A Simple Question and Abstract Answers – Revolutions by Garrett Bradley at EYE
Garrett Bradley’s solo-exhibition, Revolutions, puts her balancing act between ‘narrative, documentary, and experimental film forms’ on full display. A winner of the Eye Film Museum’s 2023 Eye Art & Film Prize, Bradley’s works have come home to roost for the summer, nestled in the black cube of Eye. Olivia Brown reflects on Bradley’s four works and the ways in which the artist explores abstract sound and Black culture in film.
Spanning four rooms, every film in Revolutions features abstract images, coupled with representation of Black life in the U.S. Ranging from self-narrated footage found on TikTok, to high art films that Bradley shot herself. The abstract films, often shown on a separate channel directly juxtaposed to the films featuring Black bodies, were created either by manipulating the camera live, or from film-editing software. The result is a constant switching, from watching heavily politicized Bodies, to images that are devoid of any direct meaning. The curation of the show emphasized this split; criss-crossed projectors go outside of the lines of the screen, bringing the two-dimensions of the screen into the physical space. Blinding white gives way to black’s absoluteness. Lens flare turns silver foil into a hundred rays of rainbow light. Spots of perfectly round greens and pinks are stark against night black backgrounds. The inclusion of the abstract makes space for the big, ambitious ideas that Bradley explores in her work: images, representation, and identity.
Bradley’s work primarily revolves around Black culture in the U.S., a huge topic to undertake. Being that she is currently based in my hometown of New Orleans, LA, I recognize that particular Blackness that folks across the south share; the baton swinging, or the ladies in their Sunday best peering at you through the baptismal waters. But there are also references that are foreign to me. I begin wondering what someone else without the shared cultural background would associate with the enormous number of images Bradley shows us. Eschewing a documentarial directness, there is no distinct narrative offered to her audience—in any of her films. Bradley states that an aim of the exhibition is to make us question: ‘what are we actually looking at?’ We are firstly looking at Black bodies and hearing Black music, and voices, and jokes, and laughter. We are looking at abstract forms. We are looking at dreamscapes. Footage shot professionally in studios, or shakily on the streets, or found on the internet. We are looking at everything, and sometimes nothing. The moment I felt that there was no one leading me to a specific space, thought, or feeling, a mirror was created. What am I actually looking at?
The first answer to that question is that you are looking at an absolute abundance of Black cultural signifiers, going round, and round, and round. There are boy scouts, aunties going to church, a baptism, a couple embracing, a colour guard swinging a baton, TikToks, archival concert footage, an auntie answering the phone in the mall, a woman driving a car, the progression of a pregnancy. There is a woman rolling down the hill, there is footage from the 1930s. None of them are too concerned with giving you a story with a beginning, middle or end. It’s so much that without the breathing space that the abstract experiments provide, this exhibition would be accused of being too maximalist
Positively, Revolutions never feels too full, thanks to the stellar curation and sound design. If Bradley would be voicing over the significance of one film or the other, it would quickly overload. Quite to the contrary, I sometimes find myself spacing out, almost bored, thanks to the meditative elements during some films. However, even as you rotate through the rooms, you’re always beckoned back by one piece or another. If you stand still for more than a few minutes in one space, watching the slow pace of one video, a shorter, poppier one awaits you in the next. All you have to do is allow yourself to be called to it. It’s the great advantage of Bradley’s narrative break; you never feel obligated to finish one film all the way through. Her strength in Revolutions lies creating first and foremost in a consistent feeling that drifts seamlessly throughout. The first of the four spaces is the loudest and most intrusive. This consistently mellows out the further you go along. The last room is the most quiet, spaced out, darkest.
In all honesty, it’s not the abundance of images, the editing, or the content that engaged me the most—it’s the sound design that steals the show. Every work is thought-out and sonically rich, full of layers that successfully overlap in their peaks and valleys. Jarring viral videos and soothing voice-overs meet each other in a give and take. Placement of the speakers is low and close, immersing you in the unclear world, exactly where Bradley wants you. The sound is another abstraction, loud enough where you feel comfortable to talk, unafraid to be shushed by a neighbour. The soundtracks are experimental but similar enough to never become too distracting or overbearing. It’s for this reason that one isn’t left annoyed by unwelcome sounds from the video in the next room. On the contrary, when you’re edging around one work, the sound from the adjacent space pulls at your attention, beckoning you to come see for yourself.
While there is so much overlap between the pieces that they can fall into each other quite seamlessly, I want to emphasize that they each do have a marked personality. The rooms are different enough from one another that it feels like being immersed in a different world when you walk in. The knock-out awaits the audience in the second room, titled America. The curation of the whole exhibition is impeccable, but America is where Eye and Bradley crescendo. The space opens to a large room, where four see-through sheets hang down from the ceiling in an X-formation. A film is projected on and through the hanging sheets, so the viewer can view both, while also seeing it repeated. It’s like watching two TV screens, with another screen behind it. The view dramatically enhances the experience, where narratives and visuals break down. The projections are thrown across far walls, distorting images, leaving you trying to soak in all of the work. A feast! All black and white, the film invites you to sit for as long as you need to. It features archival footage, but primarily centres Black people doing a myriad of activities, without prescribing a judgement, a narrative, or a suggestion. What reactions you have are your own.
Despite the essential question being posited in the brochure, the dreamy films contrasts with the wall texts, at several points perhaps guiding the audience a bit too aggressively towards a concept that didn’t quite show up as strongly as stated. This is a bit confounding, as Bradley plays with narrative, effectively destroying it, or at least rendering it intangible. However, when the wall text introduces hard concepts of interracial families or insists upon ‘crucial forms of knowing through visuals and sonics,’ it feels skewed. First taking on the gargantuan task of making abstract films, and then trying to concretely describe them in 150 words or less. I’m immediately transported to the viral tweet by @shutupmikginn: ‘Why must a movie be ‘good’? Is it not enough to sit somewhere dark and see a beautiful face, huge?’ Why must a work deliver the neat and concise package laid out in its text? Bradley gives us a dark space, and many beautiful faces, huge. My recommendation in seeing this exhibition (and a note to myself for future ones, as well): sit, watch, and absorb everything she has to offer. Find your own meaning in the melding that Bradley offers us, then read the text after.
If you are a fan of experimental film and desire dreamy depictions from the perspective of a Black woman, Revolutions is a worthwhile dive. Just the same, if you have a soft spot for the sonic arts, this exhibition should not be missed. Lastly, if you are a visual lover and simply want to reflect for an hour or two on the question, what am I looking at? Bradley will lick your senses and make the most rational audiences revel in the abstract. I’m still reflecting on her show, happily as of yet unable to answer Bradley’s burning question
Revolutions is on view until September 7th at Eye Film Museum, Amsterdam.
Olivia Brown
is an artist and writer living in Amsterdam, who is serious about being silly.
