Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Film

Born 1949 in Chicago, IL
Died 2010 in Chicago, IL

In the 1967 film Remembrance: A Portrait Study, the Chicago-born artist Edward Owens creates a video portrait of his mother, Mildred. Using flickering superimpositions and rapid cutting to construct an intimate familial memory, the film depicts Mildred set against a green wicker chair and sporting a feather boa, laughing with girlfriends—their cigarettes waving in the air and drinks scattered on the table. Emerging from the 1960s avant-garde and queer scenes in New York City, Owens produced just four 16mm short films—including Remembrance: A Portrait Study—each informed by his experiences as a Black queer artist, weaving themes of concealed desire, abstracted bodies, and ghostly portraiture through a blend of photographic stillness and cinematic movement. By the time of Owens’s passing in 2010, his work had all but disappeared. Rediscovered and revived in recent years, Owens’ prescient films richly resonate with the work of contemporary practitioners of Black queer cinema.