24 X The Light
Pamela Sunstrum, sometimes I answer, 2006-2007
I know that it’s politically incorrect for me to say that these ladies are hot but, well...
I should clarify that I mean hot in the sense that they’re burning down the house that history and male chauvinism and built; sisters are doin’ it for us all (hat tip to Aretha). Twenty-four of the illest artists that have walked the earth in recent memory have converged on Spelman College for a bonafide, video art blowout, and extravaganza: Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970. A joint so large that it will be presented in two parts. Part One bows on September 14 and wraps on December 8, 2007; to be followed by Part Two on January 24, and closing on May 24, 2008.
Now, it comes as no surprise to Code Z that Spelman is comin’ with the heat. After all, this year alone, the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art has blessed us with this and not too long ago, this
And it goes without saying that we’re not talking about your grandpa in the backyard, at the family reunion, with that old kitchen sink-sized VHS camera, talking over shaky video. This here is the real deal. This is heavyweight art.
Cinema Remixed and Reloaded silences those nattering nabobs of negativism (“women can’t...” “Video art isn’t...”) simply by its existence. Cinema Remixed comes out of the newfound freedoms of free love, experimentation (art and otherwise) and empowerment – and coupled with the Feminist movement; the use of video as art gave space for a conceptualization of the Other - the other view, the other dimension, and the other reality. In an age when popular culture would become synonymous with videos rotated on music television, and standards of Americanism and beauty could be recorded, rewound, and transported on a whim, art had to “flash the light”.
From across generations (Howardena Pindell to Jessica Ann Peavy), emerging (Paula Wilson) to well established (Carrie Mae Weems), and spanning the African Diaspora (Wangechi Mutu to Adrian Piper), Cinema Remixed offers up a tasty-taste of feature length, animated, multimedia, and experimental works. These are works that challenge the status quo of gender and creative media. Investigating the representation of Black women via the Madison Avenue/Hollyweird moving image, as well as the role of Black women in creating/reflecting their own representation is only the beginning.
Cinema Remixed and Reloaded offers visual statements from artist’s doing their part to remind the staid world of fine arts that individuals seemingly operating on the periphery are indeed real people. These are reflections of real people, presented in real time. We are reminded that with proper manipulation, what is considered to be fantasy by the mainstream can be manifested into reality.
So, if you’re outside of Georgia, and you’re fiendin’ for a taste of the ill visuals, catch a glimpse here, . If you’re in ‘The A,’ stop on by the SCMoFA, and crank that enlightenment.