Opel

Directed by Kevin Jerome Everson

Projected on a freestanding wall in the center of the gallery is Everson’s new dual-channel projection Opel, which reflects on Everson’s own high school experience with Army Recruiters, who to this day maintain a disproportionate presence in working class communities, particularly communities of color. At the time, recruiters would often tell Black American teenagers that it was cheaper to purchase a car in Panama, or West Germany, and ship it than it would be to purchase one in the U.S. Comprised of two films, individually titled Kadett C Three and Rekord C Three, they each depict toy cars, filmed in black in white, moving from meditative takes to scenes of fast-paced movement, in which the cars nearly blur into abstraction. Accompanied by voiceovers in German, and Spanish, describing automobile performance, the work seeks to distill the complex registers of Everson’s experience, and the dangled promise of ownership into an abstract, fleeting form.