“The term ‘imagetext’ designates composite, synthetic works (or concepts) that combine image and text.”
W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory, 1994.
imagetext is an educational exhibition exploring the ways in which text and image have been used alongside or in place of each other throughout time and across cultures. These intertwined relationships transform the way we read and see art while still providing space for individual interpretations. Our goal is to highlight the prevalence and evolution of text and image by exploring examples from the wide assortment of images housed in the Five College Collections Database.
This exhibition was initially inspired by Adrian Piper’s Ur Mutter #2 (1989) from the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. We were particularly interested in the way in which Piper introduces the confrontational statement “We made you” at the bottom of the manipulated photograph. This adds new levels of meaning and further complicates the photographic image of a Somali mother and child.
Through the four galleries of imagetext, the relationships between image and text are explored and illuminated through a variety of works, of which Piper is just one example. The first gallery is image as text. This gallery explores how images have been used to represent text. The second gallery, text as image, looks at how text has been used to create the image itself. The third gallery, text and image, looks at how image and text have been combined and how combining them changes your understanding of each. The final gallery is about the circulation of the image, how the image travels through print media, and how that makes the viewer perceive it differently. We encourage you to examine and explore the relationships through these four galleries.
Curated by:
James Kelleher, Emma Kennedy, Caitlin Link, Emma McNay, Pauline Miller, Sophie Morris, Emma Vale
