signs and symbols

December 4, 2020 - January 4, 2021

Opening Online: Friday, December 4, 6:00pm
Closing: Monday, January 4, 6:00pm

signs and symbols is pleased to present Shipwreck, Dead Man's Float, Fell, a video exhibition by Jen DeNike as part of the gallery’s series of online-only solo presentations of video works.

DeNike writes:

“Shipwreck, Dead Man’s Float, Fell — a trilogy of visceral video performances centered on the female body, specifically my body. I didn’t consider them self-portraits; however, I did perform for each video, using myself as subject. She submerges herself into mercurial forms of water, gestures, actions, sublime gendered memories, temporality imprints itself vulnerable, moving images, the connectivity of resistance and surrender.

Shipwreck (2005): “You, the Atlantic Ocean, could be any ocean but you’re not. Across the pond she came, generations of women lapping at your shore, symphonic images of operatic measures, the tide remembers. A sense of romanticism, idealism, the other, eventual loss is inevitable, floundering displacement, irretrievable beauty, phenomenological fascination, the idea of a shipwreck. Emancipated by self-observation, she transcends the act, any notion of the ruin gone.

Dead Man’s Float (2005): “As kids, we used to play ‘dead man's float’ having contests of who could stay underwater the longest without breathing. I began having dreams of figures floating in water, shortly after I flew down to Louisiana to visit a friend. Shot on location in a natural spring near the outskirts of New Orleans, the video became a way to reconcile those dreams. I call it a quickening, when synchronicity happens whether you want it or not, you feel it, like a vortex of knowing. Just a couple of weeks after filming Dead Man’s Float, Hurricane Katrina profanely unleashed herself on the people and land there. In the south when a big storm is coming, the sky turns green. While floating face down, a thunderstorm rolled in, sky and water became one, filling the void, the space between.

Fell (2006): “It was cold, I mean really cold, one of those sharp upstate New York nights. We drove looking for the perfect spot, turning left then right, searching for solitude amongst the pines, pavement led to small dirt roads. Finally, we pulled over and walked deep into the forest. I tied my camera to a rope and slung it up into a tree. We laughed nervously, our breaths streaming frost. Handing you the rope to orchestrate, I stripped off my clothes and lay down, moving my arms and legs exuberantly, then soon after as the ice tore into my flesh, and my body went numb, I reacted, sheer panic, jumping up. I tried to put my clothes back on, my shoes, but my hands shook too much. Failing, grabbing my pile, I yelled to you, get the camera. Nude still, I ran barefoot through knee deep snow, all the way back to the car sobbing. You followed shortly after, once in we blasted the heat, draped in a blanket, you rubbed me down, willing warmth. I cried hard, then you cried because I was crying. That went on for a bit, until all tears subsided. It was then, we both knew I had to try again. Negotiating, we decided the snowbank next to the car would do just fine. You stood on the roof of the car. I jumped out and started again, moving my arms and legs more calmly now, looking up at the black sky. This time, I let go, in complete abandonment, until I couldn’t feel the burning of the cold, repeating the motion, again and again, take after take, until it became easier, until I no longer felt my body, or the cold, until I became the snow, lost in a euphoric absence of pain. Somewhere between a snow angel and a falling star, I fell. After a while, you said, I think we have enough footage, I nodded slowly, ok.

"Special thanks to Oliver Kamm, whose guidance and support were instrumental to the production of these early video works."

*Please note that DeNike's video will be viewable online from Friday, December 4 at 6:00pm until Monday, January 4 at 6:00pm. Following the end of the exhibition, the video will only be accessible via private link and password. We trust that given our current circumstances, everyone will act in good faith and good will, understanding that these are primary artworks by our artists that are collected and which would otherwise be password protected.

jen denike (b. 1971) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her video, photography, performance, collage and installation work has been exhibited internationally at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf; MoMA PS1; The Brooklyn Museum; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm; Participant Inc; 54th Venice Biennale; Garage Projects, Moscow; Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; MOCA Toronto; MACRO ROMA; Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart; Red Line Contemporary Art Center, Denver; CCS Bard Hessel Museum, Annandale-On-Hudson; MEF Museo Ettore Fico, Torino; Schauspiel Köln Opera House; Art Basel Miami Film Sector; and Wallis Annenberg Center For the Performing Arts, Los Angeles. Select commissioned projects include Bombay Beach Biennale, EMPAC, LAND Los Angeles Nomadic Division, Creative Time, Performa Biennial and Faena Art. Her work is held in the permanent public collections of The Museum of Modern Art, Julia Stoschek Collection, IL Giardino dei Lauri Collection and The Bunker in West Palm Beach, among other private collections. In 2019, DeNike premiered the first act of her new ballet Crystal Cut Levitation at signs and symbols. Forthcoming exhibitions include a group exhibition at Anat Ebgi Gallery in Los Angeles, an online solo exhibition of video works at signs and symbols, and a solo exhibition Sculpting Time with an accompanying book at Feld+Haus in Germany.