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Joe Sances’s Or, The Whale: Picturing Capitalism in the Wake of Moby-Dick
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Description
In this talk, Berkeley graphic artist Jos Sances will share the story of creating his 51-foot scratchboard mural Or, The Whale (2018-19), a work of eco-politically urgent visual art inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Sances will discuss the ways his aesthetics, politics, and lived experience inform work, from his early familiarity with whaling as a Boston native to his 45-year career as printmaker, muralist, and social activist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Richmond resident and independent scholar, Jeffrey Peterson will highlight the mural’s local connections to the whaling industry and share digital strategies for annotating its intricately layered images.
Joe Sances
For over 45 years Joe Sances has made a living as a printmaker and muralist in the San Francisco Bay Area. While founding Alliance Graphics and co-founding Mission Gráfica at San Francisco’s Mission Cultural Center, he maintained a steady output of politically engaged art. The Library of Congress has acquired 495 serigraphs representing an overview of his decades of printmaking. Sances’s work has been exhibited in venues nationally, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Since 2019, Or, The Whale has been exhibited at the Richmond Art Center, The Bioneers Conference, and Sebastopol Center for the Arts, as well as at the Lawrence Arts Center in Lawrence, Kansas. Critical acclaim for Or, The Whale extends abroad, and coverage in the Italian press (“Nel Ventre Della Balena USA” by Enrico Diaglio, Il Venerdi di Repubblica) recently prompted an exhibition inquiry from the Officine Grandi Riparazioni in Torino. For more information, please visit: https://www.josart.net/
Sances says of his work:
For 8 months I joyfully and manically was able to focus on this very large scratchboard drawing. Inspired by Moby Dick and the history of whaling in America. The whale's skin is embedded with a history of capitalism in America, images of human and environmental exploitation and destruction since 1850. The whale is a metaphor for survival, immortality and a reason for optimism
Jeffrey Peterson
An independent scholar who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jeffrey Peterson holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and currently teaches at The College Preparatory School in Oakland. Peterson participated in the 2021 NEH Melville Institute, where, in collaboration with Mary Erica Zimmer, he introduced Jos Sances and Or, The Whale to the members of Melville Society Cultural Project and a diverse crew of U.S. high school educators who teach Moby-Dick.
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