Image Employment at MoMA PS1


Image Employment
September 5–October 7, 2013

http://momaps1.org/exhibitions/view/375


Image Employment presents recent moving image works that investigate various modes of contemporary production. The selected works illustrate differing approaches to the subject, from observational films that avoid participation in capitalistic image creation, to videos that engage corporate omnipotence by employing its processes, as well as works that complicate these two tendencies.

Many of the films in the exhibition take an oppositional approach to commercial image making. In Kevin Jerome Everson's Quality Control African-American workers from an Alabama dry-cleaning factory are shown relentlessly carrying out their jobs in real time. Everson explores the duration and physicality of labor through a series of lengthy shots that draw attention to particular tasks such as working the pant press or ironing shirts.

Alternately, many video works in this exhibition employ corporate processes and communication by reiterating corporate imagery and intervening into sites of emergent industries and globalized consumption. DIS' Watermarked I Kenzo Fall 2012, for example, arose out of a paid commission for Kenzo's seasonal menswear collection. The work reflexively dramatizes the commercial advertisement form through the absurd excesses of the actors' expressions, the politically correct racial composition, and a stock media infused aesthetic.

Invoking the cyclical and growing convergence between labor, consumption, and that which propels them, Image Employment examines different ways artists use moving image work to engage and confront contemporary modes of production.



Week 1: September 5–8: 
Workers Leaving...

Workers Leaving The Factory
Auguste and Louis Lumière, 1895, 1 min, 35mm to video, b&w, silent, France

Workers Leaving the Factory
Harun Farocki, 1995, 36 min, video, color and b&w, 1:1,37, Germany

Workers Leaving the Googleplex
Andrew Norman Wilson, 2011, 11 min, HD video, color and sound, United States

Workers Leaving the Job Site
Kevin Jerome Everson, 2013, 6:30 min, 16mm to HD video, color, silent, United States  Courtesy of the artist; Trilobite-Arts DAC and Picture Palace Pictures


Week 2: September 12–14: 
Long Takes and The Object of Labor

Long Takes

Quality Control
Kevin Jerome Everson, 2011, 71 min, 16mm to HD video, b&w and sound, United StatesCourtesy of the artist; Trilobite-Arts-DAC and Picture Palace Pictures

Lunch Break
Sharon Lockhart - TBC, 2008, 83 min, 35 mm transferred to HD video, color and sound, United States

The Object of Labor

Sack Barrow
Ben Rivers, 2011, 21 min, 16mm to HD video, color and sound, United Kingdom

Unstable Object
Dan Eisenberg, 2011, 69 min, HD video, color and sound, U.S./Germany/Turkey



Week 3: September 26–30: 
Dream Factory

Stealing Beauty
Guy Ben-Ner, 2007, 18 min, SD Video, color and sound, Israel

The Trainee
Pilvi Takala, 2008, 13 min, HD Video, color and sound, Finland

A New Product
Harun Farocki, 2012, 36 min, HD video, color and sound, Germany

People's passion, lifestyle beautiful wine, gigantic glass towers, all surrounded by water
Neil Beloufa, 2011, 10 min, HD video, color and sound, France

Watermarked I Fall 2012
DIS, 2012,  2 min, HD Video, color and sound, United States

Strategies
Harm van den Dorpel, 2011, 5 min, HD video, color and sound, The Netherlands

Green Screen Refrigerator
Mark Leckey, 2010, 17 min, HD video, color and sound, United Kingdom

De-employed
Michael-Bell Smith, 2012, 3 min, HD video, color and sound, United States

Strike
Hito Steyerl, 2010, 30 sec, HD single channel video, color and sound, Germany

K-CoreaINC.K
Ryan Trecartin, 2009, 33 min, HD video, color and sound, United States



Week 4: October 3–7: 
The Movement of Capital

Part I:

The Financial Crisis
Superflex, 2009, 12:23 min, HD video, color and sound, Denmark

Open Outcry
Ben Thorp Brown, 2013, 15 min, HD video, color and sound, United States

Unsupported Transit
Zachary Formwalt, 2011, 14:25 min, HD single channel video, color and sound, United States


Part II:

China Town
Lucy Raven, 2009, 51:30 min, photographic animation, United States



MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at the intersection of 46th Ave.
Long Island City, NY 11101