Cardinal (2019)
Cardinal (English)
Kevin Jerome Everson, Cardinal, 2019
16mm film transferred to HD video, black and white, sound, 2:30 min.
Courtesy the artist, trilobite-arts DAC, Charlottesville, Picture Palace Pictures, New York. Binoculars: Courtesy Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
The black-and-white film Cardinal shows five people watching birds with binoculars. Filming from a low level to produce an angular perspective, the camera reproduces the viewpoints of the birdwatchers looking up at the sky. Although we do not see a red cardinal, which is symbol of the American state of Ohio, the typical calls of this bird are heard throughout the soundtrack, so that the atmosphere in which the film was recorded permeates into the exhibition gallery. As in other films in this exhibition, there are “errors” on the film’s surface, in this case stripes running across the picture. These irregularities are caused by the camera mechanism scratching the film strip. Instead of avoiding or retouching these faults, Everson decides to leave them in, as they ensure that the analog technology and mechanics of filmmaking remain visible.
Kevin Jerome Everson
The work and practice of Kevin Jerome Everson encompasses photography, printmaking, sculpture and film. He studied at the University of Akron as well as at Ohio University and is Professor of Art at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Everson has been recognized with the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Alpert Award in Film/Video, the Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities, the Rome Prize of the American Academy in Rome and the Fellowship of the American Academy in Berlin. He was awarded various grants, from Creative Capital, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; and the Ohio Arts Council.
His artwork has been the subject of retrospectives and solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; and the Harvard Film Archive. His works were presented at international film festivals and art institutions including the Unknown Pleasures Festival, Berlin; Sundance Film Festival, Utah; International Film Festival Rotterdam; Images Film Festival Toronto; Venice International Film Festival; BFI/London Film Festival, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück; the Viennale, Vienna; BlackStar Film Festival, Philadelphia; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; MOCA, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; MoMA, New York; and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, Washington D.C. His films have been featured at the 2008, 2012 and 2017 Whitney Biennial and the 2013 Sharjah Biennial.
Everson is represented by Picture Palace Pictures, New York and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York.