Ulysses Jenkins
Curated by Greg de Cuir Jr
about the artist
Ulysses Jenkins (USA) is a pioneering video and multimedia artist born in Los Angeles, California in 1946. He has had a profound influence on contemporary art for 50+ years. Using archival footage, photographs, image processing, and elegiac soundtracks, his practice pulls together various strands of thought to interrogate questions of race and gender as they relate to ritual, history, and the power of the state. He received a BA in painting and drawing from Southern University (1969), and an MFA in intermedia-video and performance art from Otis Art Institute (1979), where he studied under Gene Youngblood, Charles White, Chris Burden, and Betye Saar. Jenkins has collaborated with a plethora of artists, including Kerry James Marshall, David Hammons, Maren Hassinger, and Senga Nengudi. He has completed 20+ videos since 1972, which have been exhibited at festivals, museums, and galleries internationally, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Getty Center, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Armory Center for the Arts, 18th Street Arts Center, Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, Luckman Gallery, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer, and the first major retrospective of the artist’s work: Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation (2021-2022), curated by Meg Onli and Erin Christovale for the Institute of Contemporary Arts Philadelphia and Hammer Museum. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including First Prize in Experimental Video, the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame (1990,1992), and is a three-time recipient of National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. Jenkins is founder of Video Venice News (1972) and Othervisions Studio (1982). Between 1970 and 1972, he worked for the Los Angeles County Probation Department as a counsellor for psychiatric non-delinquent youth. He also collaborated with gang-intervention programs in San Francisco to teach video art to young people. Jenkins is an Associate Professor in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts and an affiliate professor in the African American Studies program at the University of California. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Mass of Images (1978)
Ulysses Jenkins
Mass of Images Ulysses Jenkins USAdigital 4 min1978
Mass of Images is grounded in the issues at the heart of contemporary conversations about inequality and environmental devastation amplified by unchecked capitalism, governmental oppression, and systemic racism’s impact on Black cultural production. – ICA Philadelphia
Mass of Images engages elements of both performance and video art to address myriad racial stereotypes of African Americans in the media. Using blurred black-and-white film accompanied by a low humming sound, Jenkins employed exaggerated staging to mirror the ridiculousness and prevalence of stereotypical images. Blatantly racist images, such as actors in blackface, fill the screen, accompanied by the declaration in voice-over, “You’re just a mass of images you’ve gotten to know, from years and years of TV shows.” Jenkins’s juxtaposition of this unfortunately valid statement with racist imagery draws attention to the media’s role in perpetuating bias, and also questions the future impact of media imagery on black American identity. – Hammer Museum
Streaming Details
This film is available to stream globally.
Program Partners
This film is co-presented with Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York and Three Fold Press.
Image credits: all artworks, stills, and portraits courtesy of the artist © Ulysses Jenkins and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York. Special thanks to Karl McCool and Hannah Kay.
King David (1978)
Ulysses Jenkins
King David Ulysses Jenkins USAdigital17 min1978
Jenkins records David Hammons, at a decisive moment in the artist’s development, just prior to his move from Los Angeles to New York. Part interview, part video performance, Hammons, in conversation with fellow artist LaMonte Westmoreland, considers Los Angeles’s black artist community, the legacy of the Watts Rebellion, and his own artistic strategies. – Electronic Arts Intermix
Streaming Details
This film is available to stream globally.
Program Partners
This film is co-presented with Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York and Three Fold Press.
Image credits: all artworks, stills, and portraits courtesy of the artist © Ulysses Jenkins and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York. Special thanks to Karl McCool and Hannah Kay.