ARTHUR JAFA, APEX, 2013
Jafa has asked, at what scale should we consider the lives of Black Americans? For over thirty years—starting while he worked as a cinematographer—Jafa has compiled notebooks with clippings from a broad array of sources. His notebooks, facsimiles of which are on view nearby, are repositories of references and ideas that serve as reminders of the depth and beauty of Black life in America…
MONA HATOUM, DEEP THROAT, 1996
Mona Hatoum has set the table for us with this artwork, Deep Throat, from 1996. The installation includes a table, roughly 3 feet square and just over 4 feet high, covered in a tablecloth with a single place setting and wooden chair in front of it…
SHIKEITH, STILL WATERS RUN DEEP, 2021
Shikeith explores how Black queer re-making is a sacred space and practice in his two-part installation, still waters run deep / fall in your ways (2021). Using poetry, historical narratives, ambient recordings of children's rhymes, shades of blue, dance, and organic elements such as water, Shikeith maps Black men's negotiations of intimacy and routes toward freedom beyond architectural and societal constraints…
SHIGEKO KUBOTA, DUCHAMPIANA: NUDE DESCENDING A STAIRCASE, 1976
Inspired by Duchamp's study of motion in his painting, Nude descending a staircase (1912), Kubota uses video to explore movement and temporality. In this single-channel combination of color video, color-synthesized video, and color Super-8 film transferred to video…
SUE DE BEER, DISAPPEAR HERE, 2004
The first intercut image in the short video Disappear Here presents a sheet cake, as from a child's birthday party, showing the sentence "The recollection is a cascade of spatial metaphors" in frosting…
JUDITH BARRY, IMAGINATION, 1991
An androgynous head is projected as if contained within a minimalist cube. Sounds of the head slowly breathing fill the space. The head is serene, waiting. Suddenly a substance pours over it from all sides, drenching it in what appears to be a bodily fluid. The spectator wants to turn away but can not, the gaze is compelled through the invocation of the scopic drive...
NESRINE KHODR, I SWAM IN THE SEA LAST WEEK, 2003
I Swam in the Sea Last Week is a symbolic and poetic video evoking a changing situation through a female body swimming in the sea...
KERRY TRIBE, UNTITLED (POTENTIAL TERRORIST), 2002
In November 2001, a casting notice for (Untitled) Potential Terrorist ran in Backstage West, an L.A-based movie industry trade magazine and actors’ resource, requesting submissions for an untitled, silent, experimental film...
SHELLY SILVER, WE, 1990
Even as the text instructs us otherwise, it is impossible not to read We's two images - that is, to respond to their symbolic quality, their suggestiveness. In a stream of associations, the rhythmic flow of people on the left becomes an ejaculation while the rhythmic hand on the right marks detachment, self-centeredness...
THERESA HAK KYUNG CHA, MOUTH TO MOUTH, 1975
English and Korean words appear on the screen, a mouth forms the shape of an "O," then opens and closes. Is this the beginning of language? In this early videotape, Cha isolates and repeats a simple, physical act — a mouth forming the eight Korean vowel graphemes — so that this ordinary action becomes something primal and riveting…
JOAN JONAS, LEFT SIDE RIGHT SIDE, 1972
In this early work, Jonas translates her performance strategies to video, applying the inherent properties of the medium to her investigations of the self and the body…
RASHID JOHNSON, THE NEW BLACK YOGA, 2011
New York-based Rashid Johnson explores complex cultural identities and issues relevant to being African American in the present day. The artist’s recent ventures in film make use of the medium’s ability to express meaning through movement…
FRANCES STARK, NOTHING IS ENOUGH, 2012
Nothing is Enough consists of documented text fragments from Frances Stark’s online chat with a young Italian man, ranging from contemplative, self-reflective discussions to cybersex…
SHARON HAYES, RICERCHE: TWO, 2020
Ricerche is a 5 part video series that steps off Pier Paolo Pasolini’s brilliant 1963 film, Comizi d’Amore, to stage a contemporary inquiry into the “sexual problem” in the United States…
GILLIAN WEARING, 2 INTO 1, 1997
The short video projection 2 into 1 (1997) features a mother and her twin sons talk about each other, one generation lip-synching the dubbed words of the other…
JEN DENIKE, FLAG GIRLS, 2007
Jen DeNike's video Flag Girls features six women wrapped in hand-sewn flags. As the video loop plays, the women unwrap themselves to reveal their nude bodies…
TOURMALINE, ATLANTIC IS A SEA OF BONES, 2017
Atlantic is a Sea of Bones is a short film drawing from the Lucille Clifton poem of the same name that follows Egyptt LaBejia, an NYC based performer through the 80s, 90s, and 2000's in NYC…
BARBARA HAMMER, SUPERDYKE, 1975
Superdyke is a gem from early liberation days. Influenced by feminism and lesbian militancy, Hammer’s films are politically pointed, bearing witness to lesbian empowerment and visibility, and formally sophisticated, fully cognizant of experimental film history…
PEGGY AHWESH, PHILOSOPHY IN THE BEDROOM, 1993
A home-movie paean to the Marquis de Sade, Philosophy in the Bedroom plumbs the depths of boudoir small talk. In the first part, a newly-acquainted odd couple discuss desire—and lack thereof—over a bag of potato chips. In the second part, a recumbent woman describes her partner and herself as "the John and Yoko of the '90s."…
ANDREA FRASER, UNTITLED, 2003
The central action in Untitled has Fraser and a male client of her US gallery meet for a session of sex and video recording in a New York hotel room. This is the part of the work that suggests an archetypal narrative…