Tank tv: Steve Reinke

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Steve Reinke, Speculative Anthropology, 1997Steve Reinke
15th March - 7th April 2009
on www.tank.tv

Tank.tv presents a selection of works from Steve Reinke including thirty two videos from his series The Hundred Videos as well as Painter, Regarding the Pain of Susan Sontag (Notes on Camp) and The Fallen.

Reinke is a prolific storyteller who enjoys sapping his self-righteous counterparts. As suggested by the title of The Hundred Videos (1989-1996), the volume of his output is monumental. In most of his work and in this series - a large part of which is shown on tank.tv - the procedure that underlies these brief videos consists of an exploration of the voice and of the role of the narrator. In situations engaging with topics as diverse as literature, sex, science and art, Reinke’s voice questions the consistency of the relation between what one sees and what is happening. Reinke’s comments distract the viewer from the meaning imposed by the images while at the same time, speaking in the first person, he creates an interlace of fictional, subjective and documentary elements. Moreover, the content of his films carries a seductive provocation and is prone to make one’s teeth gnash or laugh. In Regarding the Pain of Susan Sontag (Notes on Camp), Reinke films a cemetery full of gravestones with the name “Reinke”. “Every stone bears my name. If Oprah is every woman, I am every corpse” says the voice-over. Revealing the artist’s disbelief in self-esteem, this also perhaps represents a foretaste of the artist’s lifetime project which will explore deaths and ends, called Final Thoughts…
Steve Reinke is an artist and writer best known for his work in video. He lives in Toronto and Chicago, where he is Associate Professor of Art Theory & Practice at Northwestern University. His work is screened widely and is in several collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Pompidou (Paris), and the National Gallery (Ottawa).
Steve Reinke’s thirty two selections from The Hundred Videos and more will be on www.tank.tv from the 15th March - 7th April 2009 before moving to tank.tv’s online archive of over 600 previously exhibited videos

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