VideoStudio Playback

Houston Conwill Maren Hassinger Fred Holland Ishmael Houston-Jones Ulysses Jenkins Senga Nengudi Howardena Pindell

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06 16 Spring 2011

04 –“I am laying on the between the predeter- “No, Like This.” floor. My knees are up. mined codes of language Movements in My left arm is extended and their meaning to the side.” when actually used. Performance, –“Is it open?” By setting live human Video and the –“The palm of my left hand bodies to a technologically is open. Um, it’s not really reproduced voice, Babble Projected Image, open. It’s kind of cupped a addresses the mutable 1980–93 little bit, halfway between boundary between human open and shut.” and machine. While –“Like this?” mechanical manipulation Thomas J. Lax –“No, like this.” is commonly thought to –“Do we have to do this be synthetic and external now?” to original artistic work, –“Like this?” their performance demon- –“Okay.” strates the ways in which –“Okay.” technology determines something thought to This informal, circuitous, be as organic and natural instruction begins a as the human body. vignette in Babble: First Impressions of the White For its conceptual frame- Man (1983), a choreo- work, this exhibition graphic collaboration draws on Babble’s tension between artists Ishmael between spontaneous Houston-Jones and human creativity and Fred Holland. Although technology’s possibilities Houston-Jones is, as he and limitations. Bring- says, laying on the floor ing together work in film with his knees up and and video made primarily his left arm open, his between 1980 and 1986 voice is prerecorded and by seven artists who were removed from his onstage profoundly influenced by body. Babble goes on, performance, music and incorporating pedestrian dance, VideoStudio: Play- reflections on the perform- back considers the ways ers’ experience (“My boots that artists have explored are making black marks”) technology’s mediation and anxieties about the of our lives, public and performance’s success personal, artistic and (“We’re two minutes and everyday. Responding to twenty-two seconds into the proliferation of tech- the performance. Do nologies of reproduction— you think enough has handheld cameras and the happened yet?”). Bringing moving-image culture of contact improvisation— broadcast television and a characteristic form of computer graphics—the improvised postmodern artists in Playback charted dance—and recorded new paths for the percep- sound together, Babble tion and reception of art stages what is simultane- in three important ways. ously a performance that First, their use of video has already occurred and and film contrasts with a rehearsal for a perfor- the assumed use of these mance to come. forms as documentary media. Rather than accept Houston-Jones and a single, objective point Holland’s performance of view, the videos use draws attention to the technology to document dancers’ encounter performances that with the audience and emphasize the multiple highlights the difference positions of performers and audience members exchanged ideas and they adapted the move- channels like YouTube, by drawing attention experimented with new ment they created into Facebook, Twitter and CNN to how these viewing work. 01 Emphasizing a set of rules, limiting iReport, the seven artists positions shape and the importance of ritual, factors and transitions in Playback represent an create subjective expe- these artists referenced to give dancers structure early precedent for new riences. Second, their African cultural forms for a performance. Across media discourses in art juxtaposition of moving in their work, which was their videos, the artists history and artists who at images with installations often improvisatory and emphasize a tension an early moment forecast- and multilayered perfor- performance-based. While between extemporization ed the ways identity and mances underscores their at the time other artists of social life would become emphasis on engagement African descent referred VideoStudio: increasingly mediated with art objects. In this to African tropes to stand Playback con- by the kinds of spectator- way, they asserted that in or represent blackness, siders the ways ship enabled by techno- art objects were things the group associated that artists logical innovation. to be related to, and not with Studio Z emphasized have explored simply static reflections materiality and abstraction technology’s Playback is the fourth of the real world. Third, over figuration. installment of VideoStudio, videos made to stand mediation of our an ongoing series of video alone extended artists’ Many of these artitsts also lives, public and film exhibitions formal considerations worked in New York, where and personal, inaugurated in fall 2008. of shape, color and they showed at filmmaker artistic and Reflecting the Studio scale from painting Linda Goode Bryant’s everyday. Museum’s commitment and sculpture into the (b. 1949) Just Above to time-based art, the moving-image format. Midtown Gallery (JAM). and control, reflecting program demonstrates the All three modes of artistic The first black-owned a committed interest in influence of recent tech- production—documen- New York gallery, JAM was serious play. nology on contemporary tation of performance, an interdisciplinary space art. The spring 2011 sea- incorporation of film and that supported artists Often working actively son of VideoStudio is the video into performance, including Houston Conwill together, these multime- first exhibition in a series and the televisual shift to and Howardena Pindell, as dia artists generated an dedicated to video works stand-alone video—bring well as artists of color who intense artistic cross-fer- made in the late twentieth together formal concerns at that time were often tilization as collaborators, century. While previous with the visual cultures of exhibited only at commu- performers, videographers VideoStudio exhibitions television and mass media nity centers and “commu- and object-makers for one have presented compila- and the political and social nity galleries” at cultural another’s works. Mediat- tions of contemporary context in which these institutions. Holland and ing technological shifts video, Playback reflects on technological and cultural Houston-Jones—who through art-making, these the historical use of video developments arose. also showed at JAM—first artists demonstrate how by multimedia artists. met in Philadelphia, where the increased availability Working in Southern they trained in postmodern of cameras extended 01 Kellie Jones, Taming the Freeway California, Philadelphia contact improvisation, understandings of real and Other Acts of Urban HIP- notism: African American Artists and New York, the artists which emphasized time into posterity. This in Los Angeles in the 1960s and in Playback emerged in physical contact as the access also fundamen- 1970s (Boston: The MIT Press, the mid-1970s and early starting point for explora- tally changed the physical forthcoming), and Kellie Jones, “African American Avant-Gardes, 1980s. At the time, con- tion through movement experience of spectator- 1965–1990: Modern Art in ceptual, performance and improvisation. 02 As part ship to one in which new Los Angeles, A Conversation” installation art had been of the downtown New York technologies created a (public program with Maren increasingly used as forms performance art scene, human body contingent Hassinger, Ulysses Jenkins, Barbara McCullough, Senga of artistic production and Holland and Houston- upon and formed by Nengudi and Kellie Jones, Getty critique, and continued to Jones joined a group technology. Indeed, these Research Institute, Los Angeles, offer new possibilities for of artists, including artists questioned whether January 16, 2008). socially engaged artists. In Meredith Monk (b. 1942) technology accommo- 02 For more about the emergence Los Angeles, in the wake and Robert Wilson (b. dates human creativity of contact improvisation—and of the 1965 Watts Rebel- or precedes it, setting its relationship to the civil rights 1941), who were seeking movement and black social pro- lion and urban sprawl, to expand avant-garde parameters for how art test—see Danielle Goldman, “Bod- artists including Maren theater to include music, and visual culture are ies on the Line: Contact Improvisa- Hassinger, Senga Nengudi, film projections, instal- made and understood. tion and techniques of Nonviolent protest,” Dance Research Journal Ulysses Jenkins, Barbara lations and sculptural As digital technology 39 (Summer 2007): 60–74. McCullough (b. 1945) and objects. Using contact and social networking David Hammons (b. 1943) improvisation as both have enabled both social gathered at Studio Z, research methodology and movements and global art a hub where artists performance technique, practices to occur through 03 Houston Conwill (b. 1947)

Cake Walk (stills), 1983 In November 1983 at Just a child’s first steps and from each of the cities. University of Southern Above Midtown/Down- the process of learning to A third element, a cosmo- California in 1976. He is town, the second location walk and move through gram, or graphic represen- the recipient of various of Linda Goode Bryant’s the world, while the other tation of a belief system, commissions and awards, exhibition space that was is a scientific explanation is painted on the floor and including the 1984 Prix de one of the first New York of the process of walking, is the most visible of all of Rome and a Louis Comfort galleries to show the work taken from orthopedic the installation elements, Tiffany Foundation Award of artists of color, visual surgeon and scholar Verne as the dancers in Cake in 1987. He is best known artist Houston Conwill T. Inman’s 1981 paper, Walk move on and around for large-scale sculptures presented Cakewalk, an Human Walking. it during the performance. and installations that he installation and perfor- created in collaboration mance piece that signified a cakewalk was a “funny, strutting with poet Estella Conwill a culmination of a decade dance” that originated in the mid- Majozo (b. 1949) and of artistic development. eighteenth century architect Joseph DePace Cake Walk (1983), the (b. 1954), including the work on view in VideoStu- Other elements of Conwill’s In the years before Cake Langston Hughes Memo- dio: Playback, is a video installation are visible Walk, Conwill explored rial at the Schomburg documentation of the in the performance video, notions of “funk,” or Center for Research in performance piece from including four earth- popular culture, and its Black Culture, Rivers (1991). that exhibition. covered, triangular differences from “high” sculptural forms, each culture. Overall, Conwill’s – Lauren Haynes Historically, a cakewalk with a mirror at its center artistic practice is 01 was a “funny, strutting (representing the living, concerned with notions Lucy R. Lippard, “Funk Rises,” in 01 Cakewalk (exhibition brochure) dance” that originated as each reflected the of African-American (New York: Just Above Midtown/ in the mid-eighteenth actions and motions of space. In his words, Downtown, 1983), 7. century, in which Ameri- the dancers and all those he was “especially drawn can slaves competed who moved through the to myth, ritual and the 02 Ibid. against one another exhibition space), and four transmission of wisdom 03 Houston Conwill, Artist’s to win cakes and for the triangular paintings made and culture across conti- Statement, in The Joyful Myster- amusement of slave from Rhoplex and latex. 02 nents and generations.” 03 ies 1984–2034 A.D. (exhibition owners. During the dance, The triangular sculptures brochure) (New York: The Studio couples performed in and paintings are paired, Houston Conwill was born Museum in Harlem, 1984). a “high” style that was with each pair represent- in Louisville, Kentucky. at times critical and ing a different Southern He received a BFA from mocking of the Victorian city that has a strong Howard University in 1973 culture of their masters. historical association and an MFA from the In Conwill’s performance with African Americans: video, the artist and five Memphis, Louisville, other dancers move New Orleans and Atlanta. through a series of The dirt covering the motions and dance to sculptural forms is from a soundtrack that in- the gravesites of people cludes Gregorian chants, Conwill considered wise spirituals and ragtime music. At times, the music is accompanied by two voiceovers. One recalls

05 Maren Hassinger (b. 1947)

Beige (still), 1992 Green (stills), 1993 Maren Hassinger’s video Each video uses color movement, informed by other helped execute it, Green, created in the early to investigate a longing Hassinger’s background in as exemplified by Green. 1990s, is a meditation or nostalgia for close- modern dance, particularly on the symbolism and ness with nature, as well the techniques of Lester Maren Hassinger received various references that as a more complicated Horton (1906–1953). her BA from Bennington the titular color calls to ambivalence towards College and an MFA from mind. As the on-screen the relationship between Born in Los Angeles, the the University of California, imagery moves in and out urban (or suburban) artist returned there after Los Angeles. She is the of focus, and from tight and natural worlds. college and collaborated recipient of a Joan Mitchell close-ups of leaves and Foundation Grant (1996) rippling water to shots of Each video uses color to investi- and two National Endow- fabric and traffic lights, gate a longing or nostalgia ment for the Arts Fellow- it evokes language that for closeness with nature ships (1982, 1984), and personifies the color was an artist in residence green—green becomes This constant reconcilia- closely with a supportive at The Studio Museum “shivering,” “damp,” “sexy” tion of binaries—organic artist community that in Harlem (1983–84). and a “protective blanket.” and manufactured, hard included Nengudi, Barbara She has been Director The tranquil voice of and soft, abstract and McCullough and Ulysses of the Rinehart Graduate Senga Nengudi, a close figurative—has echoed Jenkins, among others. School of Sculpture at friend of the artist and throughout Hassinger’s These artists, through the Maryland Institute frequent collaborator, work from the 1970s David Hammons’s Studio Z College of Art in Baltimore can be heard offscreen onward. In the 1985 collective and Jenkins’s since 1997. throughout the film, nar- sculpture/installation Othervisions Studio, rating a poetic, free-form A Quiet Place (on view in developed an “alterna- – Abbe Schriber text written by Hassinger. the spring 2011 exhibition tive infrastructure” that 01 Joann Hanley, “Women, Art and Beige (1992) depicts a Sculpted, Etched and provided a means for both Technology: A Brief History,” in montage of wintry Long Cut), earthy, branch-like professional and technical Art/Women/California, 1950-2000: Island scenery as seen forms are in fact created support with videos and Parallels and Intersections, eds. from a moving car, with wire, cables, con- performances, embracing Diana Burgess Fuller and Daniela crete and rope, indicating the fluidity of exchange Salvioni (Berkeley: University of incorporating images of California Press, 2002), 314. a neutral-colored, silky Hassinger’s interest in the fostered by the collective scarf and a hand amid contrast between natural spirit. 01 Hassinger and browning leaves. Hass- and industrial materials, Nengudi, in particular, inger created Green, Beige, as well as between worked together very and similar video works biomorphic figures and closely on many interre- in the 1990s while living in the cold, formal space lated projects—one artist East Hampton, New York. of the gallery. Often, initiated an idea, and the Both were exhibited in Hassinger’s performances a storefront gallery there, and sculptures are displayed on monitors interrelated—while the swathed in green and former may rely on props beige materials, respec- or actual sculptures, the tively. The style and intent latter frequently suggest of both mark a departure from Hassinger’s previous videos, which were created primarily as documenta- tions of performances.

07 Fred Holland (b. 1951)

Cowboy (Carlos Abraham Foster) (still), 1984 NYC Overhead (stills), 1985 Babble: First Impress- some, presumably from are the telltale elements Bronx resident riding his ions of a White Man, a the nineteenth century, of Holland’s artistic horse while a subway train performance piece by of Asian women and the practice. Holland, a native passes in the background. artist Fred Holland, per- welted back of a slave. of Columbus, Ohio, studied Holland saw Foster as formed with collaborator These historical images painting before moving both an urban anomaly Ishmael Houston-Jones, give clarity to the work’s to Philadelphia in the and proof of the variety combines elements of title, which refers to the late 1970s. There, he was of the black experience. dance, theater and While a captivating film multimedia installation. The projected photographs hover in its own right, Cowboy The performance opens in the background like the ghosts (Carlos Abraham Foster) with the shadowy figure of colonialism was originally included as of a white man in a trench a projection in Holland’s coat standing on the incoherent utterances drawn to the freedom and 1984 work, Cowboys, periphery of a cool blue that indigenous people immediacy of improvisa- Dreams and Ladders, light. Inactive and in heard when first encoun- tional dance and began another collaboration with profile, the man remains tering Europeans. The to perform regularly, tak- Houston-Jones. Today, as Holland and Houston- projected photographs ing a hiatus from painting. Fred Holland has returned Jones perform, while hover in the background Holland’s performance to his visual practice, prerecorded voices take like the ghosts of colo- works of the 1980s take which now reflects his the place of the artists’ nialism as Holland and on a materiality and experience as a performer, live voices. The voice- Houston-Jones act in consciousness of objects and often includes objects overs correspond to the the postcolonial present. and images that reflect that suggest interaction performers’ actions Recorded voices continue his background as a visual with the body, such as and are clearly meant and alternate between artist. Many of his per- walkers and wheelchairs. to be more script than coherence and nonsen- formances incorporated narration. Through sical jumbles as words Super 8 film shot by – Tasha Parker the audio, Holland and are recited forward and Holland himself. For Houston-Jones rehearse backward. In the second example, Cowboy (Carlos choreography, direct each vignette, Holland and Abraham Foster) (1984) other and contemplate Houston-Jones put on documents Carlos A. upcoming performances. overcoats that hang on Foster, an expert cowboy Instructional phrases, the stage. As the lights who was raised on a such as, “left hand, right turn red, their collabora- cattle ranch in Cuba and hand, knee!” are repeated tive efforts are abruptly immigrated to the United as the artists’ movements transformed into conten- States in 1960. The film roughly match up with tion and violence. The shows the longtime the recordings. However, performers square off the performers make at center stage and no efforts to lip-synch wrestle intensely. or gesture speech. This separation of body and Babble’s multilayered voice is the crux of Babble, visual presentation, film as the disconnect between projections and multitude language and its human of performers, props and vessels is demonstrated racial political themes again and again.

The work’s theme is further elucidated by ethnographic photographs projected on the back of the stage, including

09 Ishmael Houston-Jones (b. 1951)

Untitled Duet (Oogala) (still), 1983 (with Fred Holland) f/i/s/s/i/o/n/i/n/g (stills), 1984 In f/i/s/s/i/o/n/i/n/g and shackled feet, recall movement of the other, each letter creates a (1984), performed at PS1 images of prisoners of alternating between literal fission of the title. Contemporary Art Center war. His movements intertwining movements In the latter part of the (now MoMA PS1) in New and covered face also and moments of solo performance, he smacks York, dancer Ishmael call to mind more recent exercise while the partner and punches himself in Houston-Jones is nude, images, such as the watches. At times, Hol- the chest multiple times besides a pair of black photographs of prisoners land and Houston-Jones with great force. With combat boots, tube socks movements that evoke and a black bandana Houston-Jones’s surrendering memories of physical covering his eyes. He gestures, simulating bound hands and emotional trauma, staggers into an open and shackled feet, recall images Houston-Jones seems gallery space with an of prisoners of war. to be conjuring a fission audience before him. The of the soul, separating performance is ironically in Abu Ghraib prison in roll on top of each other what remains of the accompanied by a series Iraq. f/i/s/s/i/o/n/i/n/g is and let inertia carry their good from the bad. of country songs— an example of Houston- bodies across the floor. including “Filipino Baby,” Jones’s improvisational The performers commu- VideoStudio: Playback “Goodbye, L.O.Vietnam” dance style, which starts nicate through gestures highlights Houston- and “There’s a Star- with a limited number and at times vocally Jones’s contributions to Spangled Banner Waving of premeditated elements, instruct each other. Origi- improvisational dance, Somewhere”—all dealing often including props and nated in 1972, contact which has become a with U.S. military engage- music, and unfolds into improvisation was still staple of contemporary ments abroad. In 1983 spontaneous performance. a radical form of dance dance. Today, he is a New and 1984, Houston-Jones, when Houston-Jones York-based choreographer, a self-identified socialist While f/i/s/s/i/o/n/i/n/g began to practice it in educator and writer. during the period, spent displays Houston-Jones’s the late 1970s. His most recognized time in Nicaragua teach- solo practice, Untitled work, THEM (1985), was ing dance classes. This Duet (Oogala) (1983) Language and impro- reenacted at the New was during the Reagan showcases his virtuosity vised speech are also Museum of Contemporary administration’s Iran- in contact improvisation, important elements of Art in New York in 2010. Contra dealings, in which a form of dance based Houston-Jones’s works. funds raised by the illegal on spontaneous physical The idiosyncratic title – Tasha Parker sale of arms to Iran were dialogues between two or of f/i/s/s/i/o/n/i/n/g is a covertly used to support more moving bodies and play on the term “fis- counterrevolutionary their combined relation- sion,” which means to forces in Nicaragua. Many ship to the physical laws split something into two of Houston-Jones’s that govern their motion— or more parts. Houston- Nicaraguan students were gravity, momentum and Jones’s separation of also soldiers, who showed inertia. Performed with up to class with their ri- Fred Holland at Danspace fles. Militaristic elements, in New York, Untitled perhaps influenced by Duet shows each dancer the performer’s political responding to the standing and experi- ences in South America, pervade f/i/s/s/i/o/n/i/n/g. Houston-Jones’s sur- rendering gestures, simulating bound hands

11 Ulysses Jenkins (b. 1946)

Without Your Interpretation (stills), 1983 Ulysses Jenkins is an superimposing and helped Jenkins with received his MFA from the early pioneer of video, overlapping of shapes Z-GRASS that same year, Otis College of Art, Los new media and perfor- and colors. Through and a Los Angeles-based Angeles, is a three-time mance, whose artwork Z-GRASS, Jenkins band called Life in the recipient of the National since the 1970s has been examines the formal and Park with Debris. 01 Without Endowment for the Arts “concerned with social social architecture of Your Interpretation, like (NEA) Fellowship (1980, crisis and survival.” 01 urban space and subtly many of Jenkins’s works, 1982, 1995) and twice Though Jenkins’s work won the NEA’s Black Film- spans an incredibly Though Jenkins’s work spans an maker’s Hall of Fame first diverse range of media, incredibly diverse range of me- place award in Experimen- it is linked by an investi- dia, it is linked by an investiga- tal Video (1990, 1992). gation into physical and He also received the digital forms of public tion into physical and digital California Arts Council’s space—from the screen forms of public space—from the Multicultural Entry Grant to the sidewalk—as screen to the sidewalk—as sites as artistic director of sites for myth-making, for myth-making Othervisions Studios highlighting the role of in 1992. Jenkins has identity in urban and critiques the gentrification reconfigures and re- taught at the University technological development. processes around him. interprets the form and of California, San Diego; Dissonant, almost feverish, aesthetics of ritual, Otis College of Art; and Jenkins’s computer- electronic audio effects drawing from traditions of California State Univer- animated video Z-GRASS accompany the images, the griot, or keeper of sity, Dominguez Hills. He (1983) foregrounds establishing the work’s communal histories in is currently Associate the later proliferation ominous, frenetic tone. West African culture. Professor at the University of computer technology Many of the artist’s other Jenkins juxtaposes a live of California, Irvine, in the and digital programm- works are narrative, musical performance by Claire Trevor School of ing as artistic media. figurative videos that the band with footage of the Arts, Department of It developed out of a incorporate appropriated choreography inspired by Studio Art. workshop Jenkins took film footage in addition legendary modern dancer/ at the Long Beach Art to computer-generated choreographer Rudy Perez – Abbe Schriber Museum, California, effects—Z-GRASS is, (b. 1930). Interspersed on the ZGrass (Z-Box in fact, one of the few with this imagery is 01 Ulysses Jenkins, “The Nature Graphics Symbiosis of Doggerel,” Ulysses Jenkins videos that Jenkins footage that ranges from personal website, http:// System) computer produced with the ZGrass news broadcasts to nature ulyssesjenkins.com/nature.html program, an early form computer program. programs, reflecting the (accessed February 7, 2011). of two-dimensional tensions and political computer animation Throughout the 1980s, realities within American 02 Ulysses Jenkins, “Without that, in the workshop, Jenkins explored culture in the early and Your Interpretation,” Ulysses was used to create collaboration and Jenkins personal website, http:// mid-1980s. ulyssesjenkins.com/nature.html architectural renderings. collectivity through his (accessed March 2, 2011). As the indexical, structural interdisciplinary media Ulysses Jenkins was born markings of buildings, arts studio Othervisions, in Los Angeles, and has the renderings were an and his art band of the lived and worked in ideal jumping-off point same name. The 1983 Southern California for for Jenkins’s interest in performance and video over thirty years. He social space, particularly Without Your Interpretation the rapidly changing was created with a large neighborhoods of Los crew of collaborators, Angeles. He manipulated including musician the renderings into stills Vinzula Kara, who had and abstracted and animated them, creating a work that alludes to graffiti-inspired aesthe- tics and repeats the

13 Senga Nengudi (b. 1943)

Dance Card (stills), 1986 Like much of her interaction. Often her for the project, and of ritual or ceremonial sculpture, installation, pieces are composed had what she called process into an unmis- video and performance, of found materials “an African feel to it.” 01 takably postindustrial, Senga Nengudi’s 1986 such as tape, rocks, By staging ritualistic emotionally charged site. Dance Card (formerly dirt, newspapers and performances at the very titled Nature’s Way) is seedpods, inviting a sites of urban sprawl, Senga Nengudi was born rooted in dance and the sensory and tactile Nengudi and her cohorts in Chicago and received aesthetics of the body experience that borrows imbued a vastly different a BA in 1966 from moving through space. from and references a ambiance to the area. California State University Nengudi’s work in the range of cultures. Among The piece was originally at Los Angeles, where 1970s and 1980s was she majored in art and part of a historical, Nengudi has integrated the minored in dance. Nengudi interdisciplinary exchange distinctive media of performance later went on to receive between visual artists and sculpture to create compre- her MA in sculpture and the dance community, hensive environmental installa- there in 1971. She has which, beginning in tions that encourage viewer been included in several the 1960s, examined interaction. exhibitions at the Studio the phenomenological Museum, including experiences and inter- her more well-known commissioned by the California Black Artists actions of bodies works is the “R.S.V.P” California Department (1977), Art as a Verb: with objects and the series of the mid- to of Transportation, or The Evolving Continuum environment. Dance Card late 1970s, in which she CalTrans, which had (1989) and R.S.V.P. (2008). depicts an archetypal stretched multicolored been attempting to put Nengudi currently teaches seduction ritual, set nylon mesh pantyhose sculptures and murals in the Department of Visual against a large-scale into abstracted, organic on or in the spaces of and Performing Arts at installation of branches forms that at once urban development. After the University of Colorado, that Hassinger made for reference the material’s decorating and draping Colorado Springs. a solo exhibition at Santa original utility and mimic columns in the area with Barbara Contemporary the heft and flexibility her signature pantyhose – Abbe Schriber Arts Forum. Two men of its wearers’ bodies. material and other 01 Barbara McCullough, “Shopping (played by Ulysses Jenkins detritus, a performance Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: and Frank Parker [b. 1945]) Nengudi’s work is also took place at the site’s Reflections on Ritual Space,” compete for the attention frequently site-specific, opening ceremony, African American Performance of one woman (played shaped in direct response featuring Hassinger, Art Archive, http://aapaa.org/ by Maren Hassinger), to the physical attributes David Hammons, members 2009/11/23/shopping-bag-spirits- or geographical location and-freeway-fetishes-reflections- who ultimately has her of Hammons’s Studio Z on-ritual-space-1979/ (accessed way with both of them. of a place. For instance, collective and others. February 28, 2011). Performed at the opening the celebrated 1979 The performers played of Hassinger’s exhibition, performance Ceremony music and wore self- Nengudi’s collaborative for Freeway Fets (“fets” fashioned costumes, performance brings live being short for “fetishes”) props and headpieces, bodies in direct contact takes the form of a ritual implementing the with sculptural objects in the cavernous area aesthetics and actions and the environment. underneath a busy Los Angeles expressway. Since the 1970s, Nengudi chose the Nengudi has integrated location because the the distinctive media atmosphere felt right of performance and sculpture to create comprehensive envir- onmental installations that encourage viewer

15 Howardena Pindell (b. 1943)

Free, White and 21 (stills), 1980 Howardena Pindell’s first of the multimedia “Autobi- drew on the systematic middle-class realms video, Free, White and ography” series captures ordering of Minimalist of the art world and 21 indicates the artist’s a more spiritual, inward art. In paintings from the the feminist movement. awareness of video as exploration of self. Another 1980s, she experimented Pindell’s reactions a potent medium for work, Doubling (1995), the deeply with color, texture against this, combined translating activist ideas only other video Pindell and surface, using a with her feelings toward and subject matter. has made to date, was vast array of evocative American political culture Though one of the few created during a video materials and detritus and current affairs, as videos Pindell has created workshop fellowship at that reflected the world well as her burgeoning in her career, Free, White interest in third-world and 21 is widely consid- Free, White and 21 indicates the feminism, contributed ered a pioneering force artist’s awareness of video as to an increasing overlap in early video art through a potent medium for translating between activism and its documentary visual activist ideas and subject matter art-making. strategies and perfor- mative, near-theatrical The Kitchen fifteen years around her—sequins, Born in Philadelphia, construction of characters. after Free, White and 21. confetti, glitter, beads Pindell received her BFA Recounting autobiograph- Doubling takes a con- and even perfume. As from Boston University in ical experiences of racism frontational style similar the decade progressed, 1965 and her MFA from in the art world and her to that of Free, White Pindell gravitated further Yale University in 1967. personal life, Pindell and 21, and, through toward a handcrafted She is the recipient of a appears as three separate “confessional”-style reci- aesthetic, investigating Guggenheim Fellowship in women—a black woman tations and photographs the possibilities and Painting (1987), as well as artist, a woman in white of war and human cruelty, boundaries of painting. a College Art Association face and a blonde wig, and examines the concept of Artist Award (1990), an ambiguous character “doubling”—“the ability to In 1979, Pindell left her among other awards. who wraps her head in act humane toward your curatorial position in white gauze. The video was own group and inhumane the Museum of Modern – Abbe Schriber first shown in Dialectics of toward another,” as the Art’s prints department, 01 Lowery Stokes Sims, “Synthesis Isolation, a 1980 exhibition video states. where she had worked and Integration in the Work of at A.I.R. Gallery showing since 1967, to teach at Howardena Pindell, 1972–1992,” work by women of African, Prior to Free, White the State University of in Howardena Pindell: Paintings Native American, Asian and 21 Pindell had New York, Stonybrook. and Drawings: A Retrospective and Latino descent and already begun working She was very active in the Exhibition 1972–1992 (exhibition with photography and rising feminist movement catalogue) (New York: Potsdam organized by artist Ana College, State University of New Mendieta (1948–1985). technologically-based and was a founding York, 1992), 18. It was the first of Pindell’s imagery. In her classic member of the historic, works to openly introduce “video drawings,” Pindell women-only A.I.R. Gallery. and reconcile illustrations drew arrows and diagrams Pindell had increasingly of selfhood—a theme directly on acetate gels, noticed an undercurrent she continued to explore which were then jux- of latent racism in the in a series called “Autobio- taposed over a television predominantly white, graphy,” which extended screen and photographed. over twenty years and Throughout the 1970s, was influenced by her Pindell also made gridded, travels abroad. 01 While serial abstractions that Free, White and 21deals with highly personal issues of bias and discrim- ination, the remainder

17 VideoStudio: Exhibition organized by Brochure organized © 2011 The Studio Playback Thomas J. Lax, by Elizabeth Gwinn, Museum in Harlem Program Associate and Communications Manager, March 31– Exhibition Coordinator. and Lauren Haynes 144 West 125th Street June 26, 2011 with Thomas J. Lax New York NY 10027 Essays by Lauren Haynes, and Abbe Schriber. studiomuseum.org Assistant Curator; 212.864.4500 Thomas J. Lax; Designed by Pentagram Tasha Parker, Copyedited by Curatorial Fellow; Samir S. Patel and Abbe Schriber, Printed by Cosmos Program Assistant, Communications Curatorial Department.

Works in the Houston Conwill Ishmael Houston-Jones Ulysses Jenkins Exhibition Cake Walk, 1983 f/i/s/s/i/o/n/i/n/g, 1984 Z-GRASS, 1983–84 Digital video, color, sound Digital transfer from Digital video, color, sound Total running time 13:53 Digital Betacam, Total running time 03:04 Courtesy Ulysses Jenkins color, sound Courtesy the artist Total running time 16:00 Without Your Maren Hassinger Courtesy The New York Interpretation, 1983 Green, 1993 Public Library, Moving Digital video, color, sound Digital transfer from Image Archive with Total running time 13:53 VHS, color, sound permission of the artist, Courtesy the artist Total running time 11:04 the Estate of Dave Dudley Courtesy the artist and MoMA PS1 Senga Nengudi Beige, 1992 Dance Card (excerpt), 1986 Ishmael Houston-Jones Digital transfer from VHS, Digital transfer from and Fred Holland color, sound VHS, color, sound Babble: First Impressions Total running time 10:00 Total running time 05:24 of the White Man Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist (excerpt), 1983 Digital transfer from Digital Fred Holland Howardena Pindell Betacam, color, sound Cowboy (Carlos Abraham Free, White and 21, 1980 Total running time 28:20 Foster), 1984 Digital transfer from Courtesy The New York Digital transfer from VHS, color, sound Public Library, Moving Super-8, color Total running time 12:15 Image Archive with Total running time 05:00 Museum purchase 06.7.1 permission of the artists Courtesy the artist and New York Live Arts NYC Overhead, 1985 Untitled Duet (Oogala), 1983 Digital transfer from Digital transfer from 16mm, color VHS, color, sound Total running time 16:00 Total running time 16:00 Courtesy the artist Courtesy Fred Holland

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