Our 2019 starts off the same way our 2018 ended: with a series of new film premieres. Five new film premieres, in fact. Over fifteen new films from each of our digital series, Extended Play and New York Close Up, will premiere throughout the year.
Starting today and continuing every other Wednesday through April 3, we will premiere the first five of those films. Featured in the first group are Kevin Beasley, Doreen Garner, David Goldblatt, Elle Pérez, and Creative Growth Art Center.
The first film, which follows Beasley at work on an ambitious installation currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, is available to watch in full today.
Beasley and Pérez are among five new additions to the New York Close Up featured artist roster happening in 2019. Three additional artists—Jes Fan, Maryam Hoseini, and Dan Herschlein—will appear in films premiering later in the year.
In addition to Goldblatt and Creative Growth Art Center, artists to be featured in Extended Play throughout 2019 will include Olafur Eliasson, Marcel Dzama, Nicholas Hlobo, and Katy Grannan, among others.
Winter 2019 Film Guide
Kevin Beasley
From the New York Close Up series; Premiered February 6
In his Queens studio, Kevin Beasley prepares for his ambitious first solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Inspired by an experience on his family’s farm in Virginia, Beasley’s installation juxtaposes sculpture, sound, and silence to examine the cultural legacy of cotton in the American South.
Doreen Garner
From the New York Close Up series; Premiered February 20
A licensed tattoo artist as well as sculptor and performance artist, Doreen Garner expands the racially-limited visual vocabulary of traditional American tattooing to include African-American iconography—such as Black Panther party symbols and cotton plants. Amongst both friends and strangers, Doreen creates a temporary community of like-minded peers at her pop-up space, discussing and celebrating their shared cultural legacy in all its complexity.
David Goldblatt
From the Extended Play series; Premiered March 6
Photographer David Goldblatt (1930–2018) revisits the Johannesburg, South Africa neighborhood of Fietas—a once diverse and vibrant community until Apartheid-era laws forcibly relocated its non-white residents. Goldblatt documented Fietas before and during its destruction, capturing the families, homes, and shops that comprised this community and, by doing so, contributed to the preservation of their memory.
Elle Pérez
From the New York Close Up series; Premiered March 20
Demonstrating an intimate and collaborative approach to portrait photography, Elle Pérez directs a subject during a photo shoot in the artist’s Brooklyn neighborhood. Visualizing the complexities of gender identity, Perez’s work uses photography to capture visceral details, experiences, and relationships that cannot be described with language alone.
Creative Growth Art Center
From the Extended Play series; Premiered April 3
A celebration of creative achievement, inclusivity, and visibility, Creative Growth Art Center‘s annual “Beyond Trend” fashion show is a vibrant and joyous affair activated by artists with developmental, mental, and physical disabilities. Having spent months—or, in some cases, years—creating outfits worn proudly on the runway, the center’s resident artists walk alongside professional models in a display of the artists’ custom creations.
