Media Contact: Elizabeth Burke-Dain, 312.344.8695; eburk-dain@colum.edu
Note: Images are available electronically; interviews are available upon request.
Chicago, IL (October 26, 2007) -- Sue Coe will speak about her work as an artist and social activist as part of Anchor Graphics’ Scraping the Surface lecture series. The free lecture, “The Elephant We Should Never Forget,” takes place on Thursday, November 29 at 6:00 p.m. at Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor. A discussion with the artist will follow. More information at 312.344.6864.
Sue Coe has long used printmaking as a means of political consciousness raising. She deliberately keeps her print prices low in order to reach the broadest possible audience. Sales proceeds from certain print editions are earmarked for causes in which Coe believes.
The elephant that Coe, one of the most important politically oriented artists living today, references in the title of her lecture, “The Elephant We Should Never Forget,” is from her 2007 pencil on paper work, Thomas Edison Kills Topsy the Elephant to Promote the Electric Chair. To reinforce the 1903 execution at Coney Island, Topsy was tied down and fed carrots laced with 460 grains of potassium cyanide before the deadly current from a 6,600-volt AC source was sent coursing through her body. She was dead in seconds. The event was witnessed by an estimated 1,500 people and Edison's film of the event was seen by audiences throughout the United States.
“If we can accept that some lives are more valuable and important than others,” says Coe, “then we can be easily manipulated by corporations into killing total strangers in wars, and slaughtering billions of other animals for no logical reason other than profit and power for a tiny minority.”
During her 4-day stay at Columbia College, Coe will lecture and spend time with a group of young women whose lives have been impacted by the sex trade. In a collaboration between the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, Columbia College’s Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media and Anchor Graphics, Coe will facilitate the making of a series of prints based on the young women’s experiences. This arts project is also part of an ongoing Columbia College initiative entitled, Critical Encounters. This year’s Critical Encounters focus is "Poverty and Privilege" and the questioning of complex myths and realities that arise out of our cultural and social beliefs about those who have and those who have not.
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