KEVIN JEROME EVERSON at Tate Modern

COMING SOON: Tate Modern has announced two screenings of works by KEVIN JEROME EVERSON — 08 SEPT 2017 & 29 SEPT to 01 OCT 2017.

Tate Modern will be serving up two slices of Kevin Jerome Everson later this year in their luxurious Starr Cinema. There’s taster screening THE ISLAND OF ST. MATTHEWS (08 SEPT 19:00) followed by immersive weekender SO I GOT THEM TOLD (29 SEPT to 01 OCT, various dates & times).

the_island_of_st._matthews
THE ISLAND OF ST. MATTHEWS screens at Tate Modern (08 SEPT).

Kevin Jerome Everson is one of the art world’s most prolific filmmakers having created more than nine feature films and 140 shorts to date. Hailing from Mansfield, Ohio, and currently living and working in Charlottesville, Virginia, Everson’s work has been exhibited in major art museums and film festivals across the world.

Having (possibly) spent too much time in the dark, we find ‘art talk’ hurts our heads, so here’s some YouTube from REELBLACK TV of Everson talking about what he does:

We also like this introduction to him from Indiewire:

“Kevin cusses like a trucker. He’s got an Ohio/Mississippi voice. He’s a character – gregarious and frank – with a reel of thoughts a lot like his films: spare and nonlinear yet full of humor, history, and place. A brilliant artist and an incisive observer of film culture.”

Reading their excellent interview (“Even my mom is like good lord that boy was raised in a barn.”), he really does sound like our kind of artist.

THE ISLAND OF ST. MATTHEWS screens as part of Open City Doc Festival 2017 and is “a poem and paean to the citizens of Westport, Mississippi… recall[ing] all that was lost during the 1973 flooding of the nearby Tombigbee River.”

SO I GOT THEM TOLD is part of Tate’s PIONEERS strand dedicated to filmmakers who have explored new approaches to the moving image. We sought shelter at the BRUCE & NORMAN YONEMOTO retrospective earlier this year and would thoroughly recommend taking the deep dive if you can spare the time.

Obeying Rule #6, and with screening slots for experimental film hard to come by, this is a great opportunity to catch up with a prolific contemporary filmmaker.

HUNGRY FOR MORE?

  • Cineaste gives good if heavyweight article¹ whilst BOMB has Everson in conversation.
  • THE ISLAND OF ST. MATTHEWS (08 SEPT 19:00) includes the main feature along with OLD CAT, Everson’s first single-shot 16mm film and GRAND FINALE, a study of two teenagers recording a Fourth of July fireworks display in Detroit.
  • SO I CAN GET THEM TOLD takes place 29 SEPT to 01 OCT. Event details are not online at the time of posting, but are likely to end up here.
  • Tickets for all screenings £8/£6. Tate promises 6 selections of features and short films at their weekender but never fear, you can grab an ‘all you can eat’ combo ticket for the discount price of £30.
  • KEVIN JEROME EVERSON at Tate Modern is part of their acclaimed exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power which runs until 22 OCT at the Bankside venue.
  • US label Video Data Bank has released a DVD compilation of Emerson’s work, BROAD DAYLIGHT & OTHER TIMES: SELECTED WORKS OF KEVIN JEROME EVERSON, but it’s mainly for “educational & institutional” purposes (and therefore costs a lot…).

#shelterfromthestorm

Featured image: GRAND FINALE (2015), Kevin Jerome Everson.

¹The Cineaste references Sickert’s assertion that “art is also produced mainly for lay consumption, and if it fails to be lucid it fails in its first function”. If only art galleries and critics were held to the same account (insert emoji eye roll here).