Personal
2014
Steffani Jemison
American, born 1981
Contemporary Art
In Steffani Jemison’s Personal, three black men— professional actors based in Brooklyn who responded to an ad Jemison placed—move improvisationally through various locations in Bed-Stuy. Shot against an unfinished mural, in a public park, and on a playing field, the actors walk forward, backward, and in slow circles, with the world around them largely unaffected by their movement.
Jemison moves between letting the footage play naturally and reversing it, making it unclear if the action is unfolding in real time or not. Techniques of repetition and reversal confuse time, space, and sequence. These strategies provoke viewers to consider the impact of inherited narratives and question notions of linear progress, particularly in relation to black Americans.
Jemison moves between letting the footage play naturally and reversing it, making it unclear if the action is unfolding in real time or not. Techniques of repetition and reversal confuse time, space, and sequence. These strategies provoke viewers to consider the impact of inherited narratives and question notions of linear progress, particularly in relation to black Americans.
- Maker/Artist
- Jemison, Steffani
- Classification
- Media Art
- Formatted Medium
- Digital video projection, color, sound, TRT, 6 minutes 45 seconds
- Departments
- Contemporary Art
- Accession Number
- 2015.8
- Credit Line
- Alfred T. White Fund
- Exhibitions
- Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond, I See Myself in You: Selections from the Collection, Art on the Stoop: Sunset Screenings
- Rights Statement
- © artist or artist's estate
- Museum Location
- This item is not on view
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