Lessons I-CLXXX, 2014-2018
- Medium
- Video, color, and sound
- Dimensions
- Running time: 90min
- Accession Number
- 2018.17
- Credit
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Purchase with funds provided by the Acquisition and Collection Committee
Lessons I-CLXXX is part of Syms’s ongoing consideration of black identity in American culture and the ways in which it is represented and distorted through video, television, and other means of image production and circulation. A series of 30-second clips encompassing original material and found footage from a variety of sources including home movies, daytime talk shows, and YouTube videos, the work is programmed to play in random order, creating new associations each time the picture changes. The project takes inspiration from The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness (2012), in which the poet Kevin Young explores the significance and centrality of black art and culture in America.