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kevin jerome everson
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My films and artwork are about responding to daily materials, conditions, tasks and gestures of people of African descent. These materials, systems, tasks and gestures are repositioned through a variety of mediums such as photography, film, sculpture, artist books and paintings. The results usually have a formal reference to art history and resemble objects or images seen in working class African American culture. This strategy invites the work to be interpreted by a variety of communities. I have completed three feature films and over fifty short 16mm, 35mm and digital films about the working class culture of Black Americans and other people of African descent. My films focus on the gestures and tasks caused by certain conditions. The conditions are formal relationships, social-economic circumstances or weather, and in many instances, all three. The films consist of the relentlessness of every day life, as well as its beauty—and have a naturalistic, almost documentary-like texture. Recently I have been responding to the performance of peoples of African descent in old film footage as if it were theater. Either by reenacting the films or just using the footage, I am attempting to create an archive of these performances. My artwork and films have been exhibited at the Pompidou Centre, Paris, France; Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem; the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; Whitechapel Gallery in London; Wurttenbergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany; The Worm in Rotterdam, The Netherlands; the Spaces Gallery in Cleveland; the American Academy of Rome in Italy and in China and Germany. My films have been shown at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah; Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007; Berlin International Film Festival European Film Market, Berlin, Germany; Cinematexas, Austin, Texas; Ann Arbor Film Festival; LA Film Festival; New York Underground Film Festival (Best Doc 2005 for Spicebush); Oberhausen in Oberhausen, Germany; Festival International Du Documentaire De Marseille, Marseille, France, Mostra Internazionale Del Nuovo Cinema, Pesaro, Italy; Filmfest München, Munich, Germany; the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley, California; Media City Film Festival in Windsor, Ontario; Black Maria Film Festival (2004 Best Film); Athens International Film Festival; Shorts International in New York; RedCat in Los Angeles, California (solo screening); Cinema Project, Portland, Oregon; Courtisane Film, Video and New Media Festival, in Ghent, Belgium; Light Industry in Brooklyn, New York; San Francisco International Film Festival in San Francisco, California; IndieLisboa 2007, Lisbon, Portugal; Milano Film Festival in Milan, Italy; European Media Art Festival in Onsabrueck, Germany; the Siskel Theater in Chicago (solo screening); the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville, Virginia; University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida; VIVO Media Arts Centre, in Vancouver, British Columbia; Flex Film Festival in Gainesville, Florida; and South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin Texas (Best Experimental Award for Thermostat). I am the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a NEA Fellowship, two NEH Fellowships, two Ohio Arts Council Fellowships, an American Academy Rome Prize, residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell Colony and numerous university fellowships. |