Prop Master at Charleston's Gibbes Museum of Art
Susan Harbage Page, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
Juan Logan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Juan Logan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Exhibit Sections:
Introduction | Prop Allocations or Accents for Gracious Living | Famous Last Names | Sexually Ambiguous | Background Material | Welcome Home | Expressions of Affection | Recommended Resources
Expressions of Affection, 2009
Susan Harbage Page
Ku Klux Klan uniforms, assorted fabrics
Period table and four chairs
Ku Klux Klan uniforms, assorted fabrics
Period table and four chairs
Eight variously shaped bundles, formed from Ku Klux Klan uniforms from 1920s
South Carolina, make up Susan Harbage Page's Expressions
of
Affection. Attractive fabric strips and ribbons hold each bundle in shape,
with the exception of one tied with an actual rope belt worn with Klan robes.
The belt's resemblance
to that worn by monks suggests how Klan members viewed themselves
as a brotherhood with a mission or vocation. Ties made from pink silk fabric,
seersucker, or pink and white ribbons implicate women in Klan activities: sewing
hoods and gowns, as well as cleaning, pressing, storing, and treasuring them.
To tie such activities to the slave past and the plantocracy, Page presents the bundles on elegant period furniture: a table from the Charleston Museum and four matching chairs from the Joseph Manigault House. These luxurious objects once belonged to the family of Charles Pinckney, a wealthy Lowcountry planter and signer of the United States Constitution. Pinckney owned hundreds of slaves who worked on his numerous rice and indigo plantations, as well as at his Charleston home on Meeting Street. As a reminder that racism persists in many guises, even as it changes form, Page's installation links the slave past to the Jim Crow era and to the present. Provocatively, the attractive shapes of the bundles refer to decorative schemes extolled in magazines such as Southern Living or Martha Stewart Living. Displayed on platform risers painted in the color Lancaster Whitewash, the uniforms and furniture are propped up by whiteness in the literal and metaphorical senses.
To tie such activities to the slave past and the plantocracy, Page presents the bundles on elegant period furniture: a table from the Charleston Museum and four matching chairs from the Joseph Manigault House. These luxurious objects once belonged to the family of Charles Pinckney, a wealthy Lowcountry planter and signer of the United States Constitution. Pinckney owned hundreds of slaves who worked on his numerous rice and indigo plantations, as well as at his Charleston home on Meeting Street. As a reminder that racism persists in many guises, even as it changes form, Page's installation links the slave past to the Jim Crow era and to the present. Provocatively, the attractive shapes of the bundles refer to decorative schemes extolled in magazines such as Southern Living or Martha Stewart Living. Displayed on platform risers painted in the color Lancaster Whitewash, the uniforms and furniture are propped up by whiteness in the literal and metaphorical senses.
Exhibit Sections:
Introduction | Prop Allocations or Accents for Gracious Living | Famous Last Names | Sexually Ambiguous | Background Material | Welcome Home | Expressions of Affection | Recommended Resources
