Kahlil Joseph: BLKNWS
58th Venice Biennale – May You Live in Interesting Times
May 11 – November 24, 2019
Production | Acquisition Grant
An anchoring project of curator Ralph Rugoff’s Venice Biennale, Kahlil Joseph’s BLKNWS broke new artistic ground while redefining the genre of the news broadcast. The project consists of a continuously updated newscast in the form of a two-channel video that splices historical and contemporary found footage with newly shot scenes of news room and documentary reportage. Each broadcast is shown on two closely hung screens that play simultaneous footage meant to inflect and inform each other in a continuous dialog. Through his distinctive use of juxtaposition and montage, Joseph’s BLKNWS seeks to generate a plurality of editorial voices that approach reportage through a distinctly black lens. The result is a positively pitched new broadcast in the form of a visual art experience that delivers strangely truthful, original, and hyper contemporary insights into the human condition.
Introduced in a main newsroom in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini, BLKNWS appeared twice again in the Arsenale, offering visitors the pleasure of repeated viewing in various settings. With new episodes shot, uploaded, and simultaneously transmitted over the course of the Biennale, BLKNWS was a constantly evolving artwork, whose open structure propelled it past its presentation at the Biennale and out into the world. In an era of contested reporting where the truth is up for grabs, Joseph’s vision for an alternative news platform reveals his conviction that art has a role to play in how we mediate our lives. Indeed, Biennale curator Ralph Rugoff observed that “Artists have been providing alternate points of view since before ‘alternative facts,’ entered our common vocabulary.” Visionary projects like BLKNWS can help us remember that there are “diverse ways of making sense of the world.”
For more information, visit the Venice Biennale Arte 2019.
Installation view of Kahlil Joseph, BLKNWS, 2018-2019, two-channel newscast, 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, “May You Live in Interesting Times,” 2019. © Kahlil Joseph, photo courtesy the artist.
Installation view of Kahlil Joseph, BLKNWS, 2018-2019, two-channel newscast, 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, “May You Live in Interesting Times,” 2019. © Kahlil Joseph, photo courtesy the artist.
Video still, Kahlil Joseph, BLKNWS, 2018-2019, two-channel newscast.
