I Guess You Had To Be There
Artists selected for this exhibition include Ashley Hamilton, Tim Hinck, Baggs McKelvey, and James O’Donnell.
AVA Gallery
30 Frazier Ave.
Chattanooga, TN 37405
Chattanooga, TN 37405
Between a Rock & a Hard Place is a new video installation that creates dialectic
between cultural fantasies and realities by utilizing symbolic imagery from
basketball. My intention is that my
video installation will provoke closer examination of not only the physical but
also psychological spaces we inhabit and encourage dialogue concerning authority,
celebrity, masculinity, and race.
As a former public school art teacher, I was privy to my students’
dreams. When asked to create fantasy
self-portraits of themselves in the future, two of the favorites among the boys
of my primarily African-American school were star athlete and hip hop artist. I
was reminded of artist David Hammons 1982 installation of outrageously tall
basketball hoops entitled Higher Goals that
demonstrated the likelihood of such fantasies.
I also became aware that several of my students had a parent, a close
family member, or knew someone in prison (black men comprise 40% of all males
incarcerated). How does one reconcile these two drastically different visions?
My concept is a new ‘dialogue’
between two independently created videos.
In the first video (separately titled Be a Man), a basketball bounces hypnotically, repeatedly rushing
towards the viewer from darkness and, after a booming thud, vanishing just as
quickly back (Video Sample 1). It is as if seen through a glass floor and is seemingly
self-propelled, as there is no one visibly dribbling the ball. It pauses, briefly filling the frame with its
orange flesh-like bumpy texture, before it commences its barrage again. The
pounding suggests aggression and is reminiscent of a judge’s gavel or the
ticking of a clock.
Opposite this video is a second
(separately titled Whistling)
featuring a partial view of a white man (me), from the shoulders to the
mouth,
wearing a plain white t-shirt and holding a silver whistle in his mouth
(Video
Sample 2). The man blows the whistle as
hard as he can for ten minutes, seemingly until he can blow no longer.
There is no sound. Why would a person test his/her limits in
this way? Why would they continue a futile endeavor? During the
performance, spittle both launches
and drips from the instrument in abject detail and the body becomes
increasingly weaker until it ends and loops once again. The whistle can
represent authority as it is the primary tool of the referee whom
enforces the
rules of the game. “Dribbling” can be done
with a ball or with spittle, usually by a baby. Does the absence of
sound
reflect an absence of real power or does that sound (power) exist in our
minds
regardless? In our daily lives there are no referees, but are we still
playing
a game?
The
title is both familiar and layered.
Literally, it is the relationship or dialogue between the videos. A
slang term for a basketball is “rock”.
Failure or exhaustion in reaching one’s dreams would certainly be “a
hard place,”
as would the courthouse and the prisons to which many verdicts lead.
Many young people are caught between these extremes. More importantly,
the title also hints that
what we are looking for is hidden between the two extremes. The viewer
stands between the videos and rather
than a deterministic binary, there is a third, less visible option – the
path
we choose for ourselves.
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