Artist lecture: Sanford Biggers 3/11/10

I immensely enjoyed Sanford Biggers' lecture. He was a great public speaker and was not only articulate but charming and witty as well. And he had the artwork to back him up. One piece that he showed that I was fond of the most was his film Small World, which depicted two different films playing side by side. One film was a continuous loop of old home movies shot by a middle class white family in Connecticut in the 1970s while the other film was also a continuous loop of old home movies but shot by a middle class black family in California, also in the 1970s. The home movies of the black family belonged to Biggers while the home movies of the white family belonged to a friend of his. The point of this joint film was to show the similarities, not differences, between the two families of different race across the country during the same time period. Biggers explained that for the installation of the film, the room was adorned with shag carpet and a comfy, worn in couch of the same time period to further escalate the ambiance of the setting and time period within the home movies.