I am that I am

didactic by artist Sam Margevicious 

Levee Wolf’s cyanotype print combines image and text to explore the vulnerability and mutability of the self.

 The image is a self-portrait, and shows the artist curled up on a chair, half-naked, cradling himself. The bare skin of his legs, his butt, and his back, are exposed, while a dark shirt has been pulled up to cover his head and face. The text is handwritten, accompanied by the marks of someone editing their thoughts on the page – words crossed-out, circled, and repeated.

“I Am That I Am” is a phrase from the Bible, Exodus 3:14, and the set of words that appear rearranged, and repeated throughout the print. Levee watched Dreamwork’s 1998 animated film “The Prince Of Egypt” countless times in his youth, and found himself, upon a recent rewatching, crying uncontrollably when God appears to Moses as a burning bush and says “I Am That I Am.” Despite subtle and innumerable interpretations of this statement, we might understand it as an affirmative statement of existence, a double positive meant to instill confidence. Levee has embodied an exploration of this statement, providing his own interpretations of it through his body in front of the camera and through his hand on the written page.

The assurance that God speaks with, offering statements of confident absolutes, is not the assurance that we are offered by the all-too-human Levee. Wolf practically negates his own gesture of the self-portrait, hiding from the camera’s gaze. Similarly, in the text we see Wolf’s internal dialogue of questions, doubt, and an exploration of alternate possibilities. This embrace of vulnerability is tantamount to a flexible stance, an inclination toward growth and change over rigidity and permanence.