I
ABOUT THE COVER The front cover of this issue of In Practice features a detail of Untitled (2016), a work by painter Jacqueline Humphries created to be displayed under ultraviolet light. With surface textures that evoke computer monitor pixels and video game graphics, and seemingly glowing in our galleries like an illuminated screen, the work is part of Jacqueline Humphries: jHΩ1:)—the artist’s first large-scale museum exhibition, which premieres at the Wexner Center this fall. Hear more from Humphries about how her work addresses the relationship between abstract art and digital technology inside. Jacqueline Humphries, Untitled, 2016. Oil and enamel on linen, 114 x 127 in. Collection of the artist. © Jacqueline Humphries. Photo: Jason Mandella.
The back cover features a still from one of Hope Ginsburg’s video works that explore the use of meditation as a tool for confronting the rising tides of climate change. Keep reading for more about the upcoming Wex-supported project Meditation Ocean. Hope Ginsburg, Land Dive Team: Bay of Fundy, 2016. Single-channel video, 7:08 mins. Image courtesy of the artist.
wex
in practice 1
Fall 2021 Issue | Conversations VOLUME 2, NUMBER 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2
J acqueline Humphries on jHΩ1:) and Painting after Painting
DANIEL MARCUS, ASSOCIATE CURATOR OF EXHIBITIONS
6
Marc Ribot Moves to Center Stage
MELISSA STARKER, CREATIVE CONTENT AND PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER
8
Rethinking Resilience
TRACIE MCCAMBRIDGE, DIRECTOR OF ART & RESILIENCE
10 Prefiguring the Black Director Boom in the Work of Michael Schultz
KEITH CORSON, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF FILM, UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS
12 Film/Video Studio Journals: Hope Ginsburg
JENNIFER LANGE, FILM/VIDEO STUDIO CURATOR
14
Meet Aja Davis, Associate Director of Development
MARY ABOWD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, AND EMILY SIEBENMORGEN, COMMUNICATIONS INTERN
Recently one of our curators noted, “exhibitions are made through a series of conversations.” That idea of creative, thoughtful exchange struck home as we assembled this issue and our fall programs, and in the following pages you’ll discover how those conversations spark the work we do at the Wex every day. Curator Daniel Marcus speaks with painter Jacqueline Humphries about how her new exhibition jHΩ1:) emerged from a series of discussions with guest curator Mark Godfrey and inquiries surrounding art, technology, and the Wex building itself. You’ll also hear from interdisciplinary artist Hope Ginsburg about Meditation Ocean, an Artist Residency Award–supported project made in response to the impacts of climate change on our daily lives. It too emerges from a robust, ongoing series of conversations, in this case between Ginsburg, our Learning & Public Practice Director Dionne Custer Edwards, and Film/Video Studio Curator Jennifer Lange, among many others. While Humphries and Ginsburg are engaged with our current moment, art is often created in deep dialogue with the past. In that spirit, film scholar Keith Corson examines the underappreciated influence of director Michael Schultz—the focus of an October retrospective—on American cinema. We also spend a moment with legendary guitarist Marc Ribot, who discusses his own remarkable history (with collaborators that include Tom Waits and The Black Keys) in advance of a new album and performance here in November. Crucially, you’ll also gain insight into how the ways we hope to engage with you—as learners, members, and donors—are being reshaped by conversations we’re having centerwide about diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and of course, care. I hope you find these conversations as meaningful as I do. Johanna Burton EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
2
ABOVE :):):), 2016. Oil on linen, 100 x 111 in. Daskal Collection. Image courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali, New York. © Jacqueline Humphries. Photo: Jason Mandella. OPPOSITE PAGE Jacqueline Humphries at her studio in Red Hook, New York, 2021. © Jacqueline Humphries. Photo: Martha Fleming-Ives.
3
Jacqueline Humphries on jHΩ1:) and Painting after Painting DANIEL MARCUS, ASSOCIATE CURATOR OF EXHIBITIONS
The exhibition at the Wex surveys the past seven years of your practice, beginning around 2013–14. Visitors may be curious about this timing. Can you bring us back to that moment in terms of its significance for your work?
As artist Jacqueline Humphries and guest curator Mark Godfrey were finalizing their plans for her fall 2021 exhibition at the Wexner Center, Jacqueline Humphries: jHΩ1:), Humphries took a moment to discuss her working process and reflect on the experience of organizing her largest solo presentation to date. Humphries, a painter based in New York, was recently the subject of solo exhibitions at Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne (2020) and Dia Bridgehampton, New York (2019); London-based curator and critic Godfrey was senior curator at Tate Modern from 2007 to 2021.
The time frame of the show represents a pivot in my work where I began to extensively use machine-made stencils to make the paintings. I also had recently moved to a much larger studio. When embarking on a new body of work, I tend to throw a lot of things at the wall, giving free rein to impulse across many canvases. But the old studio had paintings stacked in front of paintings in big piles, where I couldn’t really see the totality of what I was doing. The new studio was like opening up a big fan, giving me a heightened sense of the body of work as a whole.
I was born into circumstances in which painting was considered to be in its death throes and very much in crisis, to the point where my entire approach to painting was formed by this cultural trauma, so to speak. Some of the tenets of that attitude remain quite valid, and yet, if you substitute “painting” for the “entire Western cultural episteme,” the real stakes are more exposed. For instance, the whole endgame of painting, which seemed to have lapsed into a competition for who could make the most radical “last” painting—for who could finally “solve” painting. That was one model, and Yve-Alain Bois wrote about it very cogently. But also consider that painting was willing—compelled, even—to walk right up to the precipice of its own extinction and look into that abyss. It’s then that you have to ask: is this thing worth saving? Is it worth doing? And if the answer is “yes,” then at what point does “critique” allow us to begin making positive assertions about our cultural lives, however carefully, surgically, experimentally, or even comically? For me this gave way to a new dramatic situation, a new painting “persona,” so to speak, as a counterpoint to the whole heroic painting narrative.
4
This might be a good moment to ask how you envision the dialogue between what you’re doing on the canvas and what’s happening in the world of digital culture—and smartphones in particular. Were you aware at the time that the stenciling process was going to initiate a paradigm shift? Or was it more an element added to your working process in the moment? Since way back, I had worked with stencils, but they were hand cut; so the act of stenciling itself was not a paradigm shift so much as my ability to make very elaborate ones quickly. I bought a laser cutter when they became very cheap and available, enabling me to make any kind of stencil very spontaneously. That completely revolutionized the way I was working, since I could make anything on the fly. I’d be working on a painting, have an idea, say “okay, let’s make this stencil”—and then in an hour, I would have it in hand. I like that feeling of movement or velocity, and to be developing tools for painting at the same time as I’m painting. I like to make things that make things, and having that machine in my studio really expanded my ability to do that. In many ways, the past seven years have been a great time to be a painter: the old taboos about the “death of painting” no longer really hold their charge. But your work has continued to challenge the medium, transforming the process of painting and placing it in dialogue with digital culture—emojis, the Internet, or the CAPTCHA code referenced in the exhibition title. I’m curious about the impetus behind your rethinking of painting in the last decade or so, and especially your refusal to accept it as is.
So, it was always axiomatic, just a given, that I’m an abstract painter in the materialist tradition of Kazimir Malevich, Agnes Martin, Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, etc.—artists committed to nonobjective painting at its most distant point from figuration. Taking up this tradition long after modernism’s official demise, it’s almost as if abstraction created a vacuum around itself, allowing things from outside the world of painting to stick to the canvas, like a decal or a bumper sticker. My paintings became absorbent, and when things like emoticons and emojis began to stick to them, it threw me into a kind of crisis: like “wait, what am I doing?” But it also felt irresistible, in the sense that I was compelled by this development. It seemed to be related to the fact that suddenly all of us are stuck on a keyboard all day. An outsize portion of our lives is mediated by the keyboard; entire modes of expression take shape there in a vastly expanded field, with much of its content ready-made and proprietary. Over the last decade or so, the art world has caught up to abstract painting, but in a different way than your work proposes: it caught up with abstract painting as a tradition. From the vantage of the 21st century, it’s nearly impossible to fathom the perspective of the first abstract painters. There’s something so alien—and seductive—about abstraction in that sense. For many painters today, there’s a kind of excitement, even a thrill, about everything that came before “the last painting.” I absolutely share that thrill. I wanted to be Malevich making his black square or Robert Ryman, even while he was still alive. Manet’s
painting of poet Stéphane Mallarmé was so achingly familiar to me as a young artist looking at it 100 years after it was made, it filled me with the most intense longing. But we are forever already through the looking glass—because the conditions that made those works possible are sealed within them. It’s just that painting can do this thing that nothing else can do. I knew I wanted to be a painter well before I knew what it was I wanted to paint. Shifting gears, I have a question about the Wexner Center, which will be an active presence in the exhibition. I know you and guest curator Mark Godfrey have both wrestled at length with the show’s architectural setting. How has your shared dialogue with the Peter Eisenman–designed building evolved since your first discussions, and what sort of interventions in this space might visitors expect to see? The question with this building is: do you neutralize Eisenman or do you play with him? I love the building. I think it’s an exciting,
important architectural moment. It’s kind of beckoning, right? In a way it’s sort of punk rock. Its form of friendliness is a snare. It doesn’t accommodate art—you have to make art in it, in a way. Mark and I have made some unusual decisions, some of which run counter to Eisenman. Some of our strategy involves hanging things in places where the architect made sure you wouldn’t be able to, even if that might compromise the work in some way. But that’s the challenge. It’s been really fun working with this building and playing with it, because it plays back. Although the show isn’t organized in a strictly chronological format, it does group together several distinct bodies of work, including installations that blur the traditional boundaries of easel painting. Are there bodies of work that intersect with each other in this exhibition that would never have shared space before? Yes! I’ve never done a show on this scale before. It’s not a survey, but it does cover a duration, so several different bodies of work are represented here that I would not otherwise have imagined together. Working with Mark has given me the confidence that I’m in good hands. The selection he’s made brings out a certain progression of ideas effectively. And for my part, I’m making a new work for this exhibition, which is different from anything I’ve previously done. It’s the biggest work I’ve ever made. I intend to hang it in a place in the building where probably nothing has been hung before, right in front of the glass curtain wall. So, I made the paintings, and Mark is making a show out of those paintings—we are in it together. But then I made a new work that’s a real departure for me, perhaps as a way to ensure that this exhibition doesn’t only look back but also points ahead, to the future. This conversation has been edited for length.
Celebrate the opening of Jacqueline Humphries: jHΩ1:) at the Wex with a free public preview on September 17 that features an onstage conversation between the artist and Godfrey. Godfrey delivers a virtual talk about his curatorial practice on October 4, and Humphries returns for a performative dialogue with writer and performing artist Felix Bernstein on October 27. Visit wexarts.org for event details and other exhibition-related programs. OPPOSITE PAGE •sx, 2020. Oil on canvas, 100 x 111 in. Private collection. LEFT Sign, 2019. Pigmented epoxy resin, 32 1/4 x 12 x 1 1/2 in. Courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali, New York. Images courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali, New York. © Jacqueline Humphries. Photos: Jason Mandella.
5
Marc Ribot Moves to Center Stage 6
MELISSA STARKER, CREATIVE CONTENT AND PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER On Sunday, November 14, Marc Ribot will have the spotlight to himself, when the legendary guitarist is slated to perform a solo set at Mershon Auditorium. Yet for the past 40 years, Ribot has mostly been heard in a supporting role, working with an incredible roster of artists that includes Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, John Lurie’s legendary New York ensemble The Lounge Lizards, 1960s soul pioneer Solomon Burke, Neko Case, and Caetano Veloso. Ribot spoke with us recently about his approach to working with such performers and the state of mind behind his latest album, Hope, recorded with his post-rock trio Ceramic Dog.
How do you prepare for working with other artists? I try not to prepare. My approach, if I have one, is one: show up; two: listen to the lyrics; three: try to make the lyrics make some kind of sense that I like. Which doesn’t always mean if the lyric is sad, play a sad note. Sometimes you can contradict the lyric. And sometimes the singer doesn’t always agree that you have to contradict the lyric (laughs). But you have a lot of power as a side musician. I get to listen to a lyric and then think about how it could be made to mean something. And you see, that’s very complicated, because first, to mean something people have to hear it, which means you have to find a sonic space on whatever instrument you’re playing so that the vocal can be heard. And second, it means framing the meaning in a different way. I can frame it as jazz, as punk rock, as a lot of different genres. I can make it more psychoacoustically intense by playing more trebly or by playing denser, atonal chords, or I can make it more psychoacoustically easy by playing more consonant harmonies. I can place it historically in the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, ’90s, or in the far future. You’ve played with way too many artists for us to cover, but I have to ask about Tom Waits. You started working with him in the 1980s and you’ve worked with him as recently as 2018 for your album Songs of Resistance. How did that partnership start? Well, I think Tom came down and heard me play. And he definitely sat in with The Lounge Lizards. He sang “Auld Lang Syne” one New Year’s Eve at a particularly twisted performance. So I was one of a number of guitarists he called to play on Rain Dogs (1985). We hit it off and he called me for the tour. People think of Tom as a character and as a voice, but when you work with him in the studio he’s also a producer. When you work with him live, he’s a music director. And he’s super creative as a producer.
He really has a good ear for understanding how the sound is framing the lyric. What decade is it, what continent is it on, how close, what kind of room is it in? If it’s a conversation that’s supposed to be taking place in an intimate bar, well then it shouldn’t sound like it’s taking place in an arena. I greatly admire Tom for caring about how stuff sounds and having the guts to fight with everybody until it sounds that way. And in terms of the musical choices, Tom works as kind of an editor. He’s not dictating what you play. He creates a vibe on the guitar, or on whatever. On a tumba drum. And then we try to fit in with the vibe, and if it’s not working he says, “try something else.” But he gives a lot of freedom to the musicians. He picks the musicians who understand what he’s going for. Because I’m in Ohio, I also have to ask if you have thoughts to share about working with The Black Keys on Attack & Release (2008). Oh yeah, wonderful thoughts. It was really fun, and tell them to call me again (laughs). The Black Keys are great musicians and really did their homework in terms of listening to some great R & B. I was wondering about the title of your new album. The [cover] graphic on Hope is this tiny, blurry dot that is probably the planet Earth, and it looks like it’s receding in a sea of black space, and I’ll be honest with you, the original title was Better Luck Next Time (laughs). But I just didn’t have the heart to be such a downer, you know? I mean, we had just gotten rid of Trump and there seemed to be a cure for COVID, so I thought, we’ve gotta celebrate while we can. So let’s rename it Hope. This conversation has been edited for length. To hear more from Marc Ribot, go to wexarts.org/blog. On the website you’ll also find details for other live music performances scheduled this fall, including appearances by Moviola (September 24), Arooj Aftab (October 16), Mary Lattimore with special guest Ana Roxanne (December 5), and Yasmin Williams (December 8). Photo: Sandlin Gaither.
7
Rethinking Resilience TRACIE MCCAMBRIDGE, DIRECTOR OF ART & RESILIENCE
8
Resilience is a word that has been slung around quite a lot in our tumultuous recent history. Like “mindfulness” and “self-care,” the term carries a range of motivations and some baggage. For instance, I boast a long history of sketchy purchases, food choices, and Hulu binges in the name of self-care. I don’t necessarily regret any of those moments… but I increasingly see them for what they are (buying spirulina tablets to balance a Cheez Ball–heavy diet is not true self-care). More seriously, these terms and concepts can be weaponized to put the onus of care and expectations of grit, or resilience, solely on the individual. But think, as an individual, of the system that you live within. We absolutely have an internal mental and emotional landscape that requires our care and attention. Stepping out from ourselves, however, we have interpersonal relationships with family and friends, and we are impacted by (and impact in turn) our work culture, local communities, and broader institutional and government policies. We live within an ecological structure of well-being. Meditation can do many things, but it cannot save you if you are living in an abusive home within a neighborhood plagued by violence and drug dependence. Getting your steps in won’t counter the effects of daily microaggressions at work. And, a loving family and friend structure can’t always make you take your medication. The true work of resilience is complex, and it must be a collective effort. The Wexner Center’s new Department of Art & Resilience, alongside a variety of additional initiatives, recognize that we as an institution are part of that system of health. As such, we have a responsibility and opportunity to care for the collective through our policies and programs. We believe that arts engagement, structured with intention, can support and enhance individual, community, and societal well-being and resilience. Programs like On Pause—organized in collaboration with Deja Redman and Monique McCrystal of Columbus’s Replenish: The Spa Co-op— provide a moment for reflection and space for calm within the week. Participants can also walk away from their time with Deja and Monique equipped with new tools to help them feel grounded in everyday life, as well as a deepened ability to empathize through perspectives offered by our exhibiting artists. We continue to strengthen and critique our access methods, and our passionate Accessibility Manager Helyn Marshall guides us to continually reflect on our path toward the very best practices. Our local and campus partnerships generate an alchemic mixture of diverse viewpoints and strengths, combining the arts with social work, medicine, public health, restorative justice efforts, human trafficking abolition, and trauma therapy.
9
I started this work in 2013 with Art on the Brain. Folks living with chronic effects of brain trauma, alongside their families and friends, would gather in our galleries and performance spaces to talk about the art on view at the Wex and participate in guided activities. I’ll admit that my initial direction in the design of this program was very education focused. Contemporary art is complex and novel…to me, a perfect storm of stimuli for a healing and growing mind. But as I observed my groups, I realized that, while learning was inherent to the experience, something much more powerful was happening. My new friends were finding space for deep belonging, no matter how they needed to show up (or occasionally not show up) each week. The sensory languages and subtle layers of meaning offered in the works would often invite personal storytelling and important emotional discoveries within minds that were surveying their new landscapes. We soon expanded this practice to work with military veterans, human trafficking survivors, and women finding a healthy new path after incarceration. It’s been an honor to cobuild these healing spaces and delightful to collaborate with the social workers who help ensure a safe landing for our group members, wherever their journeys take them each week. This new world that we are all navigating calls for a deepened focus and renewed commitment to care and healing. This work is a living and evolving practice that requires experimentation and
courageous vulnerability. We cannot truly do the work of building resilience without also examining the systemic practices that create harm. Under the leadership of Executive Director Johanna Burton in partnership with our Director of Learning & Public Practice Dionne Custer Edwards, we at the Wex are asking ourselves to examine how we contribute to these systems, how we can dismantle what is broken, and how we can build an institution that is nourishing to our staff and to our local and broader communities. We are asking ourselves how we currently and could potentially impact this ecology of well-being in which we live and work. You are a vital part of this journey and practice. We invite you to create along with us and reimagine what’s possible in this community that we are continuously building together. Here’s to a new chapter of Art & Resilience for all. Visit wexarts.org for details about the center’s Art & Resilience programs, including our fall season of On Pause workshops starting October 13 at noon. OPPOSITE PAGE Monique McCrystal leads an On Pause meditation workshop in the Wexner Center’s Climate Changing exhibition, 2021. Photo: Sylke Krell. ABOVE FROM LEFT Tracie McCambridge leads an Art on the Brain session in Fiber: Sculpture 1960–present, 2015. Photo: Jo McCulty. An Art on the Brain participant reflects on a portrait featured in Mickalene Thomas: I Can’t See You without Me, 2018. Photo: Ava Morgan.
10
Prefiguring the Black Director Boom in the Work of Michael Schultz
and early 1990s. This is more than an oversight. It is an erasure of a filmmaker who shaped the past half century and laid the foundation for subsequent screen artists.
KEITH CORSON, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF FILM, UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS
Seen as creative breakthroughs, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) and John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood (1991) received near universal critical acclaim when they hit theaters. Both films garnered Oscar nominations for best original screenplay and have since been added to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. Yet, for anyone familiar with the films of Michael Schultz, both projects seem eerily familiar.
We are excited to spotlight the prolific career of theater, television, and film director Michael Schultz in October as part of a citywide series of events being presented in conjunction with the publication of Wil Haygood’s book Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World. To mark the occasion, we invited film scholar Keith Corson to reflect on Schultz’s unique place in film history; Corson is the author of ReFocus: The Films of Francis Veber (2019) and Trying to Get Over: African American Directors after Blaxploitation, 1977–1986 (2016). —DAVID FILIPI, DIRECTOR OF FILM/VIDEO
Before Spike Lee or John Singleton, there was Michael Schultz. Credited on more theatrically released Hollywood features than any other African American director of the 20th century, Schultz also had equally important parallel careers directing for the stage and television. Despite his accomplishments in cinema and beyond, discussions regarding the history of Black directors omit Schultz with an alarming frequency. Too often, timelines of African American cinema begin with the independent race films of Oscar Micheaux, move to the Blaxploitation-era offerings of Melvin Van Peebles and Gordon Parks, and then skip to Spike’s arrival in 1986 with She’s Gotta Have It. Michael Schultz’s career is rarely included despite it being a key bridge between the Blaxploitation cycle of the 1970s and the Black director boom of the late 1980s
Singleton’s coming-of-age story Boyz n the Hood clearly evokes Schultz’s 1975 breakout Cooley High. With stories centered around best friends making their way through the final year of high school in the inner city, both films pair a brainy protagonist with an athletic phenom and end with the tragic death of the athlete character at the hands of local gang members. They also share mournful tributes with surviving friends pouring liquor onto the ground. While Singleton has admitted that he used Cooley High as the model for Boyz n the Hood, the homage largely escaped the watchful eye of film critics and Academy members heaping praise on Singleton in 1991. The failure to identify the influence of Schultz would have been shocking had it not happened two years earlier. If Singleton borrowed themes and structure from Cooley High, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing can only be understood as a brash repurposing of Schultz’s 1976 hit Car Wash. Among the numerous parallels, both films use ensemble casts, single city block
settings, and narratives covering the span of a single day to create microcosms of urban America. They both feature generational tensions between white ethnic business owners and their sons, radio DJs as reflexive commentators, disenfranchised militants, boom box obsessives, cinephilic callbacks, and metatextual commentary through casting actors defined by their contributions to the civil rights struggle (Ossie Davis and Clarence Muse, respectively). The films even share nearly identical scenes where a child is almost hit by a car and then humiliated in front of onlookers as he gets spanked by his mother. Simply put, the similarities are abundant and undeniable. Still, the echoes of Car Wash didn’t figure into the critical conversation in 1989. Instead, Spike Lee was celebrated as a singular auteur without an antecedent. A far cry from Singleton graciously acknowledging the influence of Schultz, Lee has never cited Car Wash as an inspiration. When I asked Spike years ago about the numerous connections between Car Wash and Do the Right Thing, his response was defensive and dismissive. Artists often struggle to talk about their own work and we can only speculate about the reasons why Spike is unwilling to acknowledge (or is possibly unconscious of) the profound impact Schultz has had on his own work. Regardless, the responsibility of making connections and acknowledging the work of Schultz rests with film scholars, critics, and audiences, not with Spike Lee. For my money, Cooley High and Car Wash are richer films than Boyz n the Hood and Do the Right Thing. As a whole, Schultz’s directorial output is more thoughtful and well crafted than Singleton’s, with Cooley High aging far more gracefully than Boyz n the Hood as the years pass. Similarly, the socially mimetic nuance of Car Wash leads to far richer and more complex readings than are allowed by the heavy-handed didacticism of Do the Right Thing. This doesn’t diminish the value of Singleton or Lee, both of whom are immensely talented and historically significant filmmakers. It simply emphasizes the need to reevaluate and appreciate Schultz.
We live in a world created by Michael Schultz and it’s hard to imagine the past half century freed from his influence. Think of the oversized imprint made by Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington, then understand that both actors made their big-screen debuts in Schultz films (1972’s Together for Days and 1981’s Carbon Copy). When we see the global stardom of Will Smith or the fruitful careers of other rappers turned actors, we must acknowledge that it was Schultz who proved that hip-hop artists could be more than musical accompaniment when he cast Run-DMC and the Fat Boys in Krush Groove (1985) and Disorderlies (1987). To marvel at the media empire that Tyler Perry has created, it’s important to recognize that Schultz’s Gospel Theater adaptation Woman Thou Art Loosed (2004) made its way to the multiplex first and primed the box office for Perry’s subsequent success. When we look at the inroads made by Ryan Coogler, F. Gary Gray, and Ava DuVernay in having major studios entrust blockbuster budgets to African American directors, understand that it was Schultz who broke the glass ceiling of “crossover” success and scale of production with Which Way Is Up? (1977) and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978). And when we praise the artistry of Spike Lee or John Singleton, we should understand that their most celebrated films are largely reinterpretations of Schultz’s creative contributions. The continuum of African American cinema is incomplete without a thorough accounting of Michael Schultz’s contributions. He’s a remarkable filmmaker who persisted in an era when nearly every other Black screen artist was shut out of Hollywood. Catch screenings of Cooley High, Car Wash, Krush Groove, and other era-defining Schultz films at the Wex October 14–19. Schultz joins us for a free, career-spanning conversation with Wil Haygood on October 18 and leads a free masterclass on directing for television on October 19. Local author Hanif Abdurraqib introduces Car Wash on October 15. Visit wexarts.org for a complete schedule and details. ABOVE Cooley High. Image courtesy of Park Circus. OPPOSITE PAGE Car Wash. Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
11
Film/Video Studio Journals: Hope Ginsburg JENNIFER LANGE, FILM/VIDEO STUDIO CURATOR A recurring feature of In Practice, the Film/Video Studio Journals offer a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes work of the Wexner Center’s Film/Video Studio residency program, as told by the artists themselves. While our focus is postproduction support, the studio prides itself on remaining nimble and creative enough to assist artists even in the earliest stages of research and development. This month’s contribution is from Hope Ginsburg, a Virginia-based artist in the very early stages of preproduction on Meditation Ocean, an ambitious new multichannel installation that combines footage and audio captured during a series of underwater meditation sessions. Supported through the studio and a Wexner Center Artist Residency Award, this collaborative project, scheduled for presentation at the center in 2023, combines Ginsburg’s interests in marine ecology and human wellness in an immersive gallery space intended for use by school groups and the greater community. Both the studio and the center’s Department of Learning & Public Practice will be collaborating with the artist on the conceptualization of the project as well as a series of related talks, workshops, and classes that will be an integral part of its presentation. While Hope has been preparing for production this fall, which she touches on below, we’ve received news that Meditation Ocean and its related programs at the Wex are the recipient of a grant from Ohio State’s Women & Philanthropy group!
“What better time to begin to tell the Meditation Ocean story than this very moment? I write with motel Wi-Fi, traveling to the first M.O. script-making workshop. This collaborative event will inform the first of the project’s meditation dives, set for a site visit off the coast of Key Largo, Florida, in just a few weeks. Pinpointing the start of a project like Meditation Ocean can be murky—three years in development, it is in other ways just getting started. What is abundantly clear is the catalytic role that the Wexner Center has played throughout the entire process. Meditation Ocean delves deeply into the capacity of mindfulness practice to build resilience through oceanic meditations and responsive terrestrial actions. The project builds on the momentum of recent climate-related installation works such as Land Dive Team:
13
Bay of Fundy (2016), which proposes the practice of present-moment awareness with equanimity for coping with catastrophic climate change, and the collaborative Swirling (2019), which offers labor with other species—in this case communities of hard corals—as a path toward shared survival. Both of these works were edited at the Wexner Center, and I can unequivocally say that they would not have been realized without the support of the Film/Video Studio. Meditation Ocean was born of the idea to hybridize this recent video installation format in my work with long-standing participatory and pedagogical elements. With the financial support of an Artist Residency Award, the Film/Video Studio’s significant postproduction resources, and the partnership of the center’s newly minted Department of Learning & Public Practice, I can’t imagine a better
place to make this project than the interdisciplinary laboratory of the Wex. From this vantage point there is a vast amount to do in preparation for the 2023 exhibition premiere, and I look forward to seeing and sharing where the M.O. current flows from here.” —HOPE GINSBURG Watch wexarts.org and facebook.com/WexArts for updates on Ginsburg’s project and forthcoming presentation at the Wex. OPPOSITE PAGE FROM TOP Hope Ginsburg, Land Dive Team: Bay of Fundy, 2016. Single-channel video, 7:08 mins. Meditation Ocean, M.O. 1 [working title]. Production still, 2021. ABOVE Hope Ginsburg, Matt Flowers, and Joshua Quarles, Swirling, 2019. Four-channel video installation, 12:58 mins. Images courtesy of the artists.
14
Meet Aja Davis, Associate Director of Development MARY ABOWD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, AND EMILY SIEBENMORGEN, COMMUNICATIONS INTERN Aja Davis joined the Wexner Center in March 2021 as associate director of development. In this role, she leads efforts to acquire and retain individual donors in Columbus and beyond through a revitalized program focused on major gifts. Davis comes to the Wex from the United Way of Central Ohio, where she served as a director of individual giving and donor stewardship. Prior to that, she worked at St. Stephen’s Community House, a nonprofit serving children and families in Columbus’s Greater Linden Community. Born and raised in Columbus, Davis brings a contagious enthusiasm for community and a talent for connecting and collaborating. Below, she describes the challenges and possibilities of fundraising during a pandemic, reminds us that there’s more than one way to give, and recalls a lasting Wex memory from childhood. “What’s challenging for fundraisers, especially now, is the fact that the average person consumes something like seven hours of media a day, from commercials to podcasts to Zoom meetings. That’s a lot of noise. So as a fundraiser and communicator, how do you make sure you’re not just noise? Also, I think the downfall of some development work is leaning too much into a transactional approach—when you start thinking of your relationships or exchanges as ‘doing this so that I can ask for that.’ When that starts to creep into your work, potential donors can feel it. I like to emphasize with donors that they truly are partners in our mission to create a space committed to artistic experimentation, one that encourages open dialogue about art, racial equity, climate change, LGBTQI+ rights, and more. Recently, donor support has allowed us to enact our values of accessibility, equity, and inclusion by transforming our membership levels so that no one who wants to participate in the life of the Wex is left out. It’s important to add that there are so many ways—beyond dollars—to help our arts community thrive. Sharing a special skill or talent, helping
with technology or social media, volunteering your time: all of that goes toward our mission and can be an extraordinary way to give. I remember an early visit to the Wex with my mom and grandma when I was about 10 years old. There was a display of masks from an indigenous group, colorful paintings, and different languages written on the walls. It felt like a place of wonderment, exploration, and mystery. It must have stuck with me because that experience of cultural exchange later led to my studies in anthropology at Ithaca College. Ultimately, it led me back to the Wex years later—and I couldn’t be happier.” Ready to take a stand for creativity, artists, and the role art plays in imagining a just society? Learn more about our reimagined approach to membership at wexarts.org/join. And if you’re interested in personally ensuring contemporary art thrives in our region— while meeting the artists, curators, and community leaders who make it possible— contact Aja at adavis@wexarts.org about becoming a Wex Advocate. Image courtesy of Aja Davis.
COMING WINTER 2022 15
TO BEGIN, AGAIN A PREHISTORY OF THE WEX 1968–89
FALL EVENTS 16
In the galleries or online, there’s more to discover at the Wex. Head to wexarts.org for a complete lineup of virtual and in-person screenings, performances, workshops, talks, and more. Note that many online events remain on view after their debut. Tickets for in-person events are available at wexarts.org or at the Wexner Center.
Find more: wexarts.org Sign up: wexarts.org/newsletters
Exhibitions Jacqueline Humphries: jHΩ1:) At the Wex through Jan 2, 2022 SPECIAL EVENT
Fall Exhibition Preview Featuring a conversation with Jacqueline Humphries and guest curator Mark Godfrey | 5:30 pm At the Wex Fri, Sept 17 | 5–8 pm
Learning & Public Practice FOR ALL AGES
Wex Open House At the Wex Wed, Sept 29 | 4–7 pm CURATOR TALK
Mark Godfrey Where Does Art Lie? On wexarts.org Mon, Oct 4 | 7 pm ARTIST TALK
Connect at: @wexarts #theWex
A Performative Dialogue Featuring Jacqueline Humphries and Felix Bernstein At the Wex Wed, Oct 27 | 4 & 7 pm
Feedback on this publication? Email listweb@wexarts.org
Diversities in Practice Watch wexarts.org for details
Film/Video DOCUMENTARIES
Unorthodocs On wexarts.org and at the Wex Fri–Mon, Oct 22–25 THIS PAGE CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Jacqueline Humphries, Two Cat, 2016. Oil on linen, 100 x 111 in. Collection of Jack K. Cayre, New York. Image courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali, New York. © Jacqueline Humphries. Photo: Jason Mandella. Jacqueline Humphries at her studio in Red Hook, New York, 2021. © Jacqueline Humphries. Photo: Martha Fleming-Ives. Felix Bernstein. Image courtesy of the artist. Arooj Aftab. Photo: Diana Markosian. The Village Detective. Image courtesy of Kino Lorber.
VISITING FILMMAKER ARTIST RESIDENCY AWARD PROJECT
The Village Detective (Bill Morrison, 2019) At the Wex Fri, Nov 19 FOR FAMILIES
Zoom: Family Film Festival At the Wex Sat, Dec 11
Performing Arts MUSIC
Moviola Broken Rainbows: Deadpan Charms and Dubious Yarns At the Wex Fri, Sept 24 | 8 pm Arooj Aftab At the Wex Sat, Oct 16 | 8 pm Marc Ribot At the Wex Sun, Nov 14 | 5 pm Katia and Marielle Labèque At the Wex Tue, Nov 16 | 8 pm
Our Mission The Wexner Center for the Arts is Ohio State’s multidisciplinary laboratory for contemporary art and culture.
The Wexner Center for the Arts is part of The Ohio State University and receives major institutional support from the university. WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Through exhibitions, performances, screenings, educational programs, artist residencies, and publications, the Wex serves as a vital forum where artists test ideas and where diverse audiences engage the art and issues of our time.
JACQUELINE HUMPHRIES: JHΩ1:) MADE POSSIBLE BY
Girlfriend Fund Greene Naftali, New York
In its programs, the Wex balances a commitment to experimentation with a critical appreciation of the past. Our work affirms the university’s pursuit of civic participation, freedom of expression, and robust dialogue.
FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
FILM/VIDEO STUDIO SUPPORTED IN PART BY
Experience what’s next. Cutting-edge cultural events. Dialogues about pressing issues. Initiatives that foster social change. Access to the arts for everyone. Support all this and more as a Wex member. Whether contributing $1 or $10,000, you have a place here—taking a stand for creativity, artists, and the role art plays in imagining a just society. Learn more about our new approach to membership at wexarts.org/join.
FREE SUNDAYS POWERED BY
EXHIBITIONS MADE POSSIBLE BY
LEARNING & PUBLIC PRACTICE PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Bill and Sheila Lambert
Crane Family Foundation Mike and Paige Crane
ART & RESILIENCE PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
WEXNER CENTER FOUNDATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES Leslie H. Wexner, Chair Kristina M. Johnson, PhD, Vice Chair Bill Lambert, President Trustees David M. Aronowitz Lisa M. Barton Jeni Britton Johanna Burton Paige Crane Adam R. Flatto Michael Glimcher Paul Judge Elizabeth P. Kessler C. Robert Kidder Nancy Kramer Mark D. Kvamme Ronald A. Pizzuti Pete Scantland Joyce Shenk Alex Shumate Abigail S. Wexner Sue Zazon Ex Officio Melissa L. Gilliam, MD, MPH Ann Hamilton Bruce A. Soll, Treasurer Mark E. Vannatta, Secretary SENIOR PROGRAMMING STAFF Johanna Burton Executive Director Megan Cavanaugh Chief Operating Officer Lane Czaplinski Director of Performing Arts Dionne Custer Edwards Director of Learning & Public Practice David Filipi Director of Film/Video Bill Horrigan Curator at Large Kelly Kivland Chief Curator of Exhibitions Jennifer Lange Film/Video Studio Curator PUBLICATION STAFF Mary Abowd Associate Editor Kendall Markley Senior Graphic Designer Nisiqi Graphic Designer Erik Pepple Chief Communications Officer Ryan Shafer Publications Editor Melissa Starker Creative Content and Public Relations Manager
17
wex
in practice
18 WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS | THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY | 1871 NORTH HIGH STREET | COLUMBUS, OHIO 43210-1393
Fall 2021 Issue | Conversations volume 2, number 1
NON-PROFIT ORG U S POSTAGE P A I D COLUMBUS OHIO PERMIT NO 711