I’m excited to announce I’ve been awarded the position of Reno City Artist for 2024 by the City of Reno. As part of the position, I will be staging two shows at the Metro Gallery in Reno City Hall – one a solo exhibition of my work, and one a curated exhibition of work by three Reno-based artists: Kelly Chorpening, Jessica Hayworth and Otis Poisson. The solo exhibition will be from March 25 to May 17, with the reception on Tuesday, April 2nd. The title of the show is “Backyard Radiance,” and will feature photography and video projection (the above image features stills from the video). The show is intended to be a very idiosyncratic homage to the ordinary, to the day-to-day – which, when attended to with a certain intention or reverence, becomes something a little mysterious and a little marvelous.
A paper presentation delivered at the “Candyman and the Whole Damn Swarm” conference, hosted by the Centre for the History of the Gothic at the University of Sheffield, in collaboration with the University of California, Riverside in October, 2022. The abstract for the presentation follows:
Films that address social issues concerning communities in a political minority follow a pattern of social transition over time, as the community in question acquires more political power and voice. In the broadest strokes, “socially transitional” films mark a migration of community voice from the periphery to the center of the narrative. Within a Black American context, as Black creatives gained more power in the film-making industry, Black actors went from playing white-scripted supporting roles, to playing protagonists in films with Black writers, directors and producers. This process isn’t historically linear – Oscar Micheaux was directing Black films with Black casts starting in 1919, two decades before Hattie McDaniel won her Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Gone With the Wind.
This paper will look at the Candyman films in the context of “socially transitional” films. The initial film starred a white protagonist, and was written and directed by a white Englishman, who grafted African-American cultural elements onto an original story written by Clive Barker and set in Britain. These voices, originating outside the Black community, were complicated by the charisma and glamour of Tony Todd’s performance as Candyman – and were inflected as well by incursions of reality at the edges of neo-realist methods, such as using the Cabrini-Green housing projects as a “found” location, and casting residents as extras – as well as by the input of resident Henrietta Thompson, whose conversations with director Bernard Rose inspired the crucial character of Anne-Marie McCoy. Nia DaCosta’s “spiritual sequel” to Candyman, written, directed and produced by Black creatives, is centered around Black characters, with white characters moved to supporting or peripheral roles. The evolution of the Candyman films provides a fascinating perspective on how stories change, depending on whether they’re situated from the “inside” or the “outside.”
A short dance film made in collaboration with Director/Choreographer Kristin Heavey, and dancers Erica Wilson and Maggie Stack. Weaving together images of pandemic life, ecological collapse, and natural beauty. Screened at the Reno Dance Festival (2021) and the Sheppard Gallery at the University of Nevada, Reno (2022), as part of the group show “Alkali Syllabi.”
I participated in this October 2020 panel hosted by MICE, the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo, moderated by R. Sikoryak, and featuring Ally Shwed, Dan Nott, and Silvia Hidalgo. I talked about my “An Anatomy of Institutional Racism” comic, and topics ranged across many subjects, including democracy, education, the Suffragette movement, American citizenship, and the intricacies and tensions embedded within the Constitution. It was a really enjoyable conversation, and can be viewed here (free registration is required – the video begins at the 00:50 mark).
An adaptation of the Department of Justice’s Ferguson Police Department Report, condensing it and translating it into comics and infographics. The intention is to expose the way policy decisions can result in racist and exploitative outcomes, giving a roadmap for engaged communities to press for more just and equitable policing. Published at Drawing the Times.
A documentary by E’sha Hoferer and Chris Lanier. Hoferer was a Water Protector during the Dakota Access Pipeline Protest at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. He reported on the situation through Facebook Live as a citizen journalist. This documentary delves into what he learned at Standing Rock – and the lessons he brought back when he returned home as a Pauite language teacher at the Walker River Reservation. Screened in 2020 at the Asinabka Festival and the Red Nation International Film Festival.
A performance/screening on the theme of the voiceover, at the Holland Project, Reno, NV. Examples were drawn from Terence Nance’s AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY, Alfonso Cuarón’s Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN, Dissolve’s THIS IS A GENERIC BRAND VIDEO, and Forough Farrokhzad’s THE HOUSE IS BLACK. It concluded with a narrated story set to a live mashup of Buster Keaton and fire stunt footage.
A series of video loops of appropriated footage, with an audio narration that recontextualizes the images, telling stories that are quite different from the original scenes. The loops cycle continuously, and the narration is written to loop back on itself as well, so that the viewer may find it difficult at first to discern where the story begins and ends. These videos play with the idea of “eternity,” and the way film can fix a fleeting moment or image so that it attains a feeling of permanence. In the narration, the characters in the videos are stranded or hiding out in some ceaseless experience or space; some are resigned to their fate, others push against it. Various loops have been exhibited from 2009-2019 at venues including the Nevada Museum of Art, the Reference Gallery, Incline Village, the Holland Project and Reno Art Works, Reno.
A collaboration with Katie Jean Dahlaw and Kristin Heavey, using a 360- degree Pixpro camera. Childrens’ games play out in overlapping circles; a backyard idyll becomes tinged with vertigo.
chris lanier art 