Gossamers Volume II: In & Out From Within, So From Without

The Walker’s Moving Image artist-in-residence Cameron Patricia Downey invited multidisciplinary artist, musician, and South Carolina-based moving image curator Khari Lucas (Contour) to Minneapolis to partner with the Walker and Juxtaposition Arts. Onsite, the duo spent time exploring the Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection, learning about media preservation in the archive, and researching related materials in the Walker’s library. The visit culminated in their co-curated and presented playlist for the Mediatheque. Below, Downey and Lucas approach the films in this playlist with curiosity and inquisition into the nature of documentary, performance, and portraiture in the works they selected for Twin Cities audiences.

Four young Black women doing double dutch for a crowd. One does the splits, two are in mid-jump. Their ropes are not visible. — Still from *Pick Up Your Feet: The Double Dutch Show*, Skip Blumberg, 1981, digital, 28 min. Courtesy of the Walker Art Center, Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection.

Upon watching the docu-dramas The Little Richard Story (1980) by William Klein, Pick Up Your Feet: The Double Dutch Show (1981) by Skip Blumberg, and St. Louis Blues (1929) by Dudley Murphy starring Bessie Smith, the question arises:

Is there a quiet place here? Is display of (willing or unwilling) subjects the central mode of drama and intrigue? Is the nature of the document(ary) always a defining and a being defined from outside ourselves? Or is that as from within, so from without? Where does escape meet or lose its contact with care?

“This man, god was talking to, to give him a chance to come and live forever…”

or

“I’m not singin’ rock and roll, I’m singin’ the rock of ages”

A winner’s documentary, a fool’s document, and a portrait of the bottom of the ocean meet in a bar.

Black and white still of Bessie Smith singing. She leans to the left side of the image and wears a polka dot dress and a hat. — Still from *St. Louis Blues*, Dudley Murphy, 1929, digital, 16 min. Courtesy of the Walker Art Center, Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection.

Is there ever an interior allotted for the Black subject? For St. Louis Blues, no, and for the sake of perfect drama. For Little Richard, no, and for the sake of escape (?). For Pick Up Your Feet, no, and for the sake of sensational victory.

“You’ve got to see me before you go”

When are we performing? There can be a betrayal of sorts in the warmth of an image. It may be of our perception, or it may be of the subject. It rests somewhere in between the intended effect, the experience of the viewer, and the “truth”. A moment in which everybody is held except the one(s) making the hold, or underneath the embrace.

Little Richard performing under blue stage lights. He wears a pompadour, a mirrored shirt and holds a microphone to his mouth. — Still from *The Little Richard Story*, William Klein, 1980, digital, 90 min. Courtesy of the Walker Art Center, Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection.

What are we reaching for in the performance? In this absence, often protracted, the one on stage reaches out and finds a rhythm, a persona, a blues. Something to offer in hopes of something returned. As the stage has no clear borders, as the stage doesn’t begin or end, there is no clear place to return something to, and there may be no way to inform the performer of this. They’re simply to wait or continue or cycle back and forth between both.

“Maybe our voice(s) could go all the way to 110th Street”

Young people with dark skin in a crowd who appear to be smiling and celebrating. A shadowy blurred shape obscures the image. — Still from *Pick Up Your Feet: The Double Dutch Show*, Skip Blumberg, 1981, digital, 28 min. Courtesy of the Walker Art Center, Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection.

This playlist of moving image works is on view for free in the Walker’s Mediatheque, open during gallery hours.

Cameron Patricia Downey is an anti-disciplinary artist born and raised in North Minneapolis, Minnesota whose work oscillates between photography, film, body, sculpture, curation and otherwise. Seeing instruction in the incidental, the precarious and the misremembered, their work strives to archive, unfurl, make-altar-of and bring fantasy to the Blues of Black life and relation. Downey graduated from Columbia University in 2021 with a double concentration in visual art and environmental science. Downey’s art has been exhibited by HAIR+NAILS, Minneapolis; Aronson Gallery, New York; Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin (2021); Engage Projects, Chicago (2021–2022); as part of Midway Contemporary Art’s Off-Site program (2022); M+B Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); and Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (2023). They are in residence with the Walker Art Center’s Moving Image department from fall 2022 through spring 2023.

Khari Lucas is a songwriter/musician (most often releasing work under the alias Contour), scoring composer, writer/poet, and occasional programmer in both digital and real space. Grounded in Black musical traditions (i.e., jazz, soul, blues), his work follows in the footsteps of artist-expressors throughout history and seeks to honor these traditions while carrying them through the present and into the future. His work offers provocations, invitations, and tools for Black listeners to contextualize their own emotions and experiences. His songwriting explores a range of themes, including grief, love, violence, labor, and the inner emotional landscape at large.

Major support to preserve, digitize, and present the Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection is generously provided by the Bentson Foundation.