Analysis Of Targets By Joyce Kozloff

Joyce Kozloff is a topographical artist who uses maps in her multimedia pieces. She uses maps as her main theme as to her they are the manifestation of human ideologies and the political and geographical phenomena that they cause. By mixing this with pop culture and visual appeal she creates a statement on how we hold misinformed ideas of the world and it’s fabricated borders. Her interest in maps goes further as she investigated how maps show the relationship between people and places but can be used to enforce unjust order and create isolation, tribalism and misuse by the military. This is especially apparent in “Targets” a nine foot concave hemisphere. Inside the viewer is surrounded by maps of the countries bombed by the USA with her child’s
war drawings studded across them in mock battles. The outside has interlacing beams mimicking the well known imagery of hand grenades. The piece is meant to reflect our relationship with the histories of our pasts and the division between internal and external realities. These politically engaging visuals shows our human impulse to locate and coordinate ourselves within a mass of images, histories and ideologies