The Politics of Shoes: Artistic Profile Sam Tan

The Politics of Shoes: Artistic Profile Sam Tan

by Jill Furumoto

After viewing the Politics of Shoes art exhibit hosted by Jane Wang, many thoughts and feelings and images flooded my mind. There were so many ideas and so much to look at.

As I reflect on my experience with the Politics of Shoes show, a few of the exhibits stood out in my mind. One of them was the piece "63 in '08", by Sam Tan. This piece engaged me, and I immediate felt that I had literally "stepped into the artist's" medium when I crossed a sand puddle on the floor to read the names of the 63 homicide victims in Boston in 2008.

After reading their names, I stepped back across the sand puddle and tried to move on to the next piece. In doing so, I tracked the sand across the floor and realized that I was now part of the art piece. Yes, it made a direct impression on me. The interactive aspect of this piece grabbed me. The violence in the community rubs off on our souls or our soles, in this case, and when we try to walk away, the residue symbolically follows us. This was a great idea, and it made me stop and think about what the Artist was trying to say.

I decided that I would like to learn more about Sam Tan's artistic process and his journey towards making 63 so I interviewed him electronically and was glad he was willing to share some of his thoughts and background via facebook. Here is a summary of the interview.

Question: What is your background? Did you go to art school?

I am largely self-taught and my background was originally in psychology. I've always enjoyed visiting museums and galleries and was intrigued and inspired by the creative journeys that the artists went on. After following the programming of quite a few of the local galleries for awhile, I felt that I had the courage to jump into the deeper and see what would come out of it.

Question: What is your favorite modality?

I don't have a specific modality that I stick to. I don't like to box myself in, and I enjoy shaking things up now and then. That is why I found the open call to participate in "The Politics of Shoes to be appealing and challenging as I have not made site specific work in the past .

Question: What inspired you to do your piece 63?

Some of my work; like abstract biomorphic paintings are more intuitive and fluid in its process while others like “63 in '08” and my other work which involves using gay pornographic imagery are more conceptually based and linear in its process.
I came across the Politics of Shoes through an open call posted on the net.


The inspiration behind my piece was that I had been basically (and continue to be) troubled by the homicides that took place in the city. I wanted to communicate the idea that we are all interconnected to one another even though we may live in much safer neighborhoods that have not been a witness to such crimes.

Question: What are you working on now?

I am currently working on abstract paintings that have collage elements. Its a continuation of the work that I have shown earlier this year at the artists foundation gallery in Boston. I have no plans to make other site specific installations like "63 in '08". Although I could conceivably create variations of that work in the future.

The responses I have gotten from my piece have been good. Because of the sobering content of the piece, some viewers have been moved by it while some others were able to make interesting cross-cultural connections.

Appreciating Sole Food: A Reflection on “The Politics of Shoes”

Appreciating Sole Food: A Reflection on “The Politics of Shoes”
The Politics of Shoes Exhibit @mobius – May 23 through May 31th, 2009
Mobius – 725 Harrison Avenue, Boston MA – www.mobius.org

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald

I thought I had a clear idea about the political nature of footwear when I arrived at “The Politics of Shoes” at Mobius in Boston on a muggy night at the end of May 2009. Seared among my preconceptions was the infamous shoe-throwing incident of 2008, when then-President George W. Bush ducked to dodge a pair of projectile insults that had, moments earlier, wrapped the feet of a Baghdad reporter. Shoes, I thought, were by definition the lowest of the low. They shield the skins of our feet from spit, spillage and everything else that ends up on the streets. To use a shoe in a political statement is to express unmitigated disgust, I assumed. I arrived ready to see what was making Boston’s artists angry enough to take aim with their shoes and fire.

At first, I got a taste of what I’d expected from Milan Kohout’s installation: "The Politics of Shoes". Shoes photographed on a flag-draped doormat took a swipe at America’s national symbol. Another sequence of photos depicted the Baghdad shoe-throwing episode. Shoes equal insults, I thought. What other targets have these presenters lined up?

But by the time I’d finished going through the exhibit, I was seeing shoes as instruments with much more to say than: “I loathe what you represent.” I came to appreciate how shoes are deeply personal items. Hence when they’re politicized, they pack a person’s identity – frailties and passions alike – into their punch. My coming to see shoes as multi-layered vessels with subtleties to speak was a testimony, I think, to the artists’ individual and collective success at presenting installations that stretched the mind into some unexpected territory.

Sam Tan’s "63 in ’08" pushed me to a new place, even though I learned later that I hadn’t quite grasped the project. Since I visited at night, I couldn’t see the 63 Boston murder victims’ names listed on the window. I also thought the footprints in the chalk on the floor were supposed to be those of people killed (they were actually those of previous visitors to the show). But pondering the written message and studying the markings of soles in chalk, I got a strong and arguably rightful impression that a footprint – especially one of a person now deceased – is very personal, almost sacred sign. It seems to deserve protection of its integrity as an act of reverence for the one who left it. I imagined I was looking at actual footprints of young, imaginative people who’d been gunned down. Their footprints, at least figuratively speaking, were all they’d really left on this earth. How intimate it is to regard a person’s footprint, and by extension, the shoe that makes it! Perhaps a shoe isn’t merely a cold vessel of disdain and repulsion.

In the adjacent corner, my line of thinking about shoes-as-intimates found more fuel. "I dream of boots and an army of women" by Leigh Waldron-Taylor showed a semi-circle of paired shoes, all pointed at a loosely hanging ladder. Aha, I thought: a statement about social climbing. Women amass shoe collections, I inferred from the display, as a means to appear that they’re making progress up a ladder of social status. That’s so sad, I thought, but also so human. Later Jane Wang, who’d invited me to the show, noted offhandedly that these shoes had belonged to women who are now dead. That insight made the display all the more poignant to me. These women had donned what were in most cases fancy shoes. They tried to climb, never reaching the top, and then died. Now the casings that had wrapped their feet for years and protected them from the elements of New England weather were alone in this space to make a final statement. Again the intimacy, even the vulnerability, of the shoe form was palpable. These weren’t screams of insult; these were whispers of longing. Both, it seems, are woven into the power of shoes to make political statements.

As I made my way around the exhibit, I got a sense that the artists behind these artworks were in tune with the close bonds that people feel with certain favorite shoes. Lauren McCarthy’s "Dress Shoes for Spontaneous Departure" spoke of how important a shoe can be. She rendered these sneakers as her freedom, her ability to run at any second. If fashion demands heels, she seemed to suggest tongue-in-cheek, then she would absurdly weld them onto the sneakers that give her autonomy in a world rife with threats and constraints. Along the wall, David Chin’s "The People’s Shoes" conveyed how much people love their old, well-worn, simple shoes – and how ambivalent they are toward the rest. Captions to some of his 20 or so photographs of shoes worn by Mobius visitors during a SoWa Art Walk spoke to the contrast. “These are my favorites. I can wear them without socks,” said one. “These are new and don’t make me feel any different,” said another. Shoes, when loved, become a part of you and me, I gathered. Nothing the well-worn ones say – in any assemblage or act of defiance – can be divorced from the earnest aspirations of those who’ve given them a unique shape and contour.

My new appreciation for the intimacy of shoe-packaged statements made the rest of what I saw resonate on a deeper level. J. Ellis Coleman’s "Stay in Your Own Backyard" depicted oversized footprints in a suggestively enclosed space. They stood on sheet music with such racist lyrics as “a coon like you” should stay in his own backyard. I saw these footprints as a symbol of one person’s deep longings to be free, to explore and to achieve. Perhaps I would have seen them in a similar light had this installation been my first stop at the show, but the other artists’ works had sensitized me to just how inseparable are a person’s footprints from his or her being. To confine mobility, either literally or figuratively, is perhaps to muffle humanity.

It seems I don’t see shoes in quite the same way as I did before this show. More importantly, I think I appreciate the frailty of human existence more than I did before. Even the most coarse and blunt of instruments for delivering insults is apparently inextricably connected to an individual’s personal story and deep longings. And if a weapon can have such a tender human dimension, then perhaps human beings too are capable of more than a little humaneness.

BIO: G. Jeffrey MacDonald is an independent journalist specializing in religion, ethics and social responsibility. His articles have appeared in TIME magazine, USA Today, MS. magazine, American Executive, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor among others. His stories in USA Today are archived here:
http://content.usatoday.com/community/tags/reporter.aspx?id=213

Jeff is a recipient of religion journalism’s top award, the Templeton Reporter of the Year prize from the Religion Newswriters Association. The American Academy of Religion has also honored him four times for his in-depth reporting on religion. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University and Bachelor of Arts in American history from Brown University.

His forthcoming book, “Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of the American Soul,” will be published by Basic Books in Spring 2010.
(http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/basic/home.jsp).

Updates/Glitches

1. For some strange reason, the last two automatically scheduled Featured Artist of the Day posts didn't occur as scheduled:

6/29/09 Jane Wang and Karen Aqua was just published (on 6/30/09)
6/30/09 Milan Kohout's post will publish on 07/01/2009 at 9:00pm EST

2. Had forgotten to add Sam Tan's links to his post - they were just added.

Sam Tan - "63 in '08" installation

Video stills and photos showing gradual
disintegration of Sam Tan's "63 in '08"
Variation and Original Concept:
unless noted otherwise, all photos taken by Bob Raymond (MAG)

Day 1: Curator forgot to move chairs around installation
(video still)

Day 2: Rectangle still remains intact
(video still)

Day 3: Showing chalk puddles and initial installation

Sam Tan
“63 in '08”
site-specific installation

There were 63 homicides in Boston in 2008. The installation offers the opportunity for the viewer to question oneself the degree of connectedness to such crimes in the city as well as ruminate on ways that everyone could help to lower violent crimes in the future.

Sam Tan is an emerging artist who is based in the Boston area and he has been exhibiting extensively for the past eight years. He currently has works in The Boston Drawing Project at Carroll and Sons Gallery in Boston, as well as Pierogi Flat Files in Brooklyn. He recently had a solo exhibition at the Artists Foundation Gallery in Boston. Tan’s works have entered into private and corporate collections, and have been acquired by public companies. He has been awarded scholarships from the Bertha Walker Foundation and his works have been published in various publications, including the Harvard Advocate.

Note from the Curator:
1. I have to confess that I loved the artist's initial concept of the 63 chalk puddles (as we both called them) on the floor. When the artist proposed a variation on his initial submission, I said, why not do both and said we could get some extra people to help create the puddles (which in reality turned out to be David Chin of course) if we could install the puddles on Monday right before the evening's performances. My hope was that someone would make use of the puddles in their performance. As it turned out, Monday had fewer performances (and shorter ones - being almost all dance/movement/butoh oriented) so I decided to perform myself with the intent of doing something meditative with the puddles. Once again, events transmogrified as I also wanted Karen Klein's installation to be destroyed. How these disparate actions were accomplished was revealed and described at some length in a previous post (Karen Klein - June 12 2009 ).

(video still)

2. In case there is some confusion about this, Sam Tan installed two versions of his concept. The first was actually a variation on his original proposal. It is the installation of the names on acetate enclosed by a red frame on the window with a rectangle of white chalk on the floor. The second is 63 chalk puddles on the gallery floor which he installed (with help from David Chin) during the afternoon of Monday May 25 2009.

Comments from Visitor's Book:

"63 in '08 seemed very heartwrenching for me - the transparency on the window with tiny black text of deaths (so how come so many in Dorchester??) yet, as you read the names my eyes also took in the flowering shrubs outside and the beautiful blue flowers. Why is it like this?"

"63 in '08 is powerful. The chalk (now dispersed) on the floor reminds me of ground drawing in voodoo ceremonies for spirits that are carefully created (hours of work) and then erased/dispersed in an instant when the actual ceremony begins and people dance over/through them. Such are the momentary portals between the living and the dead/spirits"

Links:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samtan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artistinmass2/