Artist Statement

Reading the works of Ralph Ellison and Ishmael Reed inspired my poetic meditations about various meanings and implications of Blackness and marginality. For me, Blackness not only includes notions of African-American identity but also address those things that exist at the edge of the repressed barrier of our individual and collective consciousness. The universe of the unseen including the entire realm of the unconscious and various psychological and emotional states like forgetfulness, insanity, alienation are associated with the poetics of Blackness. It is my feeling that Black people have a unique relationship to Blackness and that relationship is the focus of my project. With the use of humor together with unconventional narrative and visual organization, it is my aim to expand the internal space of creative freedom and possibility within the imagination of the viewer. Visions of freedom, revolution, innovation and possibility are not created within the repressed areas of the conscious mind. It is discovered at the frontier of the subconscious. My aim with is to stimulate the viewer’s awareness of those marginal internal spaces for inspiration, insight and external action. Using letterpress posters seems fitting because of its historical use in advertising and politics.

Biography

Carl Pope (b. 1961 in Indianapolis, Indiana) strongest influence in his artistic practice continues to be his high school photography teacher, Donna Hostettler, who endorsed the notion that art is an effective tool for positive social change. Her primary example was photography’s role in changing public support of the Vietnam War. She said, “It was not the protests that changed America’s understanding for the Vietnam War but the daily exhibition of horrific images in the media that swayed popular opinion about it.” Pope continued his work in this direction through his undergraduate years at Southern Illinois University. After graduating in 1984, Pope returned to Indianapolis to work as a freelance photographer in advertising and commercial photography while exhibiting his personal projects. His photographic and multi media investigations of the socio-economic landscape of Indianapolis earned critical acclaim at prestigious venues like the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. The installation “The Black Community: An Ailing Body” received support from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts in 1993. Pope expanded his public art practice with projects in Hartford, Ct, Atlanta and New York for “Black Male” at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1996, Pope enrolled in the MFA program at Indiana University and widened his conceptual concerns to include an investigation of the Self. The initial excursions into his own interior landscape produced “Palimpsest”, a video/writing project with twin sister Karen Pope. “Palimpsest”, commissioned by the Wadsworth Anthnaeum with grants from the Warhol and Lannan foundations, was included in the Whitney Biennial 2000 exhibition. Pope’s most recent installation of letterpress posters called “The Bad Air Smelled of Roses” continues his ongoing exploration into inner space. “I am navigating my interiority in order to enrich my life and to find stimulating ways to create epiphany and revelation within the imagination of my audience.” Pope has taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was Assistant Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the University of Illinois at Chicago.