MFA Lecture Series: Jennifer West

Last week I attended MFA Lecture with LA-based artist and Roski faculty member Jennifer West.

West's works consists of video works in which the most of the content is made not through exposing film in a camera, but by taking actual film and drawing on it, soaking it, scratching it, kissing it, and anything else to it that you could possibly imagine. After cleaning the film, which often gets covered in lots of disgusting and messy substances (grape jelly, laxatives, urine, Gatorade, dirt, etc.), she takes her film to a lab where it's transferred to a digital format which she then projects, usually along the edges of walls, in gallery spaces exhibiting her work.

While I was a little overwhelmed at time by the sheer number of works she screened for the lecture (in a conversation later about the lecture, a professor of mine said that they were pretty sure that West showed all of her past work), I did find myself deeply interested in what I saw. But even though I think the works are beautiful and mesmerizing, I found myself more interested in her process rather than the actual works themselves. She spends a lot of time coming up with what she wants to mark the films with, materials that often not very visible or noticeable when actually watching the work. Not to mention her process of making her films can be incredibly collaborative, often involving her family, friends and past students in her film marking festivities. If she didn't let us know what she used to make each film before she screened it, I really wouldn't have had anyway of distinguishing one from the other, besides the color and maybe some of the patterns of each piece.

I liked listening to West talk but I wish she would have spent more time talking about fewer pieces. She kind of rushed through most of her works so she would have time to talk about the last piece on her dvd. I hope to one day see her work in a more formal gallery setting, encountering her work the way she intends it to be seen. I feel that if I saw her work in a gallery space without hearing her talking I would have been more interested in the actual videos rather than the process of how the work is made.



Don't forget that A.L. Steiner is visiting tomorrow. If you're into photography, I wouldn't miss it!