In preparation for The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970-Present, a show that will examine the impact of technology on creative processes, Jamillah James will immerse herself in various technologies and production methods–camera, computer screen and mechanical automation–that have influenced the formal direction of painting, as well as our understanding of the medium, over the last 50 years. She will study paintings made by hand which reference digital media, information technologies, and online culture; paintings made mechanically or with software; paintings staged as performances for a camera, and other procedural experiments that position the act of painting itself as an evolving technology. The Living End seeks to subvert the entrenched elitism of painting by highlighting historical as well as contemporary approaches that have democratized its creation and rejected canonized constraints of gender, race, class, genius, and heteronormativity. Research will encompass travel to archives, studios and museums in the U.S. and Western Europe that will be archived on a publicly accessible microsite, and an exploration of historical and contemporary texts that can illuminate the work for its catalogue.
Jamillah James
“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”