San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Classroom contradictions
At Athenaeum, Christine Oatman alters imagery from midcentury children’s books to look at issues of today
At first glance, Christine Oatman’s series of installations at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library appear to be idealistic and innocent re-creations of 1950s classroom settings. ■ Wide-eyed, life-sized, cutout figures of boys and girls interact with their set-like contexts that include activities like daydreaming in class, building an Erector set, checking in on the class pet and playing fireman in a miniaturized firetruck. ■ Yet these installations unfold rather quickly, and darker and far more intense realities reveal themselves the longer one engages the abundance of symbols and visual media that make up the complicated works.
In Oatman’s “Distraction,” while our archetype Cub Scout daydreams and watches the clock in the front row of his class, an Africanamerican child raises his hand in earnest. But instead of being a fully colored cutout like every other child in the tableau, he is made from a transparent material that appears to erase him from the scene.
“In my education, there were no kids of color,” Oatman says.
Books displayed make direct references to Mccarthyism, segregation and redlining, which was a governmental process of denying services to specific neighborhoods. Each subsequent installation in the exhibit is rife with equally menacing contradictions: the child constructing an Erector set is beset by imagery of an oil field, the child with the class pet is corralled behind a large zoo-link fence, and the firetruck is positioned in front of crumbling twin towers.
While the exhibit involves several floor-to-ceiling installations, children’s books are the genesis for Oatman’s process as she alters text and imagery in both subtle and blatant ways. Titled “Stories of Innocence and Experience: Altered Mid-20th Century Children’s Books in
Pedagogic Tableaux,” these texts are a starting point f or Oatman to reflect upon her experience as a teacher; her own primary school memories in 1950s San Diego; and contemporary issues she felt ill-prepared for in childhood.
“I’ve been involved in children’s books for ages, both as props in exhibits and because I love them. I’ve even put some of my previous temporary outdoor projects into books, making books out of books,” Oatman says.
Midcentury children’s books did not address the ugly side of life and difficult issues like divorce, death and the tough experiences that come with life. Instead, the idealistic and generic representations of Dick and Jane illustrations mirrored the content of these books that pointed toward the sunnier side of things. Oatman situates the life-sized cutouts of children alongside the books on display as though they are part of a classroom.
The difference in her artwork is that “each of the children is beset by some imminent minor disaster,” Oatman says.
As one walks through the exhibit, there are many hidden and cleverly placed books that reward close investigation. These texts, according to Oatman, address the real issues and require a bit more effort to engage.
The exhibit has a playful rhythm; the many different types of media as well as the generous use of color move your eye around the space. Mimicking the ubiquitous cursive handwriting examples of elementary school, quotations by Shakespeare, Twain and others speak to a loss of innocence in a chalk board border as a way of formally bringing the entire space together.
Beginning with a love of books both experientially and aesthetically, Oatman transforms these concepts into current issues of importance. Whether it’s the abundance of technology in our children’s hands, terrorism or animal cruelty, there are a host of concerns to uncover in her thick and layered exhibit.
“If it’s not important, there isn’t any reason for me to make art about it.”