Showing with closed captions
Contemporary artist Rashaad Newsome is a prolific and visionary force, generating witty, exuberant and socially engaged works across a host of disciplines. With the dazzling Assembly, he adds “documentarian” to his formidable CV, collaborating with veteran filmmaker Johnny Symons. Together, the duo has created a dynamic record of Newsome’s titular 2022 exhibition at New York City’s Park Avenue Armory. A multisensory extravaganza, the show summoned a cast of global performers to transform a historic military facility into a queer, Afro-futurist utopia, employing forms including dance, sculpture, collage and video projection. At its centre was Being, a fully realized AI entity Newsome has programmed in the image of the griot, a West African cultural figure who serves as a historian, performer and healer. Via inventive hybrid storytelling and immersive visual effects, Assembly reveals the ideation process and painstaking preparations behind the hugely ambitious exhibition—and invites viewers to revel in the transcendent results. Julian Carrington.
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Distributor: The Film Collaborative