POSTPONED
The world premiere of “The Soul Train” by artist Dara Birnbaum comes to the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, New York on Sunday, April 14, 2019.
POSTPONED
The installation reexamines the media’s representation of events in Rochester in July 1964. After decades of repression and provoked by a police action, the black community rebelled in anger and frustration. The exhibit will remain on view through October 13, 2019.
Viewers will see how television captured and represented the events, which are shown alongside the voices and images of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy and Eddie James “Son” House, Jr., whose powerful Delta blues composition “Grinnin’ in Your Face” was written and performed in Rochester during this turbulent time.
Public discourse at the time was shaped by how the media covered these events and interpreted them through broadcast television. The coverage largely ignored the complex economic, social and cultural forces that people were experiencing. Moving forward and in contrast, the premiere of “Soul Train” in 1971, the first African-American syndicated music-dance television program, featured young people celebrating African-American popular music, dance and culture, however House’s “Grinnin’ in Your Face” continued to speak to a new generation to challenge the prejudice and injustice that is still part of daily life in communities across this country.
“Dara Birnbaum is a pioneering artist who has made a significant contribution to contemporary art through her transformations of the moving image,” said Project Curator John G. Hanhardt. “Her videotapes and installations enact a complex and critical engagement with television’s representation of political events and the public’s reception of history. It is a body of work that has expanded the expressive range and power of art-making.”
For more information, on this exhibit and other venues see: www.mag.rochester.edu or view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=13&v=jV-UIDrnYfY