SON OF A BITCH - BAILEY ANDERSON MFA THESIS TALK

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SON OF A BITCH is an exhibition that evaluates the chaos of masculinity in the red setting sun of martyrdom. This exhibition is the prop room of a spaghetti western that will never unfold in the graveyard of a fabricated frontier and the collapse of traditional masculinity.

The show is about anxiety about war in our collective future. For the sake of this talk, I'm going to place a note of importance on how important it is to research men as fully gendered beings to understand the way they navigate society.

The first piece that I wanted to start with today is made of recast brass, mixed caliber shell casings. The weight of these doors is equivalent to about 23,627 rounds of ammunition. This piece was the first of many in this exhibition that borrowed the aesthetics of spaghetti westerns.

The Saloon Doors are inspired by The Gates of Paradise, by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1425 and finished in 1452, taking almost 30 years to complete. This was not the only bronze church door in Europe, but it was one of the most prolific. I interpret the symbol of the saloon doors as a symbol of the beginning or ending of a hero’s journey. Often, the person entering or exiting these doors entered a symbolic space of purgatory, entering a showdown between life and death.

SON OF A BITCH, was heavily influenced by this imagery used in Spaghetti Westerns, as well as the imagery of the Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. The Spaghetti Western was a genre of film from the 1950s-70s and more importantly, a means of protest and art-making for men after World War Two in Italy and Spain. Both groups were navigating fascism and facing extreme censorship in their respective countries, as well as the dejection tied to masculinity. After losing the war, they borrowed American imagery to shape their allegorical approach.

The directors of these films often used American aesthetics and imagery to talk about the trauma that they faced while subverting the gaze of their respective governments. This included the silent cowboy, symbolized by his extremely limited script, insinuating his inability to speak freely. Leone describes one of his cowboys, Jack Slade, as, “a sadist? a madman? not at all. A man just like any other, who was dominated by fear… the ear signified, for all to see, ‘careful, leave me alone, I am dangerous.”

This became challenging when the spaghetti western genre rose to popularity in the United States. These films not being based in fact, were much more likely to misrepresent the experiences of people who lived in the West, the lives and perspectives of indigenous people and people of color, as well as the attitudes towards our country's history with colonialism and early wars.

This subgenre resonated with a lot of American men at the time, when the male body was transitioning from a site of production to a site of consumption. Cars, Nice suits, and watches were symbols of masculinity rather than the rugged harshness of the fabricated cowboy. Men were transitioning into white-collar workspaces and yearned to get away from the constraints of capitalist power dynamics at work, and at home. Thus, the Marlboro Man-Cowboy was extremely popular with men aching to get away from corporate lifestyles. In the same breath, one cannot renounce capitalism during the fifties through the seventies as it would earn them the label of a communist during the height of the Red Scare. Being associated with communism during these decades was also seen as effeminate.

Before the printing press and the widespread reading education. Stained glass was used to teach religion to the illiterate. I used imagery from Christian churches to acknowledge the history of Christianity in America, as well as the justifications that it posed for things like the Manifest Destiny. And later on, the ways that had shaped politics and the direction of foreign policy. Most specifically in the 1970s, with the rise of fundamentalist Christianity and evangelical Christianity.

People of those decades were being posed with uncomfortable moments in gender politics, where men were fighting for traditionalism after topics like the Equal Rights Amendment, the right to vote, women entering the workforce, as well as contraception.

there is a tradition in her family. When she was eight, she fired a weapon for the first time. her grandpa handed her a 22 caliber and told her to level my level the gun and fire. Once she had gotten comfortable with the weapon, they handed her a 12 gauge shotgun, which is a considerable difference in power, especially for an eight-year-old. The ritual’s completed when the small child, historically boys, gets thrown to the ground by the surprising power of the weapon.

Through ritual, she joins them. She is like the men, fathers, and grandfathers. They tower over her as she stirs from the hard, pale earth. They laugh with a pride so great that it was not them who fell for this trick. But the new inductee to the Anderson line of Masculine Men. She is robbed of her naivete that that horrid phallic thing threw her to the ground. She is now one of them, absorbed by the camaraderie, tied together by the tricks of their fathers and grandfathers through being flattened by that 12 gauge.

This next piece was inspired by the following text that I will be reading from the introductory materials for SON OF A BITCH placed in the Donna Beam, which essentially questions What does the world look like after everything has been conquered?

The sun at its meridian with its wrath so blinding that it leaves your ears ringing. He's an extension of God and the devil’s shared intent. He was there when they conspired. After all the conquering has been done, in his tracks lie a wasteland of humanity, whistling to the wolves with the scraps that followed behind. And if he ever dies, his body will be swallowed by white sand. The moon watching at its zenith and unrelenting silence,

The imagery that you see on the mine detonator is a replica of a piece of nose art that was painted on one of the planes during the Korean War. The specific plane was called Ace in the Hole, but its nickname was also Bernie's Little Boy, and that was flown by Sergeant RL Stephens. The exact plane information is listed next to the image.

Surrounding the mine detonator is a mixture of steel dust from the fabrication of the show, and ash sand, a byproduct of the foundry process, specifically the Saloon Doors. When the metal hits the sand at 1700 Degrees, it destroys all of the binding properties holding the sand together, leaving only ash.

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge, war endures. as well ask men What they think of stone. War was always here. Before Man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.

Hitler rose to power through his community. He utilized antisemitism, transphobia, homophobia and misogyny to build a platform for the downtrodden and white men in Austria and Germany. Struggling with homelessness and rejection from art school, he leveraged his position in the in-crowd of emasculated men (post WW1) to come together and enact their widespread reign of terror.

He weaponized their societal rejection and targeted his perceived adversaries because of a culture of hate intertwined throughout their society. Mira Schor argues that there's a difference between phallic and penile. Phallic is something that we can attribute to large intimidating, and erect. penile is a descriptor of genitalia. This piece is an accumulation of 57 pieces all individually cast aluminum and matched with a hand-carved wooden handle. This redundant dick joke serves as a reminder of the gathering of disgruntled men in the name of violence and more importantly, retribution.

As we see extremist revitalization of hate groups and the continued support of existing hate groups. These weapons serve as a reminder of their shared emasculation, perceived wrongdoings of various minority groups, and consequences of unchecked violent masculinity.

Mira Schor also begs the question of phallic yonic representation. Does it even exist? Inspired by discussions I witnessed by contemporary men attributing women as components of their fantasy, I wanted to set a trap through the esthetics of the wily coyote and the Roadrunner and set in the American West.

The era of spaghetti Western fans, specifically the men from the 20th century, yearn for a time of violence and the domination of a once pure land, unadulterated by any other nation. They were free to rape the land and take without consent. The genocide manifested in the context of beautiful American romanticism painting throughout the 1800s and repatriated the esthetic in the 20th century.

in American romanticism painting, the purpose of this was to spread the manifest destiny and try to pull people out West to help develop, quote unquote, this land for this nation. This scene is unlike the amarican romanticism painters, featuring a scene that resembles the view from cliff. This portal becomes an invitation to those yearning to move out west, ensuring a chaotic plummeting into the freedom of the West, I promise.

It was important to me to make this the largest piece in the entire exhibition, the one that demanded the most space, especially in the context of the body, especially the viewer's body being dominated not only in color, but also in size and height and weight. This painting became an homage to the book titled Blood Meridian, which I cited earlier by Cormac McCarthy.

He discusses the title of the book relating Meridian as the Pinnacle, Crescendo or Peak of Development, insinuating that any violence before or after the 1850s pales in comparison. This book was set in the middle of the Mexican-American war, based on the violence of the Glanton Gang, a terrorist group murdering indigenous people for money. McCarthy’s tale is based in truth, and mostly historically accurate.

The inspiration of the title of this exhibition, SON OF A BITCH, comes from this book. Often the morally evil characters were described as sons of bitches, negating the autonomy of their own wrongdoings, placing the blame on the immorality of the mother. Those that came before the evil doers were expected to carry the blame.

Mutually assured destruction was one of the final handshakes of the Cold War. Two powerhouse nations resigned, committed to decades of barking through proxy wars and wars on ideologies. Neither side actually wanted to bite. Both sides are absorbed by fear of the other. And the facade of pride was used to ensure the boldness of one's own masculinity and affiliated nation.

Who is allowed to enter the sacred agreement? It was rumored that in 1985 there was a discussion between President Ronald Reagan (US) and President Gorbachev (USSR). In the gardens of the White House during the Geneva Convention as they were trying to reach a resolution about the tensions between their respective nations. Ronald Reagan had turned to Gorbachev and asked if Gorbachev would help in the event of an alien invasion. Gorbachev agreed and said that he would put their differences aside to make sure that they could fight together against aliens

During the iran Contra hearings in 1987. Oliver North, an aide for the National Security Council during Reagan's administration, said if the commander in chief tells his lieutenant colonel to go stand in the corner and sit on his head, I will do so.

Here is what actually happens when you press the big, red button.

THE NUKE

A tale told fireside in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian describes a relationship between a man and his son. The story includes a father who is murdered on his travels . And he never as a result, he never meets his son. The man telling the tale as death and war personified, The judge, explains the effect of an absent father.

Now this son whose father's existence in this world is speculative before the son has entered it in a bad way. All his life carries before him an idol of perfection he can never attain. The father's death has euchred the son out of his patrimony. He will not see him struggling in the follies of his own devising. Now the world which he inherits bears some false witness. He is before a frozen God and he will never find his way.

The future of masculinity sits at an uncomfortable angle, suspended in the middle of development and a stubborn yearning for when white men were perceived as leaders in American society and didn't have to work at it. Arthur Miller views the characters of his Western not as ideals, but as semi-lost souls, trying to carve out an identity for themselves in an inconsistent and contradictory world, resulting in disappointment and disillusionment as inevitable consequences.

White men are coming from a history where, “violence has been recognized as one of the single most evident markers of manhood and therefore serves to allay any fears of insecurities that may arise”, Reminiscent of the senseless hyper-violence of the Spaghetti Western performed only to ward off the threat of the other.

There's contemporary conservative language, in this example is a quote from Josh Hawley, current senator for Missouri, in his book titled Manhood. This was published after he was caught on tape running from the insurrection on January 6th. There is cultural anxiety that “the left tells us the warrior character traits are symptoms of traditional masculinity, which calls a form of false consciousness from which men need to be liberated. They say men must be reeducated to abandon the competition and their instinct to be tough”.

Discussion of masculinity from the 20th century also acknowledges that “this traditional masculinity is as fruitless and exhausting as chasing wild mustangs in the desert for a few dollars. Like the poor beasts, men can't help but be corralled and trapped by the forces around them”.

Within the past 70 years, masculinity has simultaneously navigated liberation, reformation, chaos and demolition. It lacks an effective model. Palahniuk's main character from Fight Club describes his favorite part from his support group as “being held and crying with Big Bob without hope. We all work so hard all the time. This is the only place I ever really relax and give up”.

Evaluating the imagery of the West exposes an unattainable ideology for masculinity only being upheld by governments and institutions so large that it is impossible to see the point. American nationalism and economics rely on men never being enough. The cowboy became a symbol of American white masculinity and stepped into the shoes of the distant father as the nation developed leading men to decipher masculinity without its flaws. By moving the goalposts of masculinity, it enables the constant need for development. Built in a system of cyclical violence, consumerism and gender tension, the identity of a man is expected to be constantly under construction.

And I'm going to close out with a reading of an excerpt from my thesis in the forward section:

In a silent war, another martyr dies facedown in a pool. The black water laps on the side of the shallow end, caressing the form that used to wrangle for ownership of her own body. His victim wife lay face down in the water strewn on the side of the pool. There will be no dust when they remove her body. No pebbles or leaves pressed into cold skin. Only the ring of water on the concrete, left by her clothes that will disappear in just a few moments.

Its form emerges from the water as an enormous phallus, growing larger and more improbable every year. She considers how much more time she has until she is strangled by the enormous, gargantuan shadow of legacy on the brink of permanence. Fate mimics the lapping water in the shallow end and the disappearing lake. Her body falls through space and lands on pale earth.

The lake is drying and the monsoon approaches. It's an odd thing to arrive at the definition of American freedom being described by parameters that have a co-morbidity with the suffering of others. The blue water laps on the red clay shore of the lake. Tales of Lone Rock at Lake Powell where dad broke his nose, waterskiing. She was always secretly afraid of the plants in the water and the sticks and reeds poking out from the clay.

As the lake recedes in the pale rock is exposed more without remorse. Every year, more foliage emerges from the water. The shrubbery becomes a tumbleweed. the shore of the lake echoes the previous water line, fractions of inches of where it was the night before. Those fractions of inches don't return.

And I'm going to list off a bunch of thank you’s.

First off, I wanted to say thank you. Of course, the incredible, amazing Iulia Filipov-Serediuc. It would not have been possible without your help. She was there every single step of the way and helped me make every single piece in the show. So for that, thank you.

I also want to thank Leilu Hart, Haide Calle, Kayla Lockwood, Katie B Funk and Brian Anderson. Additionally, I want to thank my incredible committee that deeply shaped my experience here at this university, and I am extremely grateful to have been mentored by each and every one of you. And that is Caralea Cole, Dave Rowe, Kaylee Farley and Dr. Lynn Comella.

And last but not least, I definitely want to thank Wendy Kveck and Sean Slattery. I would have never been at this University if I had not experienced their teaching before starting the program. I want to especially thank Wendy for the profound impact she has had on my research as a feminist and advocate for her community.

But if you'd like to view more images of this, you can look on my website. I've got a complete gallery there if you'd like to see more. Also, feel free to check out some other projects that we've got going on.

Iulia and I recently cofounded a nonprofit, the Arts Community Coalition of Nevada. You can find us at accnv.org and that is a501C3 for the longevity of the arts in Nevada. You can also find Iulia and I’s work on our shared collective page, My boyfriend's out of town. and if you'd like to see my work next, I will be showing at the city of Las Vegas Windows on First. That product is titled Neon Lake and the reception will be on April 24th, 5 to 7 p.m..

bandy.studio Accnv.org