April Artist-in-Residence Tim Roseborough

(Editor’s Note: The Bay Times is proud to launch a new column highlighting artists, exhibitions and more from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The FAMS, comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in San Francisco. Its Director, Colin Bailey, is a specialist in 18th and 19th century French Art. Bailey lives in the city with longtime partner Alan Wintermute, an Old Master paintings expert at Christie’s.)

^{This month, FAMS artist-in-residence Tim Roseborough will present his visual quiz event Contenda at the de Young Museum. Roseborough recently discussed it, as well as some of his other thought-provoking projects, including pieces that explore the LGBT black experience and that challenge traditional views on gender.}

^{Bay Times: We have this wonderful quote in mind from you: “As an artist, my perennial endeavor is to expand my audience. The more senses I can touch, in a pluralistic sense, the more souls I can reach.” Please explain how, through your present work, you attempt to touch the senses of your audience. What kind of connection do you hope to establish with your audiences? The word “souls” stands out for us in the aforementioned quote.}

^{Tim Roseborough: Contemporary art competes with an ever expanding set of cultural products, including television, cinema, video games, computers, mobile technology, and social media, among others. Art simply has a different history and a divergent set of priorities and values.}

^{Unfortunately, contemporary art has traditionally been appreciated by a rarefied coterie of enthusiasts, institutional workers and collectors.}

^{I see art as extremely important for its alternative approach to culture. The opportunity to be thoughtful about, critical of, and experimental with our culture – which an engagement with art can provide – should be the domain of persons at all levels of society, not just the academic or financial elite. Art deserves a larger space in our society.} 

^{At the same time, I can find enjoyment and depth in what art aficionados might term lowbrow, pop and middlebrow culture. My work attempts to bridge mainstream culture and contemporary art by presenting challenging — and sometimes critical — ideas in a form that might be appealing, familiar and fun to a broad range of people. This strategy is not forced or awkward for me, as I am a sincere disciple of all forms of culture.}

It has been famously said that a viewer “completes” an artwork though her or his interaction with it. My work has continually evolved to incorporate interactivity. By this, I mean that the “viewer” becomes “participant” — experiencing a more engaging relationship with the artworks though the senses of sight, hearing and touch. My “Singing Garden” and “CYMN” pieces are examples of this.

I believe in a “soul,” whether in the spiritual, humanistic or scientific sense. This entity holds the potential to be wise, reasonable, sympathetic, knowledgeable, and in touch with emotion. At its best, art feeds and nurtures this soul, by allowing for measured thought, conversation and critical evaluation.

Bay Times: Please tell us about Contenda. How is it an “experimental” contest?

Tim Roseborough: Contenda is based on the quiz bowl format prominent in high schools and universities across the globe. Contestants are provided with a “buzzer” system and a host asks questions about artists, artworks, artistic movements, and other queries pertinent to visual culture.

Contenda is “experimental” because I am exploring ways to re-present the history of art in a novel, challenging and entertaining way.

Artists in the 21st century are burdened with history. We are haunted by every artistic innovation that has come before. I found that one way to confront this wealth of information is to “trivialize” it and integrate it into a knowledge-based game.

With Contenda, I am exploring whether there is something truly measurable in art. So many aspects of the art field are vague, obscure and undefined that I found myself drawn to certain “facts.” As artists are constantly subject to the vagaries inherent in the art field, the more tangible realities of “Who did what when?” seem all the more appealing to me. In a creative milieu, it seems counterintuitive to focus on images, dates and names, but Contenda is a reaction to the nebulous workings of the art world, itself.

Bay Times: One description of your work reads: “Mining the past and the subconscious of our society to highlight profound, but under-recognized notions and ideas, his animations, installations, and videos focus on cultural phenomena and artifacts that have been lost, ignored, or forgotten.” Please share some examples of those phenomena and artifacts, and why you think they merit our attention. Also, our paper focuses on the LGBTQ community. We were struck by your “Portrait of Jason II” project. Please share a bit about it for our readers, and mention any other projects of yours with more direct, or maybe even indirect, LGBTQ connections.

Tim Roseborough: This description of my work refers to pieces in which I revived, invented or re-imagined artifacts that are “footnotes” in popular history.

“The Official ‘Marilyn Monroe’ [sic] Film,” is an example. News outlets in 2008 covered a collector’s claim that he had sold an FBI-classified “sex film” featuring legendary actress Marilyn Monroe. The film was revealed as a hoax, but the notion inspired me to construct a camp re-creation of this slice of historical fiction. I cast popular local gender illusionist, Raya Light, as the “Marilyn” in this project. The fact that this alleged “sex film” did not exist gave me artistic license to play with gender and other tropes in what can now be named the “official” version.

^{My piece, “Here Is The Room,” was inspired by the murders committed by Jeffrey Dahmer, which intrigued and terrified me at the time of their revelation. Dahmer left behind a collection of Polaroid photos, which chronicled the gruesome fate of his victims. Authorities destroyed the pictures, but I re-imagined them, posing as both victim and perpetrator in order to exorcise my fears.}

^{Lastly, Shirley Clarke’s 1967 documentary, “Portrait of Jason,” chronicles the musings of Jason Holliday, an African-American man and self-avowed “stone whore” over the course of an evening in late 1960s New York City. Portrait of Jason II” is a playfully serious sequel: an extrapolation and re-evaluation of this landmark film, in which I revive Holliday’s spirit.}

^{The often-repeated charge that Jason Holliday was no more than a “middle-aged black homosexual prostitute” reduces the richness of his experience and character to facile stereotypes. By blurring the lines between of self-confession and acting, performance and reality, I sought to add a more triumphant epilogue to an already complexly constructed film personality. With this video, I give Jason the final word.}

^{These three pieces are my way of showing that Art can fill in the blanks that history leaves.}

^{What also ties these pieces is a shared concern with queerness: the ignominies suffered by queer black male bodies in the Dahmer case, the resurrection and “revenge” of the black and queer Jason Holliday, and my re-imagining of Marilyn Monroe, the most legendary heterosexual female “sex object,” as interpreted by a gender illusionist.}

^{Bay Times: Where are you from originally? Do you enjoy working here in the Bay Area? What do you think is unique about Bay Area audiences?}

^{Tim Roseborough: I am originally from a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. I find the Bay Area a vibrant and comfortable environment in which to practice. There is something about the light and abundant natural beauty in and around the Bay Area that allows my mind to breathe and conjure new concepts. I walk or run our hilly terrain each morning and am rejuvenated and exhilarated every time, ready for new challenges and opportunities.}

^{Bay Times:What projects are in the works for the future?}

^{Tim Roseborough: I only know the future when it happens.}

^{Bay Times: Please mention anything else that you’d like our readers to know about you and your work.}

^{Tim Roseborough: Almost all of my projects are viewable or documented online, so my art is truly accessible to everyone.}

^{“Contenda: A Visual Quiz Event” will be presented April 2-May 4 in the Kimball Education Gallery/Artist Studio at the de Young Museum. deyoung.famsf.org/calendar/april-artist-residence-tim-roseborough For more information about Tim Roseborough, please visit www.timroseborough.com/}