This Independence Day weekend, we'll be drowning in a sea of stars and stripes. Fireworks will burst in air. And despite the fact that the free are being thrown into vans by masked operatives while the "brave" have no comment, on Saturday morning a lot of flags will, in fact, still be there — even if the ideals they represent are tattered and frayed. "It often rhymes," a new and powerful exhibition at the Current in Stowe, explores our relationship to national symbols, protest, history and democracy. The title riffs on a quote attributed to Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does often rhyme." Those rhymes — echoes of other inflection points or long-standing injustices — stand out and inform the present moment by reminding us what the past felt like. Dona Ann McAdams' black-and-white photographs give us history in granular detail. The photographer, who now lives in Sandgate, is best known for her images of protests and actions from the 1980s and '90s. "Day of Desperation, Act Up, Grand Central Terminal, January 23, 1991," the oldest of the five works presented here, pictures slightly blurry, hastily photographed protesters hanging a banner across a Metro-North departures board; the trains' precise schedules mirror the banner's message: "One AIDS Death Every 8 Minutes." Another image — of Black Lives Matter protesters, some of them masked, from July 1, 2020 — reminds us of a more recent moment when public health and personal identity were similarly entwined, both subject to official inaction and indifference. Protest continues in "Public Address," an installation of signs by Ellen Rothenberg. In red and black block lettering, the Chicago-based artist quotes excerpts from photo captions in a 1914 British anti-suffrage publication. With phrases such as "Rather Emotional,""Dishevelled After Fighting" and "Screaming With Impotent Rage," the placards describe women before, during and after their arrests for confrontations with police. Hank Willis Thomas and Emily Shur, in collaboration with Eric Gottesman and Wyatt Gallery — all members of the artist-led organization For Freedoms — bridge a similar historical gap with a more optimistic vision. Four 52.5-by-42-inch color photographs re-create Norman Rockwell's iconic 1943 "Four Freedoms" paintings, which are based on values Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined in his 1941 State of the Union address: freedom of speech, freedom from fear, freedom from want and freedom of worship. While the photographs stick closely to Rockwell's compositions…
This Independence Day weekend, we'll be drowning in a sea of stars and stripes. Fireworks will burst in air. And despite the fact that the free are being thrown into vans by masked operatives while the "brave" have no comment, on Saturday morning a lot of flags will, in fact, still be there — even if the ideals they represent are tattered and frayed. "It often rhymes," a new and powerful exhibition at the Current in Stowe, explores our relationship to national symbols, protest, history and democracy. The title riffs on a quote attributed to Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does often rhyme." Those rhymes — echoes of other inflection points or long-standing injustices — stand out and inform the present moment by reminding us what the past felt like. Dona Ann McAdams' black-and-white photographs give us history in granular detail. The photographer, who now lives in Sandgate, is best known for her images of protests and actions from the 1980s and '90s. "Day of Desperation, Act Up, Grand Central Terminal, January 23, 1991," the oldest of the five works presented here, pictures slightly blurry, hastily photographed protesters hanging a banner across a Metro-North departures board; the trains' precise schedules mirror the banner's message: "One AIDS Death Every 8 Minutes." Another image — of Black Lives Matter protesters, some of them masked, from July 1, 2020 — reminds us of a more recent moment when public health and personal identity were similarly entwined, both subject to official inaction and indifference. Protest continues in "Public Address," an installation of signs by Ellen Rothenberg. In red and black block lettering, the Chicago-based artist quotes excerpts from photo captions in a 1914 British anti-suffrage publication. With phrases such as "Rather Emotional,""Dishevelled After Fighting" and "Screaming With Impotent Rage," the placards describe women before, during and after their arrests for confrontations with police. Hank Willis Thomas and Emily Shur, in collaboration with Eric Gottesman and Wyatt Gallery — all members of the artist-led organization For Freedoms — bridge a similar historical gap with a more optimistic vision. Four 52.5-by-42-inch color photographs re-create Norman Rockwell's iconic 1943 "Four Freedoms" paintings, which are based on values Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined in his 1941 State of the Union address: freedom of speech, freedom from fear, freedom from want and freedom of worship. While the photographs stick closely to Rockwell's compositions…
