Landmarks, the University of Texas public art program, has announced its new slate of videos to be screened during the 2020-2021.
Landmarks Video curator Kanitra Fletcher organized the season around themes such as race, immigration, and gender roles.
Highlights include John Edmonds’ Shotgun (2014), an exploration of the vulnerability between two male Black subjects; Guido van der Werve’s Nummer Twee: Just because I’m standing here doesn’t mean I want to (2003), an intersection of film, video, and performance art; and Athi-Patra Ruga’s Over the Rainbow (Queens in Exile Series) (2016-2017), an experimental work that captures the artist’s imaginary world rooted in African mythology, contemporary queer culture, and South African politics.
Some the videos — works by Howardena Pindell, Michael Robinson, Michael Snow, and Luis Voldovino — were originally scheduled for last season but were never screened after the UT campus shut down in mid-March. New selections include work by Vend Kota Ezawa, Athi-Patra Ruga, Thao Nguyen Phan, and others.
In fact, given that Landmarks screens its video series on a special media kiosk in the lobby of the Art Building, the public presentation is entirely pending the reopening of the University of Texas, and subject to any future campus closures. The UT fall semester starts Aug. 26.
Enter “Ways of Being” an online exhibition of video artwork selected from all those that Landmarks has already screened.
Organized by Fletcher and Landmarks director Andrée Bober, “Ways of Being” features a selection that touches on several themes: abuse of power, Black experiences, cultural displacement, feminism, institutional critique, masculinities, mediated identities, and queer histories.
View “Ways of Being at landmarks.utexas.edu/blogs/online-exhibition-landmarks-video-art
“Ways of Being takes stock of videos that have been presented by Landmarks Video previously, with an emphasis on works that illuminate cultural differences through the experiences of various identities in the world,” said Bober.
Artists included Sadie Benning, Dara Birnbaum, Barbara Hammer, Mona Hatoum, Coco Fusco and Paula Heredia, Marilyn Minter, Jayson Scott Musson, Tameka Jenean Norris, Miguel Angel Ríos, Martha Rosler, Teresa Serrano, Lorna Simpson and David Wojnarowicz.
