Tanya as a Bandit
Artwork FactoryAlmost life-size, the artist Cady Noland transfers a photo of a young woman onto an aluminum display by means of silkscreen. Holding a machine gun in her hands, the figure stands in our way. The photo comes from a newspaper, the caption becomes a pedestal.
In 1974 Patty Hearst, granddaughter of a media mogul, was kidnapped by the radical left-wing Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). After weeks in captivity, she showed solidarity with her captors, joined the SLA and changed her name to Tanya. When she fired a gun during a robbery, her story became a media sensation.
Discuss
Can media hype turn criminals into stars?
Is Tanya a victim or a perpetrator?
Cady Noland is occupied with the failure of the American dream. Consumerism, fascination with violence, exclusion and mass media exploitation are her themes.
"I am fascinated by crime and other very ‘dark’ things. Those are the things I think about, those are what I enjoy talking about with friends. These are also palliatives to me. I watch ‘Court TV’ which is actual trials, televised, all the time. I watch shows called ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ and ‘America’s Most Wanted’ (which are about criminals ‘on the loose’) too. These are modern Westerns. As happens in Westerns, you don’t always root for the good guys … "
Cady Noland
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Source
Get creative
Ponder this
How does a dream become a nightmare?
Think about it
Do you know of any other artists in the collection who deal with the darker side of American society?
Talk about it
Despite being such a successful artist herself, Cady became critical of the art market and decided in the 1990s not to produce any more works, not to exhibit, and not to give any interviews. Can you imagine what made her do that?
