Stories Time

Holy moly, I have so much to say about Kalup Linzy. A day late and a dollar short, I know. Evidently there are some downsides to never really paying attention to contemporary art: I might overlook some really beautiful contemporary art. I knew of Linzy's acclaim and of the title of his (almost) one-man soap opera, All My Churen (2003). But, strike me down, I'd never bothered to see the damn thing. I've only caught excerpts on Youtube this morning, but I'm generally floored. At A&P, we are sentimental, expert, addict television-watchers. And I am so moved by Linzy's construction of a television show about people who watch television shows (stories). There is an incredible comic-tragic symbiosis between lived facts and screened fictions; they bend toward and apart from each other like uneasy relatives. Uneasy relatives (and lovers) are in fact the characters that Linzy plays--black, Southern, gay inversions of television stars, different and the same. Unlike, say, Ryan Trecartin, Linzy makes strange from unstrange, does not use drugged, fantastical, dream-world tropes; instead, his are something like fine Youtube videos--homemade, straightforward, not filmic.Though Linzy lives in Brooklyn and has been on the receiving end of some tony fellowships and grants, he seems to work on the periphery of the art world, over and beyond it (not around it).

Below is an excerpt from All My Churen and a very brief gallery satire that isn't even trying to be accurate. Or is it? I imagine that Linzy is playing a frustrated gallery employee, made ill by the pressures and expectations of her exacting lady boss (hmmm . . .).