Will the real . . .

Michael Paul Britto - Wayne Hodge - Zach Rockhill

On view: May 6 - June 10, 2007 
Opening Reception: Sunday, May 6,  4-7pm

Three artists show new video work and objects that explore the sleight of hand popular culture uses to captivate and manipulate our perceptions. 

Michael Paul Britto: “If negative stereotypes could talk what would they say? With this new work I will use video projection to establish a dialogue between inanimate objects. This video will be shown with a mammy-inspired American advertising mascot (Mrs. Butterworth bottles), who, in the past, used to talk about "Sweet Buttery Goodness", but who, nowadays, thanks to me, has become a little bit more politically conscious and is keeping it real for the people. I like to think of my video work as remixes of popular culture that incorporate well-known visuals and sounds to create a collage that is both thought provoking and entertaining. With this work I'm challenging the viewer to think about the video images as well as popular stereotypical product packaging.” 

Wayne Hodge’s installation is part of on an on-going video and performance project about the famous African American entertainer and performer Burt Williams. Williams performed in blackface, and appeared in a 1910 Ziegfeld Follies production in a rooster suit. This latest installment of Hodge’s project, a video titled ‘Prototype for the Greatest Minstrel Man’, combines appropriated imagery with images of the artist. The resulting video collage manifests the artist’s interest in an aspect of spectacle in popular culture that conceived of African-Americanbodies as ‘animal’. He fuses video of his body, dresses as Burt Williams, with images of roosters from a variety of film and animated sources. 

Zach Rockhill’s video combines his interests in the prop based comedy of Buster Keaton’s early short films with the confusion of physical reality the medium of video is able to create. For a previous project the artist rebuilt the prop Keaton used to spin the ship in his short film, ‘The Boat’.  The gravity-defying results led to Rockhill’s video ‘This Side Down, Damn if I know’.  In his newest work, he has paired the effect of that prop with a smaller scale – the video takes place between the palms of his hands – leaving objects to float, gyrate and rotate in other-worldly ways.    The gesture of the video, fingers spread and pointing towards the audience (the classic magicians sleight of hand ending which is meant to evince a disappearance) is re-imagined here as a space of possibility.

In 2006 Michael Paul Britto received a Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship Grant and was an Art in the Marketplace Fellow at the Bronx Museum.  

Wayne Hodge had residencies at both Skowhegan School of Painting in Maine and at the Bronx Museum’s Art in the Marketplace in 2006. 

Zach Rockhill  has organized several ACTIONS events at FiveMyles, evenings of Fluxus-related performance and video, and most recently showed his work at the Bronx River Museum in New York.  

Project Wall   -   Peter Hoffmann shows large digital photographs of green and red peppers. A passionate photographer and former journalist, Hoffmann is the editor and publisher of  the Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Letter.  

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.

acknowledgments:

We thank the Jerome Foundation for their support for this exhibition.