The MEASURE OF ENJOYMENT // The Berkeley Art Center

The 2018 Agility Projects will mark the third year of this innovative series of exhibits by local artists. Featured artists are selected by BAC’s curatorial committee from a list nominated by esteemed Bay Area arts professionals. Participating artists receive commission stipends, funds for materials, support from a preparator, photo documentation of their work, the publication of an exhibition catalog; and professional development support.

This year’s Agility Projects artists are Leah Rosenberg and Jeremiah Jenkins. Rosenberg is a San Francisco-based artist whose practice spans a range of media including painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking and performance. Color and process play a primary role in her practice. She recently completed a large scale wall installation at the San Francisco International Airport and published the Color Collector's Handbook with Chronicle Books.  Jenkins creates sculptures, installations and performative work, whose humor and social resonance stem from a unique understanding of materials. As he states “I think of myself as a reverse anthropologist. I make artifacts that reflect our society on a physical and conceptual level.”

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Courting, 2018

A 12-minute video for The Measure of Enjoyment exhibition at the Berkeley Art Center, 2018.

Riffing on favorite themes of play and pleasure, Leah Rosenberg’s newest work explores a place for painting that is colored by both failure and potential.
Building on years of paint-driven exploration, Rosenberg uses paint as practice, as meditation, as object, and as environment. The 12-minute video, Courting, begins with the artist in her studio pouring, drying, slicing, and wrapping layers of paint into brightlycolored orbs reminiscent of fruit or balls. As the subject of the film, she both creates and reimagines her work in the world. The film follows the artist around San Francisco searching, through improvisation and play, for the purpose of these paint balls.

Transported to various places that might seem an appropriate or familiar setting, the balls are put into action–rolled and lobbed, tossed and gathered–their use and uselessness revealed. These paint balls also appear in the gallery, posed around the space and on a custom-made see-saw bench, as if in conversation. More than props, these objects made entirely of paint find their place in the gallery, as spectators of their own past adventures into the outdoors.

Thank you to Jeff den Broeden and Amber Cady for filming, edition and direction.

Source – https://vimeo.com/266594789

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