CANON
The Great Books of western civilization have been said to be the foundation of all that is noble in this culture, the wellsprings of art, ethics and law. But reverence for this canon of sanctioned works is countered by their condemnation as tools of exclusion perpetuating racist, sexist, exploitative social systems.
This series of pictures resulted from my participation in a great books reading/discussion group in the University of Chicago's Basic Program. My involvement with these works was an attempt to directly address that struggle between admiration and contempt. My failure to resolve the conflict took ten years and was a remarkably rewarding experience.
The scenes in the pictures are acted out by paper dolls, figures clipped from magazines, mounted on cardboard and propped up in new settings.