Directly after his weekend retrospective at Tate Modern, Kevin Jerome Everson is visiting HOME for an exclusive Q&A and screening of a selection of his short films from 2009 to 2017 including several UK premieres. The award-winning artist and professor, born in Ohio and based in Virginia, is proving to be one of the US’s most prolific and relevant filmmakers, constructing portraits that defy simple definition and eschew socio-political cliché.
“With a sense of place and historical research, my films combine scripted and documentary elements with rich elements of formalism. The subject matter is the gestures or tasks caused by certain conditions in the lives of working class African Americans and other people of African descent. The conditions are usually physical, social-economic circumstances or weather. Instead of standard realism I favour a strategy that abstracts everyday actions and statements into theatrical gestures, in which archival footage is re-edited or re-staged, real people perform fictional scenarios based on their own lives and historical observations intermesh with contemporary narratives. The films suggest the relentlessness of everyday life—along with its beauty—but also present oblique metaphors for art-making.” Kevin Jerome Everson (2011)
With thanks to Madeleine Molyneaux (Picture Palace Pictures) and Andrea Lissoni & Carly Whitefield (Tate Modern). Q&A hosted by Sarah Perks, Artistic Director (Visual Art) & Professor of Visual Art, Manchester School of Art.
Screening programme:
Brown and Clear (2017) are the only choices in this particular establishment. (7:40, HD, colour, sound) World Premiere, TIFF Wavelengths 2017. UK premiere .
Lost Nothing (2016) is the subject Willie James Crittenden waxes poetically about. (3:30, color) UK premiere .
Auditioning for Nathaniel (2016) has famous actor Nathaniel Jitahadi Taylor waxing poetically to dancers, painters, actors and filmmakers. (13:30, color, b&w) UK premiere.
Smooth Surface (2015) is preparing a surface for re-representation. (2:50, b&w) UK premiere.
Production Material Handler (2015) is a multiple exposure of multitasking. (2015, 16mm, 2:31, color, silent) UK premiere.
Fe26 (2014) is about two gentlemen making a living hustling metal in Cleveland, Ohio. (7:21, 16mm, color, sound) Manchester premiere—screened at BFI/LFF 2014/ screening at Tate Modern.
Sound That (2014) is about employees of the Cleveland Water Department on the hunt for leaks in the infrastructure in Cuyahoga County. (11:40,16mm,color,sound) Manchester premiere—screened at BFI/LFF 2014/ screening at Tate Modern.
Workers Leaving the Job-Site (2013) is another take on the Lumiere Brothers’ classic 1895 film. (6:30, color, silent) Manchester premiere –screening at Tate Modern.
Company Line (2009) is a film about one of the first predominately Black neighbourhoods in Mansfield Ohio. The title, Company Line, refers to the name historically used by residents to describe their neighbourhood, located on the north side of town close to the old steel mill. The Company Line began during the post-war migration of Blacks from the south to the north in the late forties. The neighbourhood was purchased in the early seventies and its residents were scattered throughout Mansfield. City employees and former residents of the Company Line narrate the film. (30:00, black and white, colour) UK premiere.