An Evening with Kevin Jerome Everson
May 31, 2011

Birthday candles blown out by an old man and a single candle watched by a small girl; a black pageant queen discussing segregation; bees and a sword fight. These are just a few images that come up in the many short films being shown in the exhibition, More Than That: Films by Kevin Jerome Everson. The exhibition explores Everson's work with appropriated news and home video footage from the civil rights era, as well as film he shot and later edited to give the illusion of looking like found footage. Together, the two kinds of film are seamlessly interwoven to construct purposefully anticlimactic scenes that immerse the viewer into these non-stories.

Everson discussed his short films during a teen artist talk at the museum a few weeks ago. During the conversation, he stressed the importance of his work being shaped by the subjects of the found footage he uses and his upbringing in a working-class family in Mansfield, Ohio. Everson's inspirations were made especially evident when he described the meaning and context of his shorts. Many of the films are moving snapshots that subtly present the unfairness of economical, racial and cultural segregation of African-American life in the 1960s and 1970s.

These are inequalities that resonate even today, although Everson only hints at it. While there is much cultural discussion layered in the works, there is also a light sense of being calmed. The exhibition invites you to discuss the films and their difficult subjects; but it also encourages you to ignore everything and just absorb the simplicity of the non-stories. At a time when 24-hour news and Youtube have bloated the world's video archive, More Than That is interesting for how utterly distinct it is from the bustling proliferation of media we find ourselves surrounded by today.

By YI Artist Ariel