Jefferson Pinder, Juke , 2006
JEFFERSON PINDER
Juke (still), 2006
Digital videos
Courtesy of the artist
CURRENTLY ON VIEW: Stamp Ground Floor, Elevator Lobby by Capitol One Bank
Ingeniously simple, Jefferson Pinder’s video installation Juke (2006) examines the role of popular music in defining race in America. Viewers are invited to put on a pair of headphones, connected to each of five monitors mounted to a wall, and to watch music videos. The performers on screen are all African American. They are shot close up, dressed in white against a simple white background. They are lip-synching songs with a natural and heartfelt resolution. The soundtrack to which they move their lips, however, plays recordings of popular songs by white performers.
The juxtaposition produces a "gotcha" moment in which viewers are confronted with a seemingly incongruent product—the apparent mismatch of image and sound. They are faced with the tacit racial categorization of mainstream popular music. They are, moreover, made aware of their own preexisting notions and stereotypes and how these expectations play a role in artificially categorizing popular music according to race. Can black performers only sing black songs? Does it make a difference whether the performer is male or female, younger or older, lighter or darker skinned? Perhaps Pinder imagines a new cross-racial possibility in Juke by presenting black performers lip-synching white songs with apparent joy and respect, but he does not ultimately give viewers any answers, just food for thought.
Irene N. Pantelis, UMD ‘16
Studio Art
Jefferson Pinder, who earned his MFA in video and performance art at the University of Maryland in 2003 and taught in the Department of Art for nearly a decade, is interested in the interaction between artwork and viewer. His video installation Juke comprises ten videos, two of which play on each monitor in the present installation. In each, a camera focuses on a black person’s face framed against a bright white background. The subjects—including the artist and nine other Washingtonians—lip-synch songs by white musicians, from country singers Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash to rockers David Bowie and Patti Smith. Performances are heartfelt and visceral. Pinder elaborates: “There are hundreds (if not thousands) of unspoken rules of engagement in this never ending fight [against] racism in the United States. Popular music has been a dynamic changing battleground. Music has always been segregated. Juke is a musical installation that wrestles with serious issues in the most unfamiliar way. Can music be either black or white? Can song be used as an instrument to provoke a conversation about race?” As Juke makes evident, “the lyrics that these performers are singing relate to the black experience—all of them.”
Stamp Gallery, 2016
