Maryam Cristillo Field Trip Assignment

Righteous Dopefiend: Homelessness, Addiction, and Poverty in Urban America
By Jeff Schonberg and Philippe Bourgois
And
Untitled I. 1978: Marisol Escobar

The first exhibit I walked into was housed inside the University of Pennsylvania museum. It is a museum well known for its ancient exhibits of mummies and Mesopotamia. These were all beautiful exhibits that captured the adventurous minds of visitors but on the first floor I came across a more gripping exhibit that captured my ear. I walked into an exhibit that was a mixture of black and white photographic instillation, tape recordings of the subjects, field notes taken by the artists and critical analysis that opened a dialog. Photographer-ethnographer created the exhibit, Jeff Schonberg and Anthropologist Philippe Bourgois. The exhibit is called, Righteous Dopefiend. Schonberg and Bourgois spent more than a decade with heroin addicts and crack users, which led them to present not only images of homelessness, addiction, and poverty in urban America but documentation in the form of sight and sounds.
I was confronted with these issues when first entered the exhibit and was blown away by the powerful photographs. The photographs were powerful because they were in black and white two colors that are devoid of real color that would distract the viewer from the subjects. The photos are in the moment not something set up or organized with specific intent. The emotion of the people in the photos is raw and agonizing to witness. The added tape recordings of the addicts’ discussions of how they feel and where they are in life really touched me. Each piece was untitled but the most captivating piece was of the homeless disheveled man with arms raised above his head and a sign slung over his chest reading, “NEED WORK PLEASE HIRE! MARRY XMASS GOD BLESS!” That simple sign hanging off of his thin figure underlines the issue of homelessness, addiction and signals the desperation that people in urban areas all over America are experiencing. The perspective the photo was taken makes the viewer see this homeless and jobless man from the angle that emphasizes the issue should not be overlooked. The majority of the community usually overlooks the homeless, stigmatizing them because they are a sign of failure and are looked down at because they are huddled in a corner on the floor, etc. I enjoyed this particular piece and the overall exhibit for its powerful content that opens a dialog with the urban community that is rarely discussed and seen in America.
I came across the Arthur Ross Gallery that was exhibiting naked, the University of Pennsylvania’s collection unveiled. Which sounded risqué and the exhibit kept true to its title. The exhibit space itself was not very enticing but rather plain. However, the collection housed various mediums that presented the human form in the action of undressing or completely undressed from figurative, abstract, to representational. The sculptures were beautifully and artfully placed about the entire exhibit. The paintings, photographs and prints where hung up but there was one piece that really made me stop and look. Interestingly it was color lithograph of two figures whose sex cannot be distinguished.
The figures are captured in a moment whereupon they might kiss. The colors used by the artist Marisol Escobar, is a mixture of hot and cold. The dominating white space is balanced by the warm orange bursting between the two figures. Escobar used black, purple, reds and green contour lines to define the figures. I just love the way the hands reach out and how they are placed on the two figures. The hands and colors are what really tie in the piece and create a flow where the eyes can move around to meet with arresting forms that are somewhat abstracted. The artist did a great job with creating two figures that are similar yet different leaving the viewer to wonder who the two lovers could possibly be?
The two exhibits differed greatly especially in the way the particular pieces in this essay were displayed. The Righteous Dopefiend exhibit came with the sounds of the city, tape recordings of the drug users and the homeless as well as an analysis of what was documented. The thoroughness of the Righteous Dopefiend exhibit really impressed me. But that’s what the exhibit needed to be a strong cohesive exhibit. At the Arthur Ross Gallery, though it was exhibited in a plain and simple manner, I was still impressed and captivated by one piece that left me staring for a while. The arresting colors, forms and mysterious subjects really did naked, the Universities unveiled exhibit, justice.