Isaac Stoltzfus: Images about Sexuality and Culture

In this study I examine various discourses on human sexuality. I also examine visual art works in order to form an understanding of art that addresses sexual identity. The research is used to inform and expand my own art work in general, and specifically, to help conceptualize and create art works based on a fictional, homosexually-oriented Amish man. As part of that process, I identify specific art works by Matthew Barney, Paul Cadmus, Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, Atilla Richard Lukacs, and Charles Ray that explore sexuality. I also identify and explore specific discourses in philosophy, psychology, medical science, women's studies, and gay and lesbian studies about sexuality that I relate to the work of these artists. Finally, I demonstrate how the artists and discourses influenced the creation of Isaac Stoltzfus, the homosexually oriented Amish man, and document the exhibit about him. The exhibit was presented at the Rosenberg Gallery, New York University, from January 3, 1999 to January 24, 1999. Questionnaire and postcard forms were used to obtain viewer's reactions to the exhibit as part of the study. The subject of the questionnaire was the exhibition about Isaac Stoltzfus, not the viewer of that exhibit. Persons under the age of eighteen were not permitted to complete the questionnaire. The postcard was created because it gave viewers the opportunity to respond to the exhibition on a more personal level since they could communicate their specific reactions to the art work in the exhibit. I used the results of the questionnaire and the postcards in two ways. First, to explore the relationship of the artist as creator to the viewer as receiver of the art work. Second, to explore my hypothesis that the dominant binary conceptualization of human sexuality in our culture is limiting and inadequate. The questionnaire yielded some surprises, but generally supported that hypothesis. The postcards from viewers, however, yielded many surprises and their observations helped me to discover some of my own abstruse motivations in creating the fictional character Isaac Stoltzfus and the exhibit about him. As I considered the nature of viewer's written, responses to the exhibit, I proposed a model of communication through visual images that is based upon Ferdinand de Saussure's model of spoken language, page 12 in Course in General Linguistics (1966).1 The model allowed me to conceive of the possibility that visual communication between artist and viewer could be structured so that it more closely resembles spoken language. That vision helped me to frame directions for future art production that are more interactive and include possible hybrids of electronic (virtual) space and (actual) physical space, as well as continuous feedback loops in which the distinction between viewer and artist may be lost entirely. Most importantly, as I reflected upon the art produced about this fictitious, gay, Amish man, the related discourses and art works, and the viewer's responses to the exhibit about it, I made a series of observations about human sexual identity. The observations helped me to redirect the current faulty dichotomous view toward a more open conceptualization that includes related philosophical, spiritual, moral, psychological, and physical aspects. 1Saussure, Ferdinand. Notes for a Course in General Linguistics. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 1966.