien Williamson, Time Out Staff Writer
It’s not often that an art exhibition takes, for its inspiration, the work of a Canadian musician. But then pop culture icon Neil Young, with his deeply personal lyrics, distinctive guitar work and signature nasal tenor, is no ordinary musician.

The exhibit is “Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and Me,” running at the Aspen Art Museum from Friday, Feb. 15 through Sunday, April 13. And the song on which the exhibit is based is Young’s “Pocahontas,” a tragically beautiful journey through America’s physical and cultural landscape.

The show, in addition to its admittedly esoteric inspiration, is also a departure from most exhibits at the Aspen Art Museum in that head curator Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson allowed another artist, Jeremy Deller, to curate the entire show.

“I’ve been a fan of Jeremy’s work for a long time,” she says of the British-born, Turner Prize-winning multimedia artist. “I got to know him during an extended residency in San Francisco, and when we started the artist-in-residence program here, I thought he would be perfect to invite. Some artists do really well outside the comforts of their own environment, and some don’t. He’s quite adaptable.”

Jacobson says she had no idea what the final product would be after giving Deller free reign at the museum, and initial ideas ranged from a simple art show to a massive fireworks display over Aspen Mountain. Deller eventually settled somewhere in the middle, opting for a century-spanning exhibition, a two-hour symposium at the Aspen Institute and, eventually, a book that will chronicle the whole process.

“The exhibit really is based on the song,” says Deller. “(The song) exists on at least two different planes; it’s set in the present and also in the past, where Young is imagining himself as a Native American Indian escaping white settlers who are attacking his encampment. But it’s also about Vietnam, mid-70s America and materialism.”

The eclectic exhibit features paintings, drawings, etchings, photos, videos, ledger drawings and even art drawn directly on the walls of the gallery from the 19th century through the present. And the unifying connection, aside from the obvious ones featuring Marlon Brando and the burial site and descendents of Pocahontas, is the progression of history and differing examples of the American landscape.

“It’s good to see a continuation of history for me,” Deller says. “Not only does history repeat itself, but we can’t learn anything from it if we don’t pay attention to it. And in terms of this idea of landscape, I hope people will see it as much more complicated than it is. You have traditional landscape art, and then you have landscapes in the more metaphorical sense.”

By metaphorical landscapes, Deller means images and works that don’t just depict typical Ansel Adams-esque, grandiose images of mountains and hillsides. When choosing the works for the exhibit, he instead focused on pieces that have historical significance or elicit a reaction that the viewer can somehow identify with the American experience. Included works range from photos taken by American soldiers in Iraq, pre-war desert images littered with tanks, Marlon Brando speaking at a rally during the civil rights movement and sketch books where Native Americans recreated daily tribe life and attacks through drawings.

But the idea for the exhibition actually stemmed from Deller’s desire to host a symposium that dealt with many of his, and Young’s, major interests: the American identity, history, politics, war, medical intervention, information technologies and music. The event, taking place from 6-8 p.m. on Feb. 15, at the Paepcke Auditorium on the Aspen Institute campus, will feature four speakers: Daniel Bertrand Monk, the Cooley Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and professor of geography at Colgate University; Jonathan Kunilholm, co-founder of Tackle Design and Open Prosthetic Project; Major General Matthew P. Caulfield, former Deputy Director of the Military Office of the White House; and Captain Rye Carcott, co-editor of Armed Conflict in Africa and co-founder of Carolina for Kiberia, Kenya.

“I just really hope that people are stimulated when they leave,” Deller says. “People will certainly interpret the exhibit and symposium in different ways, but just having people take a look at their history and their landscapes should provoke some pretty interesting thoughts.”

And perhaps a British artist curating a show filled with several foreign artists based on a song by a Canadian musician can provide just the right level of objectivity to truly analyze the American landscape.

damien@aspendailynews.com