JSC BERLIN: Screening Steve Reinke & James Richards

12:00 – 6:00 pm
Artist talk: 11 March, 7:30 p.m.

FREE ADMISSION

Steve Reinke and James Richards
When We Were Monsters, 2020, Video, 21′16″, color, sound.

The starting point of Steve Reinke and James Richards’ When We Were Monsters (2020) is a film made by the artist Gretchen Bender (1951–2004), who drew upon a cache of forensic images—depicting infections, deformities, and morbid injuries—given to her by a plastic surgeon. When We Were Monsters, made at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, is marked by an atmosphere of molecular porosity and existential vastness. Expanding Bender’s medical gaze to include a broader scientific gaze, Reinke and Richards weave an affective tapestry of images—featuring Ivan Pavlov’s ghost dogs, wounds, flowers, stains, fire ceremonies, and hallucinations, among other flashes of eros.