Reviews and Press — Nancy VanDevender

Haverford Graffiti, VanDevender Wallpaper « SEX DRIVE 6/28/15 12:49 PM

Haverford Graffiti, VanDevender Wallpaper

Essays, Projects by John Muse

On November 9th Sex Drive artist Nancy VanDevender asked Haverford students Ellen Freeman ’11 and Patrick Phelan ’11 to “gather some images: notes, scribbles, handwriting, personal ads, drawings, hand-drawn bathroom notes, sex graffiti, any hand-drawn or written words, etc.”

VanDevender was to create—and did create—a large wallpaper design for inclusion in the show, and she wanted local materials and inspiration. So they gathered and uploaded Haverford graffiti. Lots of it. Photographer Lisa Boughter, following Ellen and Patrick’s lead, rephotographed their selections, focusing on what could be found in Magill Library and Stokes and establishing the wider context, the larger views and broader swaths.

Boughter writes, “I wanted to show this material under similar lighting conditions and as close to the point of view of one who would produce or encounter it as possible—to preserve its clandestine nature.”

Lisa Boughter

snooki want smush smush

VanDevender’s wallpaper design incorporates Haverford
graffiti, weaving it among the portraits of celebrities and tiled scientific illustrations. These indelicate carvings—some sweet, some vulgar, some affirmative, some banal—become delicate filigree, decorative but pointedly legible. At Haverford, just as at every other institution where spaces aren’t exactly personal nor

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Haverford Graffiti, VanDevender Wallpaper « SEX DRIVE 6/28/15 12:49 PM

ever private, graffiti is background and “my” ground: it’s everywhere, literally part of the furniture, addressed to everyone and open to citation and erasure. It says, “me” and “you” and “not theirs.” VanDevender places this graffiti, epitome of the local, vernacular, idiotic, illicit, and, as Boughter says, “clandestine,” on the same plane as the faces of hyper-visible and contrite celebrities, so as if to say, here is where we live, here you’re not the only one at home, here is what we’re thinking. She foregrounds this background and hides everything in plain sight.

In the gallery below, you will find interesting bits of Haverford graffiti as well as details from VanDevender’s design along with their sources.

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Haverford Graffiti, VanDevender Wallpaper « SEX DRIVE 6/28/15 12:49 PM

Tags: Ellen Freeman, homepost, John Muse, Lisa Boughter, Nancy VanDevender, Patrick Phelan, Projects Share this article:

Gallery Hours

Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery

Monday - Friday • 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Wednesday • 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. Saturday - Sunday • 12 p.m. - 5 p.m.

for a good time...
Send us picts and locations of erotic Haverford graffiti and we'll include it in an interactive map.

Links

Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery
The John B. Hurford '60 Humanities Center

Tags

adultery affairs Andres Serrano Anissa Mack anita hill apologies bill clinton cheating Christopher Makos clarence thomas Clarissa Sligh Claude Cahun David Wojnarowicz denials Duncan Grant

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Haverford Graffiti, VanDevender Wallpaper « SEX DRIVE 6/28/15 12:49 PM

Ellen Freeman featured Forest McMullin Ion Birch jesse james John Coplans John Muse Larry Jens Anderson Leigh Ledare Leon Golub lewinsky Lynn Cazabon Melanie Manchot

Michael Patterson-Carver Michael Rushmore Mira Schor Nancy VanDevender Nan Goldin Patricia Cronin Patrick Phelan Peter Hujar political politicians prostitutes scandal sex scandal Steve Gianakos Stuart Horodner tiger woods V ertna

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