Black Manifold is a series of short experimental works that delve into how Black operates as sociopolitical force, a slate that can mark a beginning as well as an end, while also engaging with the tactility of film and the theatricality of cinema.
Here, Black becomes pure flux, the becoming-imperceptible of self and night; the embrace of stars, the velvet of infinite depths. Dawn is its blanket. It folds all within itself, dreams, thought and being.
Black is social and silent, human and inhuman. It rests the eye, turning it upon itself in introspection, plunging the soul into loneliness, yet provides the continuum for hidden touches, chiasms and communications. It provides us with the space to breathe, and beckons us to leap into its freedom with reckless abandon. It makes us think differently. It dissolves subjectivity, yet brings it back. The works presented here ask, “What is this thing called black, and how can we turn it into productive thought and practice?”
We present works by Kevin Jerome Everson, Mike Bray, Brandon Neubauer and Chelsea Knight .
Curated by Avantika Bawa and Greg Minissale
Disjecta – Contemporary Art Center of Portland
8371 N Interstate Avenue
Portland, OR 97217
January 26, 2013
Film Still from American Motor Company, Kevin Jerome Everson, 2010, 12:00, 16mm, b/w, sound.
Courtesy the artist; Trilobite-Arts-D.A.C. and Picture Palace Pictures
Chelsea Knight, Frame, 2011, Video Still
Brandon Neubauer, Midsummer Suncast, 2012, Video Still
Mike Bray, Source Cue, 2012, Single channel video