The Sports Show opens tonight at the MIA. It’s been a lot of fun to work on, being the first major install I’ve worked on at the Institute. It’s also proving to be one of the most media-heavy shows they’ve ever exhibited.

Although the bulk of the pieces on display are photographs, there are some really astounding media works that it has been a privilege to work around and with. From Buster Keaton to Zinedine Zidane, the range of work selected by curator David Little really touches on pretty much every aspect dealing with the intersection of sport and art culture.

Above are stills from some of the featured media pieces:

1. Clips from the Buster Keaton film College.
2. Kota Ezawa’s Brawl, a cut-out animation re-contextualizing of the 2004 Pistons-Pacers brawl. Shown on a 16mm film looper.
3. The O. J. Simpson Project by Roger Welch, a multiple projection and monitor setup featuring an interview with the Juice on two synched monitors, along with projections of him on the football field and a double projection of fans in the stands.
4. Paul Pfeiffer’s The Saints, mainly a massive audio installation featuring the sounds of the 1966 World Cup crowd, recreated and pumped through large speakers to fill a mostly empty gallery. Three video elements are also a part of the piece. One, featured above, is focused on a single player of the World Cup game by editing out every other player on the field.
5. Filz-TV by Joseph Beuys. We all love a little Beuys — here he boxes with himself in front of a small television set, among other things.
6. Tim Davis’ triple monitor piece The Upstate New York Olympics, which feature him conceiving and carrying out various fake Olympic events he builds around what he can find driving around the northern part of his state.
7. Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, a dual screen documentary film about the controversial French soccer player, featuring a soundtrack by Mogwai. This piece really works well as a closer, as it ties together so many aspects of the Welch, Ezawa and Pfeiffer pieces. Also the projections are massive and daunting.

This exhibition has been one of the most exciting and challenging events I’ve ever worked on and I’m really looking forward to seeing what visitors make of it. So if you’re in the MSP area in the near future, make sure to swing by and see The Sports Show. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

New Pictures 5, featuring Jason Fulford’s ’The Mushroom Collection’ is now on view at the MIA. This was one of my favorite exhibition promo pieces I’ve worked on, mostly because I think the idea behind the project is so odd and compelling.

From the New Pictures site:

Fulford’s pictures appear to be unremarkable shots of commonplace objects, people, and places. Yet a closer look reveals humorous and subtle oddities. Fulford’s images reveal themselves through repetition, sequences, and relationships between form and shadow, abstraction and reality.

Fulford is giving his talk on the collection next Thursday, December 1st over at the Institute in the Pillsbury Auditorium, so make sure to come check out the ‘shrooms.

Had a lot of fun rolling though the MIA’s vast collection to find all the faces featured in this video. Part of their ‘Come As You Are’ promotional extravaganza. You’ve maybe seen the billboards. 

This is getting some pretty heavy play during KARE 11 evening newscasts, so make sure to tune it and check it out!

More MIA work.

This show just wrapped up on Sunday, but I encourage you to look up Marco Breuer and check out his astounding photo experiments. You won’t be disappointed. 

My internship at the MIA is beginning to bear some fruit. Here’s a promo I cut together for last week’s Bike Night.

Music by A Night In The Box.

The event was a huge success, tons of people were there and I got to shoot with a Canon 5D, which beyond heaven.