Saving Space: When Placeholders Are Not Enough

Placeholder from October 10 to December 9, 2023 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by IsabellA Chilcoat

I spent ten days in Austria at the beginning of October. Worth it? Yes. Still facing the consequences for my coursework a month later? Also yes. But I’d do it again. In accordance with my art historian heart, I visited as many art museums in Vienna as I could squeeze into my packed travel itinerary. At every museum, I was the tourist b-lining to the gift shop for another over-priced, poorly constructed canvas tote bag (treasure) in the gift shop. Also worth it.

I returned to the U.S. (with a suitcase full of tote bags) just in time for the Stamp Gallery’s exhibition Placeholder – wishing I had a personal placeholder while I was away who could have done my make-up work for me. 

I define “placeholder” as a thing that stands in for something else, like a substitute or that blank line waiting for your signature on a piece of paper. 

This is similar to Danni O’Brien’s entanglement of wax gourds that represent a kind of humanoid organic matter within the technical and metallic hardware of their sculptures. Wax gourds act as a placeholder for human flesh or truly organic matter. We can also observe the idea of a placeholder at work in how James Williams II invokes the story of Frankenstein’s monster in God Don’t Like Ugly (2022) to draw parallels with aspects of the racialization and violence imposed on Black people throughout U.S. history without being so explicit in his imagery. Placeholders like these help us to explore familiar things in a new light, or they can remove certain barriers so that we might better understand or relate to a message. 

Rather than taking an artwork at surface value, recognize art as keeper of many truths, placeholder of its many beings.

While artworks may have placeholders within them to suggest issues or ideas, art can also be the placeholder for broader contextual moments in time or in the maker’s life. Artwork can be the placeholder for an artist’s own thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Or art can become a placeholder for the viewer’s own memory. As an object ages, it assumes a history of its own which renders the work a marker for associated moments and memories. When I look at the wrinkled museum bags in my closet, my memory awakens. When I strap one over my shoulder to leave the house, I imagine that the tote carries more than just my phone, wallet, keys, and chapstick.

Sometimes, however,  placeholders alone are insufficient. When an accepted narrative about people, politics, and the world around us is fabricated around partial truths pieced together to fit the most convenient conclusion for the time, a placeholder is not only insufficient, it is false. This begs the question, when does a placeholder become all we know about a particular topic? At what point in time does the completeness of an experience, event, or truth disappear? My tote bags are never going to capture the entirety of my Viennese experience, my encounter with Gustav Klimt’s sparkling Beethoven Frieze at Secession or the aroma of strudel from the cafe next to my hotel.

When we encounter placeholders, it is essential to examine and re-examine the material, to never neglect raising a critical consciousness. Accordingly, imagine what lies beyond the forms you might see represented on an artwork’s surface. Engage with the critical context that influenced the maker, and then yourself, the viewer. What did/does the artwork inspire? How many merging histories, thoughts, and emotions reside in one piece of visible history? Rather than taking an artwork at surface value, recognize art as keeper of many truths, placeholder of its many beings.

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Danni O’Brien and James Williams II’s works are included in Placeholder at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from October 10 to December 9, 2023.

For more information on Danni O’Brien, visit http://www.danielleobrienart.com/.

For more information on James Williams II, visit https://www.jameswilliamsii.com/.

For more information on Placeholder and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.