May 2020 marks one year since the first-ever Veteran Art Summit & Triennial. Many artists in the emerging Veteran Art Movement network were featured in the Triennial exhibitions (which ran from May through July 2019) and attended the Summit (May 3rd through 5th, 2019). Throughout summer 2020, as a way to acknowledge this historic event and celebrate its success, the emerging Veteran Art Movement will be republishing essays from the National Veterans Art Museum Triennial & Veteran Art Summit Resource Guide.
The first essay being republished is Aaron Hughes’s “Veteran Art Summit Overview,” which gives a recap of the events of the 2019 Summit. It is impressive and inspiring to look back on all that happened in such a short period of time.
VETERAN ART SUMMIT OVERVIEW
By Aaron Hughes, May 2019
Joseph Lefthand performing Things are Certainly Beautiful to Behold, but to Be Them is Something Quite Different, from Procession: Return to the Body, May 3, 2019
The Veteran Art Summit, held May 3–5, 2019, brought together over fifty veteran artists from across the United States, with the intention of strengthening the veteran art community. It offered opportunities for veteran artists to learn from their peers, collaborate, network, and explore what it means to be an artist and a veteran today.
U.S. Congressional Representative Chuy Garcia with the NEH Curatorial Fellows welcoming veteran artists to the NVAM Triennial & Veteran Art Summit. May 3, 2019
The Summit, which marked the opening of the 2019 NVAM Triennial, began with a welcome event and press conference. Speakers included U.S. Congressional Representative Chuy Garcia; Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs Director Linda Chapa LaVia; NVAM Executive Director Brendan Foster; DePaul Art Museum Director Julie Rodrigues Widholm; and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) NVAM Curatorial Fellows, Carlos Sirah, Yvette Pino, Amber Hoy, Kevin Basl, Edgar Gonzalez-Baeza, and myself as NVAM Art Committee Chair. The welcome event was followed by presentations from creative veteran art projects from across the country, including Warrior Writers; War, Literature & The Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities; Veteran Print Project; Veteran Book Project; Combat Paper; United States Veteran Artists’ Alliance; CreatiVets; De-Cruit; and the emerging Veteran Art Movement.
Nicole Goodwin performing in Procession: Return to the Body, May 3, 2019.
Immediately following the welcome event, the Summit became an engaging, participatory space with the opening of Return to the Body, the Triennial’s performance element. The opening featured a performative landscape procession in three parts, including work by veteran artist performers Joseph Lefthand, Nicole Goodwin, and Kiam Marcelo Junio. The performance element of the Triennial, which included several other Summit events, is described by NEH Curatorial Fellow Carlos Sirah as follows: “the performers in [Return to the Body] negotiate relational strategies of de-weaponizing and repurposing the body, queering the veteran experience, and performative challenges to erasure, posing questions about our collective orientations.” In the Performance Lab hosted by Sirah, the Return to the Body performers presented and discussed their work. The Lab also included an excerpted performance from dancer and choreographer Willyum LaBeija (from the Legendary House of LaBeija), who further developed his work I Don’t Consent during the NVAM Performance Lab Residency, a partnership with the Chicago Cultural Center. A keynote performance the night of the exhibition openings at the Chicago Cultural Center included This is Not a Drill, a work-in-progress by Jefferson Pinder, and AMAL by the Combat Hippies. In This is Not a Drill, Pinder [from his performance description]: “trains a team of performers to venture into the deep south during Summer 2019.” Taking inspiration from Goat Island’s How dear to me the hour when daylight dies, Pindar’s performance “aggressively prepares black bodies for stylized militancy in the face of history and white nationalism.” The Combat Hippies’ AMAL explores the search for meaning, purpose, and identity found through enlisting in the military, with a focus on Puerto Rico’s cultural and military heritage. At the Summit, the Combat Hippies presented several excerpts from the full length version of AMAL, which they’re performing throughout the U.S. in 2019.
Performance Program cohort at the Performance Lab, May 4, 2019
NEH Dialogues on the Experience of War discussion hosted by NEH Curatorial Fellow Kevin Basl, May 3, 2019
NEH Dialogues on the Experience of War discussion hosted by NEH Curatorial Fellow Yvette Pino, May 4, 2019
Throughout the Summit, the NEH NVAM Curatorial Fellows hosted a series of Dialogues on the Experience of War, which examined their respective curatorial visions in relation to the past century of veteran creative practices, from visual art to performance to literature. These dialogues were open to the public. Additionally, two Open Platform sessions (featuring a series of 15-minute presentations) gave veteran artists and community members an opportunity to share and learn about the wide range of art practices and projects happening within the emerging veteran art community.
Jacob Thomas presenting during Open Platform session, May 3, 2019
A series of three panel discussions included Arts & Military: Arts Moves Policy, hosted by Art Alliance Illinois, and Open/Closed, hosted by NEH NVAM Curatorial Fellow Amber Hoy. The third, the keynote panel Survival and Making Meaning, hosted by NEH NVAM Curatorial Fellow Kevin Basl, featured special guests Roy Scranton and Iraqi American artist Wafaa Bilal. Panelists read from their work and discussed why making art in a time of endless war, climate change and global crisis is vital.
Roy Scranton, Kevin Basl, & Wafaa Bilal during Survival and Making Meaning keynote panel, May 3, 2019
Throughout the Summit, several galleries featured publicly-engaged art projects. In Piece of Lead, veteran artist Ehren Tool invited the Chicago community to make ceramic cups, exchange stories, and remember those who have been affected by gun violence. In Conflict Exchange, Wafaa Bilal, along with veteran artists Alicia Dietz and Drew Cameron, invited visitors to contribute to the rebuilding of the fine art library in the post-conflict University of Baghdad, by helping deconstruct military uniforms for papermaking or by purchasing Combat Paper crafted by Cameron. (Conflict Exchange engagements continued throughout the duration of the Triennial.
Ehren Tool making cups for guests (Nathan Lewis and Juan Spinnato) in the Piece of Lead installation, May 4, 2019
As part of the Triennial’s literature component, Warrior Writers hosted an open mic (which featured 12 veteran poets) at NVAM during the opening of Open/Closed. The following morning, Warrior Writers hosted Anatomy of a War Poem, a workshop led by Kevin Basl and Lovella Calica (founder and director of Warrior Writers), which gave participants the opportunity to write and share new work based on readings and group discussion.
Combat Hippies performing during open mic hosted by Warrior Writers, May 3, 2019
Lovella Calica & Sylvia Bowersox embrace during the open mic hosted by Warrior Writers, May 3, 2019
On the final day of the Summit, Eric J. Garcia presented a gallery talk on The Bald Eagle’s Toupee, an exhibition highlighting his interdisciplinary practice. Garcia’s work utilizes political satire to critique social and political issues, confronting corrupt politicians, gentrification, violence, racism, and other social injustices. The Bald Eagle’s Toupee features a site-specific mural, projected animations, Garcia’s War Nest (2016) installation, and a trailer for a forthcoming video game (produced in collaboration with Plug In Studio) which follows a veteran returning home and reacclimating to civilian life.
The Summit closed with a “Veteran Story Circle” based on the work of John O’Neil, founder of Free Southern Theater. Participants sat in a circle, each taking a turn describing experiences and themes from the summit. Participants — most of whom were veteran artists — reflected on how the featured artists’ experiences and practices have opened new possibilities for further veteran art discourse and practices. Many described how the Summit inspired them to rethink and push their own work.