|
>> Hyper prolific video artist Nelson Henricks by KEITH MARCHAND When asked to describe his art to the uninitiated, Nelson Henricks has on numerous occasions likened his work to a cross between rock video and poetry. While this all-too-humble description oversimplifies things just a tad, it does touch upon some of the more apparent elements found in his work. His sense of poetry (both of words and images), stylish imagery, lighting, camera technique and musicianship (he writes, directs and scores all his films) combines in a way that blends artistic concerns with a clever sense of hipness. Born in Bow Island, Alta. in 1963 and raised in Calgary, where he graduated from the highly-regarded Alberta College of Art, Henricks received a degree in cinema from Concordia University in 1994. His business card states that he is a filmmaker, curator, professor and musician. However, his main creative focus has remained video art.
Henricks' tapes are generally short narratives that seem to delve into personal experiences without ever becoming self-indulgent. Questions regarding sexuality, alienation, family and memory are often examined with wry wit and fast-paced evocative imagery, contrasted by quiet, atmospheric moments of reflection. In Henricks' newest offering, titled Crush, we see his characteristically stylish interplay between clever word-play, a catchy soundtrack, and what is perhaps his best camera-work to date. Crush will be shown for the first time at the upcoming Rendezvous du Cinéma Québécois in February. Henricks' success is indicative of the growing international reputation that Canadian video art is enjoying. Artists like Colin Campbell, Vera Frenkel, Doug Melnyk and Tom Sherman occupy spaces in some of the most prestigious collections in the world. However, typical of the current Canadian art scene, there does not exist an infrastructure to facilitate the procurement and viewing of experimental film and artists' video. Due to the low cost and portability of video, many of our artists are showing all over the globe--we are far more often represented abroad by our video production than any other form of visual art. The one rub--not a lot of Canadians know this.
|
Rock poeticsand talking pigs
These days, Henricks is a busy man. He has finished 10 films so far, and in November released a book (By the Skin of Their Tongues. co-edited with Toronto artist Steve Reinke) that features artist video scripts. He has had six solo exhibitions and his work has appeared in an impressive list of venues around the world, including MOMA, NYU Cantor Film Centre, the Lincoln Centre in New York, the Stadelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Jerusalem Cinamateque in Israel, the ICA in London, the American Centre in Paris... the list goes on and on. In April, he will take up residency at La Bande Vidéo, where he will be working on a new tape/video installation to be called Handyman. And last but not least, Sugar Press is publishing one of his short stories about, well, a talking pig.