Sep 17–Dec 30, 2021

Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation

Ulysses Jenkins, Two Zone Transfer, 1979. Still of video transferred to DVD, color, sound, 23:52 min. Courtesy of the artist.
About

Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation is the first major retrospective on the work of groundbreaking video/performance artist Ulysses Jenkins, on view at ICA this fall, September 17December 30, 2021. The exhibition is co-curated by Meg Onli, ICA Andrea B. Laporte Associate Curator and Erin Christovale, Associate Curator, Hammer Museum at UCLA, where the exhibition will travel this winter, February 6May 15, 2022.

A pivotal influence on contemporary art for over fifty years, Ulysses Jenkins (born 1946 Los Angeles, lives Los Angeles) has produced video and media work that conjures vibrant expressions of how image, sound, and cultural iconography inform representation. Using archival footage, photographs, image processing and elegiac soundtracks Jenkins pulls together various strands of thought to interrogate questions of race and gender as they relate to ritual, history, and the power of the state.

Beginning as a painter and muralist, Jenkins was introduced to video just as the first consumer cameras were becoming available. He quickly seized upon the television technology as a means to broadcast alternative and critical depictions of multiculturalism—citing the catalyst of Melvin Van Peebles’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) and its call to Black filmmakers to control their subject-hood by controlling the media depicting them. Adopting the role of a “video griot,” Jenkins is inspired by the oral traditions in videos that are often structured around music and poetic recitation, as well as dynamic performances.

From his work with Video Venice News, a Los Angeles media collective he founded in the early 1970s, to his involvement with the artist group Studio Z (alongside David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, and Maren Hassinger), to his individual video and performance works with Othervisions Studio, Jenkins explicitly comments on how white supremacy is embedded in popular culture and its effects on subjectivity. Jenkins studied under Charles White, Gene Youngblood, Chris Burden, and Betye Saar, and has collaborated with many artists in his work, among them Kerry James Marshall, who performed in Two-Zone Transfer (1979); Hammons, who was the subject of King David (1978); and Nengudi and Hassinger, both of whom appeared in Jenkins’s video Dream City (1981), among other works.

Requiring three years of intensive research by the curators—including studio visits, the digitization of a sprawling archive, and conversations with Jenkins and his collaborators—the exhibition, which has been organized closely with the artist, encompasses a broad range of over twenty of Jenkins’s videos, and more than sixty works that showcase his collaborations, mural paintings, photography, and performances, highlighting the scope of the artist’s practice.

Among the many video works included in the exhibition is Mass of Images (1978), an innovative video art piece considered one of the first works in the genre by a Black artist. In it, Jenkins critiques the media’s role in perpetuating racist and harmful images of Black people in the U.S. Like other works in the exhibition, it is grounded in the issues at the heart of contemporary conversations about inequality and environmental devastation amplified by unchecked capitalism, governmental oppression, and systemic racism’s impact on Black cultural production.

Technology’s role in building community is a primary concern across Jenkins’s work. Just as the artist has used nascent technology to address pressing issues of our time, the exhibition uses current technology to capture the artist’s original intent to foster international collaboration, increase access to shared experiences, and provide a platform for marginalized voices.

Many emerging Black video artists who came of age in the 1990s and early-2000s, cite Jenkins as a major influence in their work. Jenkins’s groundbreaking and prescient work is only now being revisited by scholars, curators, and other artists. The political and social commentary present in Jenkins’s work make it particularly relevant in today’s context, such as his interrogations of Black stereotypes in the American entertainment industry in Mass of Images (1978) and Two-Zone Transfer (1979), and calls to protect the rights of indigenous groups and champion environmental conservation in Bay Window (1991).

Major support for Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida, and Lyndon J. Barrois and Janine Sherman Barrois. Support for curatorial research has been provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. The re-publication of Ulysses Jenkins’ Doggerel Life: Stories of a Los Angeles Griot is made possible with support from the Getty.

 

 

                                               

Curator Interview

Without Your Interpretation curators Meg Onli and Erin Christovale provide insights into the mastery of Ulysses Jenkins’s body of work, the indisputable relevance of the work today, and why this retrospective is long overdue.


Online Premiere: Ulysses Jenkins + Meg Onli + Erin Christovale

This virtual conversation, between artist Ulysses Jenkins and Without Your Interpretation curators Meg Onli and Erin Christovale, premiered on September 17,2021, as part of the Fall 2021 opening celebration.


Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation Virtual Tour

Experience this major retrospective on Jenkins’s work through 360° digital video capture. Click below to start your tour now!




Sun, Oct 31, 2021,
Visiting Hours: October
Tue, Nov 30, 2021,
Visiting Hours: November
Wed, Dec 15, 2021, 6:30PM–8PM
Unknown Parallels with Taji Ra’oof Nahl
Fri, Dec 31, 2021,
Visiting Hours: December
Books & Editions
Ulysses Jenkins: <em>Without Your Interpretation</em> book cover

Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation is the first major retrospective devoted to the groundbreaking West Coast video artist Ulysses Jenkins (b. 1946, Los Angeles; lives in Los Angeles.) Jenkins’s body of work, which spans from the 1970s to the present, has consistently interrogated questions of race and gender as they relate to ritual, history, and the power of the state. From his work with Video Venice News, a Los Angeles media collective he founded in the early 1970s, to his involvement with the artists’ group Studio Z (alongside figures such as David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, and Maren Hassinger), to his individual video and performance works, Jenkins explicitly comments on how white supremacy is embedded in popular culture.

Beginning as a painter and muralist, Jenkins was introduced to video just as the first consumer cameras were made available to individuals, and he quickly seized upon the television technology as a means to broadcast alternative and critical depictions of multiculturalism—citing the catalyst of Melvin Van Peebles’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) and its call to Black filmmakers to control their subject-hood by controlling the media depicting them. Adopting the role of a “video griot,” Jenkins draws upon the inspiration of oral traditions in videos that are often structured around music and poetic recitation, as well as dynamic performances.

This fully illustrated catalog—the first dedicated to Jenkin’s oeuvre—features an extensive portion of Jenkins archive, early documentary films, photographs, and ephemera as well as the video art from the past 45 years. Presenting scholarly essays, a roundtable discussion, and reflections from collaborators, historians, and artists, this publication provides an comprehensive view of Jenkins’ diverse career.

Order your copy today from artbook.com!

Dimensions
7 x 10 inches
ISBN
978-0-88454-155-4
Pages
304
Colophon
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Year
2021
$40.00
ISBN 978-0-88454-155-4
Publication Date
2021
Authors
Foreword by Zoë Ryan. Texts by Aria Dean, Kellie Jones, Erin Christovale, Meg Onli, and Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi. Reflections by Maren Hassinger, Senga Nengudi, Cauleen Smith, David Hammons, and The Charles White Archives
Designer
Studio ELLA
Authors
Foreword by Zoë Ryan. Texts by Aria Dean, Kellie Jones, Erin Christovale, Meg Onli, and Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi. Reflections by Maren Hassinger, Senga Nengudi, Cauleen Smith, David Hammons, and The Charles White Archives
Price
$40.00