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Kevin Jerome Everson
State Bird
On the High Line at 14th Street | Daily from 5–6:45pm
Kevin Jerome Everson is an artist based in Charlottesville, Virginia and Professor of Art at the University of Virginia. Everson, whose practice encompasses printmaking, photography, sculpture and film, makes work that reflects gestures or tasks caused by certain conditions in the lives of working class African Americans and other people of African descent. Everson’s sculptures are often casts of everyday objects made in the factories in his Ohio hometown.
For the High Line, Everson presents four films: Brown Thrasher (2020; 2:46 min.), Mockingbird, (2020; 3:00 min.), Cardinal (2019; 2:30 min.); and The Foothills of the Allegheny Plateau (2019; 3:08 min.). The films begin with a pair of binoculars made in the Mansfield Ohio Westinghouse factory during WWII (where the artist was briefly employed) that Everson cast in bronze and rubber, rendering them useless. Everson staged the films in Georgia, Mississippi, and Ohio (the first three films are named for those places’ state birds), inviting family members to “look” for birds with the props. Everson limits these films to the extreme foreground, denying viewers any clarity as to the exact place of filming.
Presented on the High Line from winter into early spring, the exhibition brings brightness to winter days in the park and ushers us into the season when the birds start to sing again in New York and the park comes alive.
Organized by Melanie Kress, Curator of High Line Art.
Artist bio
Kevin Jerome Everson (b. 1965, Mansfield, Ohio) has presented solo exhibitions and screenings of his work at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Graz, Austria (2021); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California (2021); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2019); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2018); Harvard Film Archives, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2018); National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington D.C. (2018); Tate Modern, London, England (2017); Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea (2017); the Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York (2013); and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York (2011). His films have been featured in recent festivals including Venice International Film Festival, Venice, Italy (2019); BAMcinemafest, Brooklyn, New York (2018); African Film Festival, Smithsonian Museum of African American History, Washington, D.C. (2018); Glasgow Film Festival, Scotland (2018); New York Film Festival, New York (2017); International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2019, 2017, 2015, 2013, 2011, 2010, 2008); and London International Film Festival, England (2015). Evans has participated in major international exhibitions including the Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania (2018); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York (2017, 2012, 2008); and Sharjah Biennial 11, United Arab Emirates (2013).
Support
Lead support for High Line Art comes from Amanda and Don Mullen. Major support is provided by Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons, The Brown Foundation, Inc., Charina Endowment Fund, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts . Project support is provided by Charlotte Feng Ford. High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council, under the leadership of Speaker Corey Johnson. High Line Channel is supported, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.