Based on her lecture at UC Santa Cruz's Media Theatre, Diane Covert’s "art" questions the notion of what constitutes art versus what constitutes social activism or propaganda. The main question I’m asking myself is how is this considered art? It seems to be more deeply rooted in social activism and using art as a medium to give a larger opinion that the art doesn’t necessarily possess.
One of the factors that drove Covert to create the exhibit, I paraphrase, was a desire to switch the focus away from the terrorists—who she feels get too much media attention—to the victims of their attacks, including survivors. All of the images are from two hospitals in Jerusalem. I discovered from the X-Ray Project
website that
The David Project Center for Jewish Leadership sponsors her art for this project and its stated aim is "to educate and inspire strong voices for Israel through dynamic educational seminars, workshops, and curricula."
So the conceptual/social-political approach to the look at art is already defined. Her stance is a strict moral stance unlike the other artists we’ve seen. The lack of interpretation left open in the art questions what we are looking at, beyond what we can see with a strict intention and the eye of another person who wants us to see a specific viewpoint. Beyond the X-ray, is there anything left open for interpretation?
I believe the formal approach to looking at this as art is clear.
The images are a form of photography. Photography uses visible light spectrum, but electro-magnetic radiation - X-rays and CT scans – we can see inside the human body. Formally, we see shrapnel juxtaposed in a body. We see the manipulation of CT Scans to form a human body and a selected process of which scans to use.
I looked in the past to figure out what other galleries this work shows in, it showed at the Fairchild Auditorium in Stanford, which is a facility that shows biomedical research and is less involved with art galleries. There is very little record of any other art or photography projects she’s worked on. She seems to not be a practicing artist. Why is she calling herself an artist versus an activist now?
I can’t find any record of additional history of hers. The biography says that Covert has been a documentary photographer since the 1970's. She worked for the White House during the Ford and Carter presidencies, taking portraits of the presidents in the Midwest.
I would infer based on her sponsorship, focus on hospitals in Jeruselum, focus on a prominent quote from what people are saying section on her website “it might even move those who in the past, have been reluctant to condemn terrorist attacks that have targeted Israelis” from a medical doctor at Harvard that she sympathizes with Israel.
She mentioned many artists including Picasso’s Guernica (1937) to give an example of art that influences opinion from the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians.
Guernica depicts suffering people, animals, and buildings wrenched by violence and chaos
The shape and posture of the bodies express protest.
Picasso uses black, white, and grey paint to set a somber mood and express pain and chaos.
Flaming buildings and crumbling walls not only express the destruction of Guernica, but reflect the destructive power of civil war.
The newspaper print used in the painting reflects how Picasso learned of the massacre.
The light bulb in the painting represents the sun.
The broken sword near the bottom of the painting symbolizes the defeat of the people at the hand of their tormentors.
Picasso doesn’t give a rigid meaning to Guernica, whereas Covert does to the X-Ray Project. The explanation of the artist poses insight to the function of art versus propaganda.
"...this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse... If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are." - Picasso