Video Art Holds a New Take on Race Relations
By
Mary Clare Glover
Published Sunday, July 01, 2007
Jefferson Pinder came up with the idea for his exhibit “Juke” while driving around Washington. Pinder, a video artist, found himself turning down the volume on bands like Radiohead and Ben Folds Five. He asked himself why he felt ashamed, as a black person, to listen to white musicians. To confront presumptions about race, Pinder made videos of ten African-Americans, each clad in white against a white background, lip-synching to songs by white artists such as Johnny Cash, Queen, and Patti Smith. “The idea is to play with what people expect when they see a face,” he says. “It’s a little bit of a gotcha.” Like most of Pinder’s work, “Juke” took songs and images from contemporary media—the white backgrounds were reminiscent of a Gap or Target ad—and twisted them. The exhibit, shown last fall at G Fine Art in DC’s Logan Circle, won raves from critics. Although the exhibit is over, you can see some of the videos on G Fine Art’s Web site (gfineartdc.com) by clicking on “selected archives,” then “Jefferson Pinder/Juke.” Pinder, 36, grew up in Silver Spring; his mother was a DC schoolteacher, his father a government speechwriter and Catholic deacon. After graduating from Good Counsel High School in Wheaton, Pinder earned an undergraduate degree in theater and a master’s in painting and mixed media from the University of Maryland. Following in the footsteps of his mentor, African-American artist David Driskell, Pinder began teaching art at Maryland in 2003. With his videos, Pinder hopes to open a conversation about the core of black identity: “You’ve got this venue, and you want to say something; why not say something meaningful?”
|
|
Spending Valentine's Day with that special someone? Flying solo? Either way, here's our guide to make sure it's your best one yet.
more
Have a bunch of Silicon Valley geeks at Palantir Technologies figured out how to stop terrorists?
more
Our husband-and-wife advice team counsel a man wondering if it’s reasonable to expect his grown son to abide by the house rules.
more
Iris Krasnow, the author of bestselling books on relationships, talks about what makes love last.
more
The Trump Organization says it’s committed to making the historic property the “finest hotel in the country, if not the world.”
more
|