On Mike Henderson
Posted by | Ziva Schatz | Posted on | March 30, 2016
Courtesy of a screening presented by Haines Gallery partnered with the Exploratorium, 2014.
This week we are excerpting this important interview with Mike Henderson in Black Camera which thoroughly investigates Henderson’s extensive body of work over his artistic career!
Mike Henderson, still from Down Hear, 1972. Image courtesy of the artist and the Academy Film Archive
I’m here at the Black Film Center/Archive with emeritus professor Mike Henderson, noted and accomplished painter, blues guitarist, and experimental filmmaker, on the occasion of a retrospective showing of his experimental short films.
What I hope to discuss is your film practice and its relationship to your other artistic endeavors, painting and music. Let’s start, Mike, with this question: is your film work in conversation with your painting and social concerns?
First I would say that I’m a painter who makes films and plays blues guitar. Filmmaking came to me out of a need that was missing from my figurative painting. And it dates back to the moment and day when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated.
Courtesy of San Francisco Cinematheque, 2014.
About
Conversations at the Edge is a weekly series of screenings, performances, and talks by groundbreaking media artists.
CATE is organized by SAIC's Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and SAIC's Video Data Bank.
Programs take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State / Chicago, IL / 312.846.2600), unless otherwise noted.
