The first monograph on the groundbreaking video artist and member of
the seminal Video Venice News and Studio Z groups
This is the first major retrospective on the groundbreaking Los
Angeles-based video artist Ulysses Jenkins (born 1946). Since the 1970s,
Jenkins has interrogated questions of race and gender as they relate to
ritual, history and state power. From his work with Video Venice News, a
Los Angeles media collective he founded in the early 1970s, to his
involvement with the artists' group Studio Z (alongside figures such as
David Hammons, Senga Nengudi and Maren Hassinger), to his video and
performance works, Jenkins explores how white supremacy is embedded in
popular culture. Beginning as a painter and muralist, Jenkins was
introduced to video just as the first consumer cameras were made
available, and he quickly seized upon the technology as a means to
broadcast critical depictions of multiculturalism. This catalog features
an extensive portion of Jenkins' archive, early documentary films,
photographs and ephemera, as well as his video art.