In Berlin between February 11 and July 30, 2023, the Julia Stoschek Foundation presents the exhibition Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation, which is the European premiere and the first retrospective of the groundbreaking video and performance artist Ulysses Jenkins. The exhibition travels to Germany from Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

Ulysses Jenkins is a pioneering video artist who has been influential in contemporary art for over 50 years. He uses video, sound, and cultural iconography to explore questions of race and gender in relation to ritual, history, and state power. Jenkins has collaborated with many celebrated artists, such as David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, Kerry James Marshall, and Maren Hassinger.

The exhibition features Jenkins' early experiments with video feedback and image processing, his later works that incorporate archival footage, photographs, poetry, and music, and his collaborative works with other artists. Some of the highlights include:

  • Mass of Images (1978), a critique of the media's role in perpetuating racist and harmful images of Black people in America.
  • Two-Zone Transfer (1979), a performance-based video that features Kerry James Marshall as a character who travels between two different zones of reality.
  • King David (1978), a documentary video that focuses on David Hammons's street performances and interventions.

The exhibition is co-curated by Meg Onli, independent curator, and Erin Christovale, Associate Curator at the Hammer Museum at UCLA. The Berlin presentation closes on July 26-27, 2023 with a program of talks and screenings featuring Christovale, curator Greg de Cuir Jr, artist Sam Vernon and others.

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