A absolutely staggering work of art…by Los Angeles-based Natalie Bookchin […] It featured 18 monitors staggered around a darkened room, with cuts of video taken off video logs — vlogs — which Bookchin harvested from YouTube. The clips consisted of average Americans of all races giving their thoughts about incidents in the news involving African American men, all of whom go unnamed. Bookchin’s piece is a stunning reflection of a society that is grappling with the notion of African American men as threats; that there might be places they should and shouldn’t be.
Now he’s out in public and everyone can see
film 2017 / 18-channel video installation 2012
2017 / 2012
An affecting meditation on perceptions of race, specifically concerning African American men. [….]There’s something incantatory about it, as if the spoken observations conceal much more than they reveal. These are men and women with something to say about African American men, and though they say it with conviction, Bookchin’s editing and composition together transform firm beliefs into a larger picture of doubt, uncertainty and – most powerfully – human yearning.