Malena Barnhart’s opening of the He Said/She Said Exhibit on Friday brought locals and her students to question the various men in entertainment and politics accused of sexual assault.
Barnhart’s continued anger around Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation and society’s shortly lived concern sparked Barnhart to open her exhibit.
“People are complacent, and (sexual assault) keeps happening over and over again,” Barnhart said.
In her main piece titled Calculations, she wants the audience to see the numbers of women who are victims of sexual assault due to celebrity misconduct.
Famous names such as Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Charlie Rose, James Franco and Donald Trump all are listed in Barnhart’s piece as perpetrators of sexual assault.
Each celebrities name appears as many times as they have allegedly committed sexual assault.
Harvey Weinstein holds the position of the highest amount of sexual assault at 87 victims. At the next event on First Friday, his name will appear in the center wrapped in gold in Barnhart’s exhibit.
She questions “How many women will be enough?”.
Barnhart thinks it’s more interesting for people to consider the gray area rather than seeing everything as a merely black or white issue.
She wanted to challenge people to think differently when viewing the Calculations piece, because as a feminist she feels strongly about the frequency of sexual assaults of women.
“I’m just really angry and I couldn’t let go of it,” Barnhart said.
Barnhart is an adjunct art professor at Mesa Community College. In addition to the main exhibit, she also has her student’s artwork displayed in a collection labeled “Art is Hard” which gave them an opportunity to see her work outside of the classroom.
“I wasn’t surprised by the numbers, but I was surprised by James Franco’s name,” said Andrew Witcher, one of her students.
All of Barnhart’s work focuses on feminist issues, and she exclusively uses fem materials when creating her artwork.
A lot of her work is made with children’s stickers which helps illustrate her space as an artist and that it’s a way to be “creative within constraints.”
“This is probably one of the most important exhibit’s I’ve seen in a long time. Not enough people talk about this because the conversations have died down,” Suemya Mazgeri, a student of Barnhart’s said.
Barnhart believes that what people are told by their parents, what people see on TV, and what people here at school enforces the gender norms set by society.
“You learn your own culture, and you place in it,” Barnhart said.
Barnhart had three other prominent aspects of the exhibit.
In collaboration with an artist Kimberly Lyle, they created a song for karaoke purposes. The song used movies and songs Brett Kavanaugh referenced in his high school yearbook that allegedly promote rape culture.
She also developed various disoriented images of Kavanagh giving his testimony in court against Dr. Christine Blasey Ford entitled the Kavanaugh Statement.
The Kavanaugh Statement is Witcher’s personal favorite.
“It kind of looks like he’s eating himself which is exactly what he did during his testimony,” she said.
Lastly in collaboration with her partner, is a piece called “Untitled” which is a mannequin-like hand hot glued in orange into a position that is leveled to be just at the crotch grabbing angle.
Her work explicitly expresses her feminist views because she firmly believes, “In the End, He said, She Said, always means he said.”
Barnhart’s exhibit will have an open reception on December 7.
Update: This article has been updated due to editing and reporter error.
