Nov 8, 2012
Artist Development
The San Francisco Film Society presents its final KinoTek program of the year, Take Off: Kota Ezawa Kenneth Goldsmith, featuring new work by genre-bending visual artist Kota Ezawa and unconventional poet Kenneth Goldsmith, Wednesday December 12 at 7:00 pm at Kadist Art Foundation, 3295 20th Street (at Folsom). Admission is free. This exhibition concludes the 2011-12 KinoTek season, which presented eight programs of fresh new work by contemporary artists working in nontraditional, cross-platform and emergent media. Each piece is paired with a newly-commissioned article inspired by the artwork, authored by handpicked writers chosen for their unique and unlikely perspectives.
“I can’t think of a better way to conclude this two-year program than to pair Kota and Kenneth, two kindred spirits who both question the traditional boundaries of art and writing in a playful and energizing way,” said SFFS KinoTek programmer Sean Uyehara. “Their work really provides the perfect capstone to this series of KinoTek programming.”
The San Francisco Film Society’s final KinoTek program aims to unravel traditional ideas of media by bringing together the engaging genius of a pair of kindred artists working across different disciplines. At this unique exhibition, visual artist Kota Ezawa will unveil his latest project Take Off, a watercolor-based rotoscope-style animation based on footage taken from a C-SPAN news broadcast. The television feed presents former President George W. Bush leaving the White House in a Marine One helicopter and fading into the distance of a Washington skyline, the surreal scene translated into vibrant color through Ezawa’s animation process. In addition to his latest work, Ezawa will also present a few of his rarely-seen videos, in a special opportunity for fans of contemporary conceptual and video art to glimpse firsthand Ezawa’s unique contribution to the form.
In response to this new piece and Ezawa’s overall body of work, poet (and UbuWeb founder and curator) Kenneth Goldsmith will read from his forthcoming book Seven American Deaths and Disasters, which is comprised of a series of writings that are essentially transcriptions of communications proximal to terrible events in American history. Goldsmith’s magnetic readings-performances, really-are insightful looks into our shared culture and are not to be missed.
Take Off: Kota Ezawa Kenneth Goldsmith serves as a bookend to a series of KinoTek programming that has aimed to expand the perceived field of cinema. Ezawa’s and Goldsmith’s works likewise question some trademarks and assumed foundations of Art, most pointedly the overvalued notions of “originality” and “creativity,” and both employ transcription to convey ideas. Goldsmith first came across Ezawa when he was in residence at Stanford University where Ezawa was an MFA student. While there, Goldsmith happened upon Ezawa’s profound short The Simpson Verdict (2002), a transcription of the delivery of the verdict in the OJ Simpson trial as it happened on television in 1995 into animation. Goldsmith had already been experimenting with transcriptions of found material as poetry, such as his work Fidget, a record of every movement Goldsmith made during a thirteen hour period on June 16, 1997. Goldsmith has subsequently archived Ezawa’s work on UbuWeb. This will be the first time Goldsmith and Ezawa are presented in a joint program.
For complete program information visit sffs.org/Exhibition/KinoTek.
KinoTek is a programming stream presenting nontraditional, cross-platform and emergent media. Throughout 2011 and 2012 the Film Society has presented eight KinoTek programs, each featuring the work of an artist or practice that challenges the boundaries of screen-based art. Previous programs in the series have featured animator Brent Green, video artist/sculptor Nate Boyce, fine artist Adriane Colburn, interactive installation designer Karolina Sobecka, Brooklyn-based writer/performer Erin Markey, pioneering software artist Marius Watz and American multimedia artist Laurel Nakadate. Each program was accompanied by a written article commissioned by the Film Society specifically for that exhibition.
KinoTek is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation.
For interviews contact bproctor@sffs.org.
For photos and press materials visit sffs.org/pressdownloads.