This screening of short films surveys Everson's use of abstraction in drawing attention to the performativity of everyday gestures. In the opening film Muhammad Ali is seen discussing the future he wants for his children, setting the tone for a programme orbiting around generational transmission. Students and youth play a central role in many of the films, animated by coaches, teachers and hustlers alike. The performative quality of these figures' speech – whether motivational, luring or polemic – is legible in Eason, Stone and Sugarcoated Arsenic. Repetition is paramount in The Release and Tygers, which emphasise the inherited choreographies at the heart of many sports. Charlie’s Proof and Ears, Nose and Throat foreground acts of recollection, offering a very different sense of performative transmission.
Kevin Jerome Everson, Tygers 2014, film still. Courtesy the artist; Trilobite-Arts DAC; Picture Palace Pictures
Kevin Jerome Everson, The Citizens 2009, film still. Courtesy the artist; Trilobite-Arts DAC; Picture Palace Pictures
Programme
The Citizens, United States 2009, 16mm transferred to digital, colour, sound, 6 min
Eason, United States 2016, 16mm transferred to digital, colour, sound, 15 min
Tygers, United States 2014, 16mm transferred to digital, black and white, silent, 2 min
The Release, United States 2013, 16mm transferred to digital, colour, silent, 5 min
Stone, United States 2013, HD, colour, sound, 7 min
Charlie’s Proof, United States 2013, HD, colour, sound 13 min
Sugarcoated Arsenic, Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold, United States 2013, 16mm transferred to digital, black and white, sound, 21 min
Ears, Nose and Throat, United States 2016, 16mm transferred to digital, colour, sound, 11 min