Hunter Museum of American Art

Years ago, an American studies professor posed this assignment to the class. She said we could only use one word to complete the statement. One proud fraternity member immediately filled it in with the name of his fraternity. One confident young woman chose the word leader. Student activists in various causes selected to identify themselves as such. A woman with a small child identified herself as a mother. Then the next day the teacher asked again and amazingly, we all had new answers, recognizing how difficult this simple statement was to complete.

I have returned to this assignment many times over the years and realized that it is an incredibly difficult task for us all. As Americans, we have many identity choices as well as many identities imposed upon us by cultural expectations. Our audience development committee, a board and community committee working on building new audiences, has also recognized the large role of identity in America today. This has long been an issue in this country and has been in the news even more since President Obama came into office. In recognition of this, the committee has developed an identity series, offering public programs on this topic throughout this year.

The first program, “Imaging Identity,” was hosted at the Hunter on March 5. During this program we looked at images by contemporary artists that expressed personal or collective identity. We looked at pairs of images, and the audience discussed who they thought this artist was, how the artist identified him or herself. The discussion became quite intense as audience members talked about how their view of the work of art was influenced heavily by their own sense of identity. And we discussed how all of these many identities join together to form this complex idea of American identity.

When looking at a contemporary installation featuring a barber’s chair, each participant had a different response. One participant reflected on the concept of a barbershop quartet, images of handlebar mustaches and small town America. She suggested that the artist may be reflecting that identity. Another talked about a gathering place that featured not only haircuts but also number runners, bootleg music and a place to catch up on the latest news from the street. Another participant saw Latin American heritage in the work, hearing the rhythms of a culture finding refuge in a shop that provided a sense of home in their new nation. Each participant saw a different America, reflecting his or her own sense of an American identity and projecting that upon the work of art.

We hope you will join us for some of the future programs in the Identity Series – all are free and open to the public. The next program, scheduled for May 7, will include film screenings and a discussion of film and gender in America. In the fall, we’ll do a program on family stories and how they influence identity and another on how music, particularly hip hop, reflects American culture today and the many cultural strains that influenced it. At each of these programs, we’ll start and end with the statement I began with here – “I am a _______.”

So, now I hope you will share your thoughts by filling in the blank: “I am a ______.”

Adera Causey Curator of Education