Wise Like That
Whitfield Lovell American
Beginning in the mid-1990s Lovell constructed a number of tableaus—individual wall hangings, like this one, as well as entire room installations— that combined portrait drawings on wooden boards with assorted found objects that were hung or assembled nearby. Basing the portraits on late nineteenth to early twentieth-century studio photographs collected at flea markets and found in photographic archives, he conveys the dignity of ordinary people dressed in their Sunday best. By adding objects that symbolize their personal belongings, occupations, or living conditions, the artist invents a story about their daily lives and retrieves them from anonymity. Like the objects, Lovell's titles add another layer of meaning, but remain ambiguous. Here the title is appropriated from an old Southern blues song that repeats the refrain "Wise like that, wise like that I mean / And everyday has brought me somthin' I ain't never seen."
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