Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Film

Born 1962 in St. Louis, MO
Lives in Coralville, IA

The films of Christopher Harris interpret African American history through the lens of experimental cinema’s poetics and aesthetics. In still/here (2000/1), Harris explores the streets of the north side of St. Louis, Missouri, surveying the predominantly working-class and working-poor Black neighborhood where he grew up, to chronicle the ways in which dynamics of race and class are ingrained in the physicality of buildings and infrastructures. No people appear in the camera’s frame; their presence is conveyed through sound. In his new film Speaking in Tongues (2024), premiering at the Biennial, Harris draws inspiration from Ishmael Reed’s 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo, in which the author blends actual historical narratives with fictional representations to satirically dissect Western civilization. Like Reed, who combines diverse literary and visual devices to purposefully disorient the reader, Harris integrates experimental film and printing techniques with original and found footage that subtly hint at various characters and events from Reed’s novel to challenge the Western hegemony in representing African histories and cultures. The Biennial will also premiere b/w (2023), a silent film with live sound provided by the audience.