Henry
everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt. Large Print Guide
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table of contents 4
everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.
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Lutz Bacher
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Guy Ben-Ner
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Guy Ben-Ner, Stealing Beauty Transcript
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Nayland Blake
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Nayland Blake, Negative Bunny Transcript
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Slater Bradley
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Slater Bradley, Intermission Transcript
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Candice Breitz
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Sue de Beer
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Dora García
42 Dora García, La Lección Respiratoria (The Breathing Lesson) Transcript 44
Rashid Johnson
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Shirin Neshat
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Kaari Upson
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Gillian Wearing
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Gillian Wearing, 10-16 Transcript
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everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt. JUL 23, 2022 – JAN 8, 2023 This exhibition of moving image installations, drawn from the Henry collection, spans a wide range of style and conceptual approaches. The title references Kurt Vonnegut’s seminal antiwar novel Slaughterhouse-Five, a non-linear, meta-fictional narrative in which the protagonist struggles to come to terms with the devastating realities of human existence. The author poses fundamental questions that we must all combat, ever more so in the present moment in history. How do we deal with tragedy and pain? How do we explain it? Can we prevent it? Are there laws to life, and if so, do humans have any say in what these are? Does free will even exist? Both satirical and yet deeply moving, the title phrase is imagined as the character’s epitaph and summarizes the contradictions of his individual experience as well as the fragile concurrence of our collective existence: it is both impossibly false and yet deeply true. 4
everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt. thus references a common thread running throughout this exhibition—the frailty, trauma, loss, and cruelty of the human condition that nonetheless is girded by an irrepressible desire for beauty, love, and connection. Via a myriad of formats and approaches, the artists in the exhibition suggest that we, as human beings, are ultimately responsible to acknowledge the heart-wrenching truth of life and still strive to create meaning within it.
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Lutz Bacher (U.S., 1943–2019) Baseballs II, 2011 Baseballs Henry Art Gallery, gift of William and Ruth True, 2021.22
What Are You Thinking, 2011 Single-channel video, (black-and-white, sound); 3 mins. Henry Art Gallery, gift of William and Ruth True, 2021.65
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Lutz Bacher was an American conceptual artist whose diverse practice spanned a range of media and variety of approaches, defying easy categorization. Using a pseudonym, and withholding basic personal information, Bacher cultivated an enigmatic persona. Bacher’s work often employed everyday materials and sound, image, and text appropriated from a range of sources to create works with an enigmatic power of their own. In What Are You Thinking, Bacher clipped dialogue from the 1988 American film The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which she combined with a projection that slowly fades from light to dark. First shown at the Whitney biennial in 2012, this piece is displayed in conjunction with Baseballs II, in which hundreds of used baseballs, a uniquely American artifact, are scattered across the gallery floor.
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Guy Ben-Ner (Israel, b. 1969) Stealing Beauty, 2007 Single-channel video (color, sound); 17:40 mins. Henry Art Gallery, gift of William and Ruth True, 2014.296
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In Stealing Beauty, Israeli video artist Guy BenNer stages a family drama in the format of mid-century sitcoms in the domestic interiors of IKEA, the ubiquitous Scandinavian home goods store. Filmed covertly at IKEA locations in New York, Berlin, and Tel Aviv, Ben-Ner, his wife, and two children play the part of a fictional family, performing small, domestic dramas in the public space of the iconic big-box store. The story’s central conflict revolves around the son’s theft from a neighbor boy and the daughter’s breaking of curfew. Discussion ensues between father and children around the origins of the term family, notions of private property, inheritance, and exchange, fusing sitcom with theory seminar. The film ends with a manifesto delivered by the two children alone, in which they reject the values imparted on them by their father, declaring: “Property is like a ghost, you cannot possess it without being possessed by it.”
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Stealing Beauty Audio Transcript [music] Max: Honey, I’m home. Honey? Honey? Speaker 1: Customer service line three. [background noise] Max’s wife: Hello? Anybody home? [background noise] Oh, God. I see you don’t waste time. Max: What?
you do it. Anyway, that’s a total waste of energy. So unproductive. If you mention waste, your son is doing it at school. Max: Masturbating? Max’s wife: No, you idiot, wasting his time. We just got a nice, long letter from the principal. Max: Just what I need when I come back home from work, to deal with my family. Where are the kids, anyway?
Max’s wife: Don’t you what me, masturbating in the shower again.
Max’s wife: At the Watsons.
Max: No, I wasn’t.
Max’s wife: You mean Ms. Watson, don’t you? Didn’t you two just had a private rendezvous in the shower, or rather, in your head?
Max’s wife: I saw you [unintelligible 00:01:34]. Max: Just cleaning myself.
Max: The Watsons.
Max’s daughter: Hi, Mom. Hi, Max’s wife: Just cleaning myself? Now, that’s a new one. Dad. I just hope you fantasize about Max Jr.: Hi, Dad. Hi, Mom. me from time to time while 10
Max’s wife: Children. Hi, kids. Had a good day? Your son just brought a note from school today. Apparently, he was caught stealing money from little Billy Watson. Max: You can’t do that, son. Why? If you want something, you have to earn it. When I was your age, I was already out earning my own money. Where do you think we got this house from? Do you think we stole it? You have to work for your pleasure, son.
for permission. Max: Young lady, you’re grounded. Max Jr.: Busted. Max’s daughter: Max was stealing, and you didn’t ground him.
Max: Oh, don’t worry, young lady. Max will pay for his mistakes. Besides, I find it easier to understand Max’s motives. His urge for money is natural. To your room, Pinocchio, and let your nose Max’s wife: Listen to your dad. lead the way. He knows what he’s talking Max’s daughter: Oh, you about. Why, just a few never listen to me. moments ago, he was doing [background noise] just that in the shower. Oh, and before I forget, your lovely [slams door] daughter came home last [music] night after 12. Didn’t you? Max: The Watsons are having Max’s daughter: I forgot to a party again. look at the time. Max’s wife: No. You forgot to ask for permission. Max’s daughter: I’m sorry. I just-Max’s wife: You just didn’t ask
Max’s daughter: Dad, how come you and Mom decided to have children? Max: Well, sweetie, you are our investments for the future, 11
and the interest too, the offspring. Max’s daughter: Huh? Max: Daddy put a deposit into Mommy, and Mommy bore the interest. Max’s daughter: Would you ever sell us for the right profit then, Dad? Max: Princess, some things in life are not for sale. Max Jr: Dad, can you read us a bedtime story? Max: Sure. Speaker 2: [foreign language] [background noise] Max Jr.: That’s all I got. Speaker 2: [foreign language] [music] Max’s wife: Honestly, I don’t understand where he got this behavior from. [unintelligible 00:05:25]. You could think we have no money at home. We gave him anything he wants, anything he asked for, and he goes stealing money. Where
did we go wrong? Max: Well, that’s the thing with terrorists. You give into them once, and they never stop. I tell you, there should be no negotiation here, only a strong hand. Max’s wife: No negotiation? You’re just too lazy to talk with your son. Max: What do you want me to do? Max’s wife: What do you want me to do? I’m going out shopping tomorrow, and you will have plenty of time to talk with the boy. Max: My day off, and you just have to give me some homework, don’t you? Max’s wife: I can’t concentrate. Max, Max, are you awake? Max: [grunts] Max’s wife: Max. Max: Angel. Max’s wife: I can’t sleep. I’m worried. 12
Max: Angel, I’m trying to sleep Oh, that’s her. I’m off. Have fun with your dad, kids. He’s all here. yours. Don’t exhaust him. Max’s wife: Come on, Max. I’m worried. I mean, what kind Max Jr.: Bye, Mom. of young man do you want him Max’s daughter: Bye, Mom. to become? [crosstalk] Max: Okay, okay, I’ll talk with Max’s wife: Bye, kids. the boy. Now, let me sleep. Max’s daughter: Bye. Max’s wife: Good night, Max. [background noise] Max: Good night. Max Jr.: Dad, is our house [music] private property? Max’s wife: Thank God for Max: Yes, it is, son. weekends. Max Jr.: What is private Max Jr: Hi, Dad. Good property? morning, Mom. Max: It means that this house Max’s daughter: Hi, Mom. Hi, belongs to us. We are the only Dad. ones who have the right to use it, and most important, we Max’s wife: Good morning. have the right to exclude Did you two sleep well? others from using it. Max Jr.: Yes. Max Jr.: Exclude? Max’s wife: Kids, I’m going out Max: Exactly so. You can claim with Ms. Watson. Your father would have loved to tag along, something as yours the moment you keep others out but he has to stay home and of it. watch you two. [car honks]
Max Jr.: Huh? 13
Max: Private property creates borders, son. It limits others while liberating its rightful owner. Max Jr.: How did we really get our house, Dad? Max: Well, I worked hard, saved my money, and-Max Jr.: Yes, but who sold it to you?
Max’s daughter: I read that once all humans were nomads-- Hunters and gatherers. Nature belonged to no one, and to all, then suddenly, someone claims nature as his own, and others have to pay him rent. Strange. Max Jr.: The big ones take from the small ones.
Max: The guy who owned it before me.
Max: Nobody took anything. Come on, you guys. Stop it. Don’t confuse profit with theft.
Max Jr.: How did he get the house?
Max’s daughter: Dad, are we your private property?
Max: I don’t know. He bought a piece of land and built a house on it.
Max: Of course not. You are my kids.
Max Jr.: From who did he get the land? Max: From the land owner.
Max’s daughter: Then why do I have to ask permission for everything?
Max: He bought it from another land owner.
Max: Because I’m your father. That’s why. Because I’m big and you’re small. When you get bigger, you can do exactly as you please.
Max Jr.: And that other owner?
Max’s daughter: It’s all a matter of size then?
Max: Are you trying to drive me crazy?
Max: Exactly so.
Max Jr.: And he?
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Max Jr.: Will we get your house when we get bigger? Max: Yes, my son. Someday this will all be yours. That is called inheritance, and that’s how we accumulate. Max Jr.: When? Max’s daughter: When he dies. Max Jr.: What is inheritance? Max: Inheritance means that the property stays in the family. Our family is just like your pink piggy bank, son. That’s what families are for, to keep property from leaking out. Max’s daughter: Is Mom your private property?
Max: Well, yes, in a way. Max’s daughter: Then she is your private property. Max: Now listen, girl. You keep running into the same obstacle over and over again. Don’t confuse love with property. We cannot measure love. It cannot be valued like property. Why, love is probably the only thing in the world that does not have a price tag attached to it. We cannot buy and sell love. Why, love is the glue that holds us together as family. Max’s daughter: Love holds the family together, and the family holds the property from leaking out? Nice.
Max’s daughter: Anybody can take her away from you? Can Mr. Watson?
Max: That’s right. The family, just like money, is built on an act of faith. Both require credit, and credit will allow you to produce and reproduce.
Max: No. Just let him try.
Max Jr.: Produce?
Max’s daughter: She belongs to you because you exclude others from using her?
Max: Make objects so we can sell them and buy a house.
Max: No. Mom is Mom.
Max’s daughter: Never seen 15
you produce any object.
Max Jr.: Yes.
Max: Oh, I don’t need to. I can buy them.
Max: That’s the way. You got to earn, let it circulate.
Max’s daughter: Haven’t seen you reproduce either. You’re wasting it in the shower.
[music]
Max Jr.: Can I inherit Mom when you die? Max’s daughter: That’s so Freudian. Grow up. What about sharing? Max: Sharing is primitive, honey. Animals share. They live in herds. They have hooves. Do you want to live in a herd? No, we evolved. We rose up on our two feet so we can free our hands to point at objects and say, “This is mine.” We freed our fingers so we can count. How far could you count if you had hooves? No, girl, anatomy is your destiny. Use your hands. Max’s daughter: Dad, can you help me out with my homework? Max: Sure. Can you finish the dishes for me?
Max’s daughter: The original meaning of the word “family”, first coined in ancient Rome, did not have the sentimental and domestic meaning we attach to it today. Max: [foreign language] Max’s daughter: For the Romans, the word “family” did not even refer to the married pair and their children, but to slaves. Famulus means a domestic slave. Familia means a total number of slaves belonging to one man. This was the new Roman social organism whose head, the father, ruled over wife, kids, and slaves. Thus, transitioning full private property was accomplished parallel with transition to monogamy. The single-family became the economic unit of society. Sentimentality and love came only later to seal the deal. 16
Max Jr.: Dad, how come I got half the money you got for doing your job? Max: Because I am smarter. Max Jr.: No, you’re not. Max: Actually, it’s the time of production. It takes more time to become a teacher than to become a dishwasher. You see, it takes more time to produce an adult than a seven-year-old kid. Time is money. Max Jr.: How can time be money? Max: If this cup took half the time it took to manufacture this plate, this would mean that one plate is worth twice as much as one cup. Max’s daughter: Time is a way to calculate an object’s value? Max: Indeed. It’s all a matter of age. Max Jr.: Oops. [plate shatters] Max’s daughter: That was definitely the sound of one plate, not two cups.
Max: Think of it this way. Just as every specific sound has a very specific object it’s attached to, so will an object always have its own unique value attached to it. That is the price tag, a red tongue that speaks its value. Max’s daughter: I prefer silence. Max: Baby, the breaking sound is what makes us feel pain once an object has been destroyed. Without it, all is worthless. Without it, you’re in a slapstick comedy. Add sound, and you turn that comedy into a tragedy of wild consumption and waste. Add sound, and you add value. Max Jr.: Thieves are silent. Max: Exactly, boy. People who have something to hide are silent. Thieves are silent, and we are not thieves. Are we, boy? No. Always regard silent as suspicious. [foreign language] [phone ringing] [foreign language] 17
Max Jr.: Hello?
Max’s daughter: Again.
Max’s wife: Hi, honey. How are we doing?
Max Jr.: Private property.
Max Jr.: Everything’s all right, Mom. Max: [foreign language] Max’s wife: Is your sister doing her homework? Max Jr.: Yes, Mom. Max’s wife: Is Daddy helping her? Max Jr.: Yes. Max’s wife: Did Daddy have a talk with you?
Max’s daughter: Again. Max Jr.: Private property. Max’s wife: Now listen, boy. You better cut it out, or I will ask Dad to ground you as well, for a whole week. Got it? Now, put your dad on. Max: Yes? Max’s wife: Honey, I hear things are not going so well. Still have that obsession for stealing?
Max Jr.: Yes. It’s so cool, private property and thieves.
Max: Oh, don’t worry. Just a little bump on the road. How is Ms. Watson doing?
Max’s daughter: He’s so cute when he says “private property”. Say “private property”.
Max’s wife: We are just fine, shopping. Strangely enough, I feel quite at home here.
Max Jr.: No. Max’s daughter: Please? Max Jr.: No. Max’s daughter: I’ll pay you. Max Jr.: Private property.
Max: You’re not coming back? Max’s wife: Is that a question or a wish? Max: When do you plan to come back? Max’s wife: I won’t be too long. Don’t worry. See you 18
soon. Bye. Dear, where were we? Max: Where were we? Max’s daughter: Family is an economic unit. Love is sticky. We feel at home just about everywhere. Max Jr.: Objects talk, thieves are silent. Max’s daughter: Private property’s cute, but the law that protects it was first erected to protect the first act of stealing. Objects talk, but the law, like a thief, is silent. Objects talk, but they don’t say all they know. They keep some secrets for themselves. [background noise] [music] [moaning] [background noise] Max Jr.: A good movie is
always open-ended, like a call to the future or a sequel. We have decided to end with the call to the future. Max’s daughter: Children of the world, unite. Release the future from the shackles of the past. My peers, it is our time to steal, not in order to gain property, but in order to lose respect for it. Property is like a ghost. You cannot possess it without being possessed by it. Steal and let others steal. Let property move freely from place to place so it will not haunt your home. Steal from the local supermarket, steal from the city, steal from the state, steal from your parents, and above all, don’t accept inheritance, steal it. Rob your parents and rid yourself of promises you will have to keep. Children of the world, unite. Release the future from the shackles of the past.
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Nayland Blake (U.S., b. 1960) Negative Bunny, 1994 Single-channel video, (color, sound); 30 mins. Henry Art Gallery, gift from the Collection of Steven Johnson and Walter Sudol, 2007.69
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Nayland Blake is an American conceptual artist whose work addresses questions of sexual, racial, and queer identity. In Negative Bunny, a squeaky-voiced toy rabbit pleads unrelentingly with an unseen interlocutor, deploying a range of increasingly emotionally manipulative strategies to convince them to have sex with him. Blake’s bunny repeatedly proclaims that he’s negative—a reference to his HIV status. Made at the height of the AIDS epidemic, Negative Bunny attests to the profound risks of intimacy and high stakes of trust in the face of the mortal threat of HIV/AIDS. The rabbit is a long recurring motif in Blake’s work and, often, a stand-in for gay men. Associated with promiscuity and fertility, it is also a mythological trickster, a reference to Joseph Beuys’s hare, and the iconic symbol of Playboy magazine. In Negative Bunny, the rabbit lends levity and accessibility to a then-taboo topic.
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Negative Bunny Audio Transcript [silence] Speaker: Oh, oh, come on. Come on, please, please. I was tested. I’m negative. Really, really. Yes, yes, yes. Just a little while ago, I went. Yes, really. Now, come on. Come on. Now, come on. Come on now. Yes, really. I was tested five times this year. Yes, I go every other month just to-- Because I think it’s important for people to know about my status. I’m negative and really negative, really, really negative. I went and I was tested. Come on. Why not? Why not? What do you need? Come on now. Come on now. I told you. Please, please. I mean, what do you want? I told you I was negative already. I told you I got tested, I went down to the clinic, two or three days
ago, two or three days. I got a special deal where they do it right away and I know right away. I’m really negative. I’ve been negative-- For as long as I can remember, I’ve been negative. I don’t understand why you won’t let me. Now, come on. Come on just for a little while, just for a little while. It’ll be really nice. I’m really good at it. I’m really, really good. I want to show you how much I care about you. It would mean a lot to me personally. It’s been a while, but before the while, I was doing it all the time and I feel like I should. I feel like you’re really-- I think you’re really being kind of insecure about it because if you can’t with somebody who’s really negative, I mean, really negative then what’s going to
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happen? I mean, what could happen? I really like you. I really care about you. Frankly, I feel like this is the sort of thing-- It’s the sort of challenge that you really need to face up to. Now, come on, come on, really. I really, really, really like you, and I really care about you. I really feel that you should let me, and I’m really negative. I’m asking. I was nice and I asked. Oh, I’m just saying please because yes, why not? Come on, come on. I told you I was just tested a little while ago, two or three hours ago. They said I was negative, and I’ve got a note somewhere. I’ve got it written down that I’m negative. I really, really feel like you should really face up to this and let me. Why not? What the hell, it’ll be fun. It’s going to be fun because, like I told you, I’m really good at it and I’m negative. I’m really negative.
I’m really, really, really negative. I really think that you should really, really, really examine your own emotional problems around this because clearly, you’ve got some issues around this, and I think it would be an important growth thing for you to really face your demons, get back on the horse, and get on with it. I really think that you should examine your own internalized problems because really, if you can’t do it with someone who’s really negative, then what are you going to do? You might as well crawl in a hole somewhere. Now, come on. I really like you a lot. I don’t say this all the time. I just really like you and I really think you should let me. I’m really negative, really. [pause 00:06:52] Speaker: Now, come on, come on, come on. I really think you should let me. Come 23
on. I really think we should. We should really because I’m negative. I tested just recently, and it’s really true. I really think we should. I really do. I think it’s an important thing for us. I think it could really mean something, really. I’m really negative. The last time, you wouldn’t at all, and I really feel like it had some serious consequences for us.
we really, really got down to it. Really, I don’t understand your resistance, really, I don’t because if I was keeping something from you, then that was one thing, but I just said I’m negative. Most guys wouldn’t even tell you that, and I just thought now that you know, you should just know, so come on. Come on, really. I’m not messing around. I’m really serious about what we have together and what we could have together, and I’m really committed, and well, I think you’re avoiding your commitment by not confronting this.
I really think that it’s important for us to examine that and get past it because I know I’m negative, and now, you know, and really, I think we just should because fear eats the soul. I feel like I’ve been Well, while I’m not feeling doing a lot of work, a lot of anger exactly, I am feeling a soul work, and being in touch sense of frustration because with that has made me realize I really feel like I’ve put my that fear is just anger turned cards on the table, and really, inside out. I don’t want to share anger with you, I want to I’m negative. If you can’t trust that, then I feel like you have share my love with you. some serious issues about I think you know the way trust. I don’t know where that that we could share that love. comes from. I don’t know Really, I think it’s time that what it comes from, but that’s
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your trip. I feel like it’s time for you to start to examine some of that.
then you can just let it flow, let it go, and just let me. I don’t understand all this resistance. Do I remind you of your father? Is that it? Is that it? Because I’m not him. I’m not, and you should just know that.
The best way is to just do it, is to just start in it. Really, I really think that you should just start off on it. Just give it a whirl. It’s like a firewalk, okay? I think you should just let me. Really, really just let go. Let go. Let’s just be sensible. You Really just think about the fact should just let me. I could see that I’m negative, and that I not letting somebody who shared that with you, and think was positive, but I’m negative, about what you want to share and I’ve been negative for a with me in return. Okay? long time, and well, you’re like me. You’re a survivor, and it’s [pause 00:12:21] our job to make sure that it’s Speaker: I put on some music still happening, that it’s still going on, and it’s a cultural because I thought it might thing. We got a duty to our help you get in the mood. culture to not let our way of Now that you’re in the mood, life vanish from the face of the come on. Come on, now. I earth. Come on now. Come really mean it. I really, really on. Come on, really, really. I like you, and I don’t say that really like you. I really think to everybody. I only say it to that we could have something people I really like. I think together, and well, it’s in honor since I’ve told you I really like you, and I really told you about of that, I think you should just let me. my status, well, I think you should just let me, okay? You get relaxed and get ready, and
I think you should learn to let
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go and just let me because how are we going to get anywhere if you’re so resistant from the start, okay? I really, really like you a lot, and, well, I’m really, really, really negative. I really am, so I think you should just let me, okay? Just let me, okay? I’m begging you. I’m just begging you, so come on, and just let me. What’s it going to hurt, right? Come on, come on. Come on, please. Please. Please. [pause 00:17:37] Speaker: Well, come on. Come on now. Come on. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please. Come on, and please. Well, maybe I was all wrong about you. When I saw you, I thought you were a normal guy. I thought you were a normal person and the kind of person who wouldn’t just torture somebody. I’m asking you nicely, really, really
nicely, and look at me. Here I am, a nice, negative person, really negative, really recently tested, really negative, and you’re not responding. Well, I feel like you’re not acknowledging me as a person. Is that what I am to you? I’m not even a person to you. Is that it? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? Because I can’t see why a person would treat another person like this. Frankly, I feel like it’s really a power trip, and I think that you should examine your motives for acting like this. When I saw you, I didn’t think you were on sociopath or something. I’m asking you nicely. Come on, I’m negative, you couldn’t be more negative than me, so I don’t understand what the problem is. I just don’t, and I’m asking you. You’re just not giving me anything. I feel like you don’t respect me, and you don’t believe I’m capable of giving. I want to give, and
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you’re negating that. I just feel like you need to get your house in order because if that’s what you think about other people, then that says a lot about what you think about yourself. I don’t want to read your beads or anything, but I really just think that anyone who was just normal, who was just a normal person wouldn’t be acting so weird, wouldn’t be acting so abnormal. I just want to know what it’s all about. I want to know what your problem is because it’s not a problem for me, so it must be some kind of a big problem with you.
culture. You’re like that Death Star in Star Wars and I feel like you’re sucking the energy right out of me. That’s why I just want you to explain that. I feel like you don’t speak to my feelings. You just don’t. [pause 00:23:05]
Speaker: Come on. No, I’m serious this time. Do you want to back rub maybe? Is that it? Would that make you happy? Really, I think romance is important. There’s not enough romance in our lives. I am a romantic person and I feel like you are a romantic person too. In honor of romance, I think that you should just let me, you should just let me. Let me know. Just tell me. What is it? Why not? Why not? It’ll be like the old days, okay? Life is short enough, and really It’ll be like old times. Just if you can’t just go with it then once for old times’ sake with a certifiably negative person, what are you on the ride for? negative. That’s what I say. I say, “Live.” I’m a person who loves life. I Really, my test results are back love life, and I feel like I’m in and I’m negative, so I really touch with a life force, but I think that in honor of the good feel like you’re like a death old days, you should just let 27
me because life is too short. Embrace life, and embrace me and realize that if there’s a darkness in your soul, then it destroys romance. It’s our duty not to destroy romance but to make romance blossom. What I really think is that you’re over-rationalizing all this. I think you should just let me for old times’ sake. You can’t pretend that you don’t like it. You can’t pretend that you don’t want it, so why don’t you just let me? Just let me, and it’ll be great. Besides, I’m really hot for you. I’m really burning up. I don’t normally get this excited about somebody at this stage of the game. I just don’t. It’s in honor of that and in honor of my romantic feelings for you because I don’t feel like it’s just over. I don’t feel like 20 minutes from now, it’ll just be over. I feel it’s just the beginning, so in honor of that feeling, I think that you should put aside your petty doubts.
I never thought that you were such a petty person because really, you seem to have a grandeur of spirit to me. You seem to be on the great spirit voyage. You seem to have a lot of capacity for love, and hopefully, a lot of capacity to receive love because I want to give you love, but I feel like you’re afraid to take love. Really, to be afraid to take love is to have a dark place in your soul. I would never want that to happen to you. I would want you to be open to all the light in your soul, all the bliss that’s possible. That’s why you should just believe me. When I say that I’m negative, I mean it, and you should open your soul up to bliss. You should follow your bliss, and I’m it. I’m asking you to follow me and follow my lead because it’s very important. Come on now. Come on and just let me, just let me. I’m telling you for your own good that you should
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just come on and let me. Let me because I just think you should, you just should. Come on, I’m negative. I’ve tested 20 times this past year, God damn it, so just let me. Okay? I’m just going to ask you
one more time. Okay? Okay, you’re going to let me? Come on. Come on. [pause 00:29:59] [00:30:32] [END OF AUDIO]
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Slater Bradley (U.S., b. 1975) Intermission, 2003–2005 Single-channel video (black-and white, sound); 7:03 mins. Henry Art Gallery, gift of Dean Valentine and Amy Adelson, 2016.229
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Slater Bradley is an American conceptual artist whose work crosses disciplines and media, often referencing pop culture and exploring themes of youth, identity, and mortality. In Intermission, Bradley draws on American pop star Michael Jackson’s music and image to create a melancholy meditation on the fleeting nature of youth. Lyrics from Jackson’s 1995 song “Childhood” are used as text on intertitles that appear between segments of black-and-white film, recalling the conventions of silent films, while a figure with striking similarities to the famed musician is seen wandering through a bleak, snowy landscape.
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Intermission Audio Transcript Child: Hey, look. Speaker 2: [inaudible 00:00:02] Child: No. [crosstalk]. Speaker 3: Dead zebra carcass. Child: No, I think the vultures killed him. Look at the-Watch. Speaker 2: No, no, the vultures don’t kill anything, they just pick up the scraps. Child: Oh, yeah, I forgot. Are you sure the hyena didn’t do it? Oh yes. Yes, that’s-Speaker 2: Hyena’s got to pick up the scraps too. You must be right, this must be jaguars but I didn’t know jaguars [inaudible 00:00:25] Child: See? Hey look, those
vultures are attacking each other. Speaker 2: Yes. Child: See? In order to get that. That one’s just got about to hit him down in the back. That one’s just-Speaker 2: Oh. [unintelligible 00:00:38] although reputed to be almost scavengers, spotted hyenas. A fierce predator that all hunt together, scavengers. Child: [inaudible 00:00:49] Child: Hey, you wanna see the [unintelligible 00:00:53]? You want to see the solar system? [unintelligible 00:00:58] See? I told you. [inaudible 00:01:04] Speaker 2: I believe that [unintelligible 00:01:09] Child: Oh. [unintelligible
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00:01:16]
a little playdate with Garrett.
Speaker 5: Jase, stop.
Speaker 2: You see anything special in the tree?
[pause 00:01:20] [background conversation] [music] Child: Found the Big Bang. Big Bang. Found the Big Bang. Found the Big Bang. Child: Here, the Big Bang. Speaker 5: Yes, but you know [unintelligible 00:02:24] for me. And if you can’t stay together, we’re not going there. We don’t go to [inaudible 00:02:33] [background conversation] [cry] And then we’ll go see Garrett today and go have a little playdate with Garrett. And then we’ll go see Garrett today and go have a little playdate with Garrett. And then we’ll go see Garrett today and go have
Child: Uh-oh. I know what that is. A porcupine. Speaker 2: That’s right. A porcupine is hiding up in the tree. This one here, this one’s called a fisher, and he wants to eat that porcupine. What does the porcupine have to protect--? Child: Porks. Speaker 2: Not porks. Child: Porky. Speaker 2: He’s got his quills’ spines, his quills in his back. [inaudible 00:03:17] amazing park [unintelligible 00:03:19] Speaker 5: Do you hear that? Child: Yes. [silence] [background conversation]
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Speaker 5: Why is it called the stick [unintelligible 00:03:31]?
Child: Luke, get up and run [unintelligible 00:04:29]
Child: Because it’s sticky.
Child: But what is it?
Speaker 5: No. [unintelligible 00:03:34] it looks like a stick. It’s looks like on the end.
Child: We don’t know.
Child: A walking stick? Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 5: We get away from him. Child: [crosstalk]. [pause 00:04:37]
Child: [unintelligible 00:03:40] Hi, daddy. Hi daddy. [music] Go daddy. Go daddy. [children singing] Child: I can’t hear. [pause 00:03:56] [background crosstalk conversation] Child: We’re not going that way. Child: What is it? What is it? [unintelligible 00:04:28]
Child: Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? Where’s the movie? [00:07:03] [END OF AUDIO]
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Candice Breitz (South Africa/Germany, b. 1972) Diorama (Miami Version), 2002 Nine-channel video installation and furniture (color, sound) Gift of William and Ruth True, originally commissioned by Artpace, A Foundation for Contemporary Art | San Antonio, 2012.8
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Candice Breitz is a South African artist primarily working in video and photography. Known for her multi-channel video installations in which she excerpts found footage drawn from mass media and popular culture, Breitz’s work investigates the way these exterior influences shape our understandings of self. In Diorama (Miami Version), looping clips of key characters from the American soap opera Dallas—which aired for fourteen seasons between 1978 and 1991—play simultaneously across nine television monitors scattered throughout a fictive domestic space. To create this work, Breitz clipped phrases from Dallas that speak to themes of family, love, obligation, indiscretion, infidelity, and betrayal— all characteristic of the genre. Rapidly repeated and overlapped in the space, they create a mesmerizing cacophony that exaggerates the ordinary viewing experience. Breitz restages these clips in a space that recalls the aspirational interiors in which viewers, enamored with the lives of the ultra-wealthy Texas oil tycoons Dallas portrayed, might have watched the show when it aired.
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Sue de Beer (U.S., b. 1973) The Dark Hearts, 2003–2004 Two-channel video and sculptural installation Henry Art Gallery, gift of Charlotte Feng Ford, 2021.61
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Sue de Beer is an American artist whose work lies at the intersection of film, sculpture, and installation. In The Dark Hearts, de Beer has fused a two-channel projection with a makeshift pink convertible, inviting viewers into the space of her film. On screen, a teenage love story in four acts unfolds, a budding romance between a goth boy and a preppy girl. A sense of dread and possibility, horror and delight characteristic of teenage years pervades. As American cultural critic Bruce Hainley has written: “The horror? The horror is the world they live in, which necessitates, instead of diary keeping, making ‘morgue entries’ to figure out their lives. This is the world that’s been left to them: darknesses transacting in between boy parts and girl parts, in between loving and leaving, in between teen loneliness and adult existence.”
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Dora García (Spain, b. 1965) La Lección Respiratoria (The Breathing Lesson), 2001 Single-channel video (color, stereo sound); 16 mins. Henry Art Gallery, Henry Contemporaries Acquisition Fund purchase, 2002.3
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Dora García is a Spanish conceptual artist working in a variety of media, including drawing, film, installation, and performance. Her loosely-scripted narratives analyze (and often psychoanalyze) the impact of language on the social formation of identity. The Breathing Lesson consists of a teacher/trainer commanding a young girl’s breathing, both in rhythm and in manner. An uncomfortable witness to the process, the viewer is not included in the goal of this scenario—to help, hurt, instruct, control? García explores the tensions that arise between teacher and student, delving into the relationships between trust and domination inherent in instruction. A seemingly purposeless lesson, García invites the viewer into an unstable space between fiction and reality.
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La Lección Respiratoria (The Breathing Lesson Audio Transcript Teacher: Un.
Teacher: Dix
Student: [breathing]
Student: [vocalizing]
Teacher: Deux.
Teacher: Onze.
Student: [slow breathing]
Student: [heavy breathing]
Teacher: Trois.
Teacher: Douze.
Student: [rapid breathing]
[clapping]
Teacher: Quatre.
Student: [rapid breathing]
Student: [slow breathing]
Teacher: Un.
Teacher: Cinq.
Student: [breathing]
Student: [breathing]
Teacher: Deux.
Teacher: Sept.
Student: [slow breathing]
Student: [slurping noise]
Teacher: Trois.
Teacher: Huit.
Student: [rapid breathing]
Student: [buzzing noise]
Teacher: Quatre.
Teacher: Neuf.
Student: [slow breathing]
Student: [vocalizing]
Teacher: Cinq.
Teacher: Neuf.
Student: [breathing]
Student: [vocalizing]
Teacher: Sept. 42
Student: [slurping noise]
Student: [slow breathing]
Teacher: Huit.
Teacher: Cinq.
Student: [buzzing noise]
Student: [breathing]
Teacher: Huit.
Teacher: Sept.
Student: [buzzing noise]
Student: [slurping noise]
Teacher: Neuf.
Teacher: Huit.
Student: [vocalizing]
Student: [buzzing noise]
Teacher: Dix
Teacher: Neuf.
Student: [vocalizing]
Student: [vocalizing]
Teacher: Onze.
Teacher: Dix
Student: [heavy breathing]
Student: [vocalizing]
Teacher: Douze.
Teacher: Dix
[clapping]
Student: [vocalizing]
Student: [rapid breathing]
Teacher: Dix
Teacher: Un.
Student: [vocalizing]
Student: [breathing]
Teacher: Onze.
Teacher: Deux.
Student: [heavy breathing]
Student: [slow breathing]
Teacher: Douze.
Teacher: Trois.
[clapping]
Student: [rapid breathing]
Student: [rapid breathing]
Teacher: Quatre.
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Rashid Johnson (U.S., b. 1977) Black and Blue, 2021 Single-channel video (35mm film, transferred to video); 7:50 mins. Henry Art Gallery, purchased with funds from the Rothschild Family Foundation for the Henry Art Gallery’s Collection, 2021.64
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Rashid Johnson is an American artist working in photography, film, and sculpture, among other media. Often autobiographical in nature, Johnson’s work explores race, class, and African American history. Shot on 35mm film during the COVID-19 pandemic, Black and Blue traces the daily rhythms of Johnson’s domestic life over the course of one day. Interspersed throughout the film—either within the domestic environment, or as brief flashes on screen—are the rich range of references that inform Johnson’s work: African sculpture, major photography books, significant literary works by African American writers, and artworks by his peers. The work takes its title from (What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue, a 1929 jazz standard originally composed by legendary jazz musician Fats Waller and later popularized by Louis Armstrong, which Johnson’s daughter plays on the piano in the film.
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Shirin Neshat (Iran/U.S., b. 1957) Possessed, 2001 Single-channel video (black-and-white, sound); 9:30 mins. Henry Art Gallery, gift of William and Ruth True, 2012.7
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Shirin Neshat is an Iranian American visual artist working in film, video, and photography. In Possessed, Neshat worked with a professional actress, Shohreh Aghdashloo, to create a film that explored and revealed the protagonist’s state of mind—one of seeming madness, the only way to express herself in a socially repressive society. As Neshat notes, this condition “makes direct reference to the Iranian culture, where one lives under constant social control. Therefore, the notion of individuality does pose a threat to the order of society, as it might provoke others to demand the same right. In the film, once the woman enters the public plaza and becomes the focus of attention, she immediately disturbs the space and divides the public into two groups: those who support her and her freedom to behave as she desires due to madness, and others, furiously insulted by her presence, who demand her immediate removal.”
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Kaari Upson (U.S., 1972–2021) Split Eye, 2012–2017 Single-channel video (HD video, color, sound); 33:44 mins. Henry Art Gallery, purchased with funds from The Buddy Taub Foundation, 2020.6
Chandelier Inversion, 2011 Mixed media Courtesy The Art Trust created under Kaari Upson Trust and Sprüth Magers
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Kaari Upson was a Los Angeles-based conceptual artist best-known for The Larry Project, her extended and obsessive investigation into the life of a man she never met, comprised of works in a variety of media and spanned two decades. In this installation, Upson combines film and sculpture, projecting her haunting film, Split Eye, against the backside of Chandelier Inversion. A sense of imminent threat and claustrophobia pervades the enigmatic film that references Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s 1929 Surrealist film Un Chien Andalou, as well as modern psychoanalytic theory through its use of twinning and mirror images. The sculpture itself is part of The Larry Project, an inverted reconstruction of a chandelier that hung in Larry’s home that was made according to photographs Upson took in the private, domestic space before it was destroyed in a fire.
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Gillian Wearing (England, b. 1963) 10-16, 1997 Single-channel video (color, sound); 15 mins. Henry Art Gallery, gift of William and Ruth True, 99.2
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In 10-16, English conceptual artist Gillian Wearing amplifies the voices of seven children, aged ten through sixteen, by filming adult actors lip-synching audio from recorded interviews. The adult actors in 10-16 mask the identities of the actual speakers, endowing them with a degree of seriousness usually reserved for adults while also preserving their anonymity as they confess some of their most intimate concerns. The content of these interviews ranges from mundane accounts of everyday pleasures to wrenching confessions of abuse and addiction, capturing a broad range of lived experience. As Wearing has remarked, “We know children have interesting things to say and use language in a rich way, but when you channel this through an older body, then all of a sudden there’s a pathos and you’re transforming how people look at that.” The disconnect between young voices and adult bodies lends an uncanny aspect that heightens the viewer’s attention.
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10-16 Audio Transcript [silence] 10: I have a tree house and it’s out the back. I use wood, metal, plastic and things like that. It’s fun and joyful. My seat is right at the top so I’ve got a good view. It’s quite good when you’re up there because when you’re bored, when you’re up right at the top in my seat it’s quite good because you can’t see over the buildings, but there’s a fence, lots of gardens, and you can see over them, can see what people are doing in their gardens if you’re bored. Sometimes you see squirrels in the tree and birds. There’s a big bird’s nest right at the top but I just leave that. I play games, I play Army up there, trying to hide from the baddies. When I’m up there by myself I think I’m home alone and it’s quite good. Because no one is there with you, you
get to do loads of stuff, and read books sometimes and play with their things. When I’m up there I dream that I’m a character and it’s quite fun because I act I’m all rich. I imagine that I’m a professional footballer and gymnast. I think sometimes I’ve got a happy life, a fun life, an exciting life. I think what I’m going to do in my future-[pause 00:02:11] 11-1: It’s important to be tough, but every time I hit someone, I think, “Ow, why did I do that?” At first, I hit people in the arm, then I kick them in the legs and then I punch them in the belly. I would like to hit them harder but then we get separated. I don’t think many people like me that much because I had to move schools. Well, at my last school, I was friends with Victoria, Antoinette, 52
have any worries, I justand Louise. Now I’m friends - Because I just-- I’m happy with Adam, Jason, Victoria, and I don’t really need worries Antoinette, and Louise. and I’m a bit laid back really Antoinette doesn’t always like to play with me, but when because I’m at a lovely school where I have lots of friends, she does want to play with I’m in a lovely home and that’s me, I don’t want to play with all. I think most of it’s fine but Antoinette. In fact, one day I’m going to kill Antoinette. I’m I do actually get upset when going to punch her in the gob. I hear about how many tigers there are left in the world and Everyone says I’m tough just how little of this and how little like my mum, but I think no, of that there are left in the “Me and my mum, I think we’re world. People are extincting more like our cat Rebecca, them and hurting them. Also, neither me or my mum change I get upset about the way our clothes that much and we people have abortions now a like sleeping lots and lots. lot because in science at the [silence] moment, our science teacher is teaching us about babies 11-2: Me and my cat climb and so now we know exactly scaffoldings and when we what they look like and they’re get to the top we look down really lovely. Then when they and look at all the people. get aborted, they’re being When we’re looking down, murdered really by human we see some funny people and I throw stones off at them society. and Rebecca just sits there watching. [pause 00:04:15] 12: I don’t usually have any worries really. I don’t really
[pause 00:06:00] 13: One of the things I do feel anxious about is my mother and I’d love to kill her very much as I found out she is 53
a lesbian. I first found out when she came to my garden shed to tell me the exciting news. That she had been to a meeting and had met a big white swan. The big white swan had floated across the room to her and now they’re in love. I told her I was delighted, but I wasn’t really delighted about her being a lesbian in the house especially. The next day I was sent to meet her by the station. I waited for two hours for the big white swan and the big white swan didn’t ever arrive. It was snowing and my duffel coat wasn’t that warm really so I went home and found the big white swan was already there. She had gone to a different station and hadn’t bothered to tell me. Then she was sitting on the sofa and the fat was oozing all over the sofa, down off the sofa, and all across the floor. She didn’t look like a swan to me. She was guzzling cakes and she looked revolting. My mother
was in love with this lump of lard. I was appalled really. I’d love them both to be dead very much, especially the big white swan, but my mother as well really. I do know how to kill people because my mother told me. She said, “What you have to do is freeze some peas and then de-freeze them, and you do it a few times and you make pea soup.” Apparently, when they die they can’t tell what’s killed them. I’d like to try that one on them since I do most of the cooking anyway. [shuts door] [silence] 14: I feel like I’m a man in a boy’s body and I like drinking, and I like getting beer into my stomach so I can get buzzing. [silence] Where I get my money from, is sometimes when I ask my mum for the money and she goes, “All right then.” Then I go out onto the street and get one of my bigger mates to get me a beer. Say if there’s money lying 54
around in my house, on the mantelpiece, on the side, or on the fridge or somewhere like that, I just take it because it’s like when I’m playing out most of my mates have money and I don’t have no money. When I say it to my mum, she goes, “Oh no,” because she’s already given me money, but I want more, so I’ll just pick it up from the side. When she asks me, “Where’s the money?” I just say, “I haven’t seen it. I’ve already had money. Why am I going to take more?” I’ll just say that. Sometimes when I go into McDonald’s there’s a man sitting outside. I go and get what I want then, I buy him something because he looks like as if he’s poor. I buy him something and then when he’s sitting down I offer him a can of Coke or some chips or something. When he takes it off me, I’ll just bend down and take his money because he puts it in a hat. Then I just run off and wait for the bus round
the corner where he can’t see me. When the bus comes, I get on it and come home. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, say I’ve been drinking the night before, when I wake up, I have a hangover. I take some tablets, then I’ll drink it with beer because it makes me shiver if I haven’t had a drink or something, and then I have a drink of beer, then it makes me feel better and I feel all right, I lay down for another hour or something, and when I get up, I feel all right, like better than what I was. [pause 00:10:17] 15: I like taking bus rides. The longer journey I do, the more times I enjoy it. I’ve been to places like Bromley, Orpington, Croydon, Bexley, Dartford. See, I like to tour places and I have friends there, I go and see them sometimes. Or if I’m not doing that I’m at home working. Well, I’ve been doing that ever since I was a 55
child. When I was good, my dad used to take me out on bus rides, he used to take me down Vauxhall, Victoria, even Westminster and I’ve inherited that. That’s how I like bus rides. I’ve always liked it and I enjoy it, I really enjoy it. Mostly I travel alone, I like to travel on my own. At the same time, it gives me time to think, and at the end of it, I feel better. [pause 00:11:26] 16: My anxiety stems really, I guess, from my whole life and the point I’m at now, I’ve always had this inferiority complex, which stems back 6 years; yes, 10 years old when I developed chronic acne, only now, has it recently cleared up. What also made matters worse was my weight. At the age of 14 and a half, I peaked at 17 and a half stone. I wasn’t particularly a loner, but I wasn’t really amazingly popular either. I didn’t want people to pay me much attention. I didn’t want anyone to look at me. I didn’t really
know who me was. It was like I’ve been given this horrible mask to wear, some kind of clown’s body, the whole thing resulted in some sort of clinical depression. This might all sound paranoid but I remember these builders, I was just walking down the road and they would shout, “Oi, your fat cunt, shed it.” People who see you do comment on it. I’m kind of okay physically now. As you can see, at some point, I chose to do something about it. When you carry that much flab around with you, you tend to get stretch marks. While I was losing a lot of weight, I got stretch marks. Now 50% of my body is covered in stretch marks, therefore, I still feel overweight. In regard to my sexuality, there’s a certain amount of ambivalence attached to that. I mean, I’m not really split either way, I’m attracted to girls. If I see them walking down the street, of course, 56
I’m going to get excited, but with men, it’s not like that, a different sort of attraction. I just think about the cock, an erect cock really turns me on, and I think about fucking and being fucked. It was about a year ago, I was in the bath and I was masturbating and I thought, I wondered what it would be like to put my fingers up inside myself, so I did, and I started
to play with myself as if I were doing it to myself, and it was pretty pleasurable, but I’m still not getting any feelings about men. I’ve started to play with fruit and stuff, and if I’m in the bathroom, I like to look at my cock in the mirror. It’s the only part of my body I don’t feel a sense of shame about. [silence] [00:15:06] [END OF AUDIO]
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Henry everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt. is organized by Shamim M. Momin, Director of Curatorial Affairs. Support for this exhibition is provided by a gift from Charlotte Feng Ford. Media sponsorship provided by
H E N R YA R T. O R G 58
