Outside Event - Jonn Herschend

I stuck around for Jonn Herschend's presentation at SFSU. I can't say that I entirely "get" his work. Especially having seen stills for his work prior to actually seeing his video work. He's got a dry sense of humor. And video isn't necessarily something I have appreciated as an art before.

I had initially seen images of his installation of The Book You Said I Never Returned, which you really need to know the story to have the images make sense. My initial impression was "what the eff is this sh...."

It's a bit more meta than I'm used to. I guess part of me questions what the art actually is. Is it the explanation or is the the work? And if it's the explanation, perhaps you should be a writer. But that's just me.

Jonn is a pretty funny guy and there were a few technical difficulties during the talk.

He's being featured in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Biennial. The piece being featured is called Discussion Questions.

Unfortunately it isn't available in it's entirety to share with you, but I loved it. It was text based (so obviously that made me happy) with a driving dance beat. You are reading the storyline as each PowerPoint slide transitions as the music gains in volume and beats per minute. I seriously loved this piece far more than the rest of his video or installment work. The story was pretty great and the orignal music was pretty good as well.

I'm still not entirely certain how I feel about video as an artistic medium. I still think of it as a part of cinema, which is an art form itself, but to me it seems distinctly different than fine art. Perhaps that's part of the problem with how I am approaching art in general. Not really sure, but it's something to question.