https://kennethtam.info Kenneth Tam Fri, 05 Apr 2024 19:17:23 +0000 https://kennethtam.info en https://kennethtam.info/Intro-text-3 Fri, 05 Apr 2024 19:17:23 +0000 Kenneth Tam https://kennethtam.info/Intro-text-3 Commissioned by ALL ARTS, Driver Brother&nbsp;is an experimental documentary that follows a group of immigrant cab drivers and poetically presents their financial struggle to acquire and maintain ownership of NYC taxi medallions. Link to watch film at ALL ARTS <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/efea151c0f071dc43f6b879590e8c7ebea2900144fe4a5e547c843767d366dfd/vlcsnap-2024-04-07-17h05m58s673.jpg" data-mid="208473970" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/efea151c0f071dc43f6b879590e8c7ebea2900144fe4a5e547c843767d366dfd/vlcsnap-2024-04-07-17h05m58s673.jpg" /> <img width="3840" height="2160" width_o="3840" height_o="2160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/07fa03757a0febcbc8b4dc327b300f7d4578cc545b20de85570da4b2bc73d7f1/Driver-Brother-still10.png" data-mid="208389026" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/07fa03757a0febcbc8b4dc327b300f7d4578cc545b20de85570da4b2bc73d7f1/Driver-Brother-still10.png" /> <img width="3840" height="2160" width_o="3840" height_o="2160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/571e932d246c1e2e896ffce386dacec4af41724bac7dfb97eb94098cebc2ee82/Driver-Brother-still07.png" data-mid="208389029" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/571e932d246c1e2e896ffce386dacec4af41724bac7dfb97eb94098cebc2ee82/Driver-Brother-still07.png" /> <img width="3840" height="2160" width_o="3840" height_o="2160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/579308e8585e45d6bdf17e9a0cdbd85407941351542dcc3943ff804d6b485a2a/Driver-Brother-still02.png" data-mid="208389035" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/579308e8585e45d6bdf17e9a0cdbd85407941351542dcc3943ff804d6b485a2a/Driver-Brother-still02.png" /> <img width="3840" height="2160" width_o="3840" height_o="2160" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/89f8f485b96a754ec02bffcd7dc07a7a98b131db1d1c43ced18fde35106fa36d/Driver-Brother-still08.png" data-mid="208389028" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/89f8f485b96a754ec02bffcd7dc07a7a98b131db1d1c43ced18fde35106fa36d/Driver-Brother-still08.png" /> Credits DriversBilal ElcharfaNaim JajiUgyen PemaJaswinder SinghRehan Shah Director and EditorKenneth Tam ProducerSeika Paradeis Director of PhotographyChristian Carroll LightingShu Hirayama Director of Underwater PhotographyDerrick Chen First Assistant CameraEmily Kordovich Underwater Camera OperatorLily Mars Key GripCollin Chiucchini GafferDavid Persaud Sound RecorderRhea LiBraulio Lin Sound MixerSam Beneitone ChoreographerKim Brandt LifeguardJune Walton Safety DiverMiguel Ricci Driver LiaisonIshtiaq Ahmad Underwater LocationBlue Water Divers Rehearsal SpaceCenter for Performance Research ColorHuephoric For ALL ARTS Senior Multimedia ProducerJake King Executive ProducersKristy GeslainJoe Harrell Senior Artistic DirectorJames King Executives in ChargeDiane MascialeNeal Shapiro Made possible by ALL ARTS Artist in Residence Program allarts.org @allartstv All rights reserved Ⓒ 2024 Kenneth https://kennethtam.info/Intro-Text-1 Sat, 01 Apr 2023 04:07:46 +0000 Kenneth Tam https://kennethtam.info/Intro-Text-1 More information at Commonwealth and CouncilThe Founding of the World takes as its framework the ritual of the probate, originally explored by Tam during a 2020 residency and livestreamed performance with The Kitchen in New York City, organized by Lumi Tan. In these stylized and structured public ceremonies, synchronized choreographies of death and rebirth illustrate the retelling of a brotherhood’s history, the liturgical embodiment of an origin myth.&nbsp;Featuring an original score by interdisciplinary artist eddy kwon, the titular video opens with a line-up of young men dressed in red and black. They stand crammed inside a dark wood-paneled room reminiscent of a basement or recreation room, some staring directly at the camera with arms crossed while others fidget with their hands and t-shirts. Together they recreate certain elements of the probate (donning masks, group movement, military-inspired line formations) while inventing others, intermingling acts of violence and tenderness.&nbsp;The video installation demarcates a private and ritual-focused experience of sacred space with a quasi-memorial as well. Empty liquor and cologne bottles, objects an adolescent might keep in their bedroom as trophies, hover above the gallery floor on pipes affixed to the ceiling with tactical flashlights illuminating them from below. Their presentation reminds us how these vessels serve ritualistic functions, as products associated with the rite-of-passage into adulthood. A separate gallery features a new series of Aqua-Resin wall sculptures cast from molded arrangements of hoodies and varsity jackets, common articles of dress in probates. Their dark and spectral formations–resembling coats of arms, ritual tablets, and other heraldic symbols—suggest writhing and wrestling bodies. Together they stand in as the emblems through which fraternities assert presence and dominion in public space. A number of these sculptures have embedded accessories, such as metal watch bands, imitation gold chains, razor blades, handcuff keys, dog tags, and Chinese coins. They speak to the displays of excess, cultural syncretization, and violence associated with the probate and tropes of masculinity more generally.For Tam, while fraternities are one space in which the idea of Asian America is constituted, their function in many ways serves more as a reflection of the expectations placed on young men in a country that perpetuates and demands harmful performances of masculinity. The installation’s meditation on the ritual movement and consecration of space within the probate—partly taking inspiration and title from the writing in Mircea Eliades in 1957’s The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion—elicits the contradictory forces inscribed within a community’s “founding of the world;” the creation myths through which “the real unveils itself [and] the world comes into existence.” For young Asian American men in these fraternities, the world is constituted through a highly specified and often contradictory performance of gender and race, in which violence is often conflated with intimacy, at times with tragic outcomes. For Tam, the probate is a space where urgent questions about group identity, assimilation and cultural authenticity are asked, and given haunting, physical form. Production Credits: New York Director of Photography: Christian CarrollAssistant Cameraperson: Vadim AynbinderLighting Designer: Kelley ShihAssistant Lighting Designer: Xiaoyue ZhangChoreographer: Juri OnukiPerformers: Huiwang Zhang Houston Director of Photography: Tyler SwannerGaffer: Esteban CaicedoProduction Assistant: &nbsp;Dylan ScardinoLocation Scout: Chris LacherPerformers: Daniel Bacuyag, William Chao, Jeffrey Huang, Stephen Hunt, Alan Kim, Alex Kim, Steven Luu Composer and Vocalist: eddy kwon Digital Animation: Taylor Shields3D Rendering: X Art Services/Tellef TellefsonColorist: HuephoricStudio Assistants: Claudia Corujo, Matthew LiFabricators: Shisanwu LLC, Rest Energy/Caleb Engstrom, American Fine Arts Foundry Additional support provided by: The New York State Council on the Arts, UnionDocs Center for Documentary Arts Photographs by Paul Salveson <img width="2502" height="1668" width_o="2502" height_o="1668" 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Ballroom Marfa The New York Times Artforum Critics’ Picks Hyperallergic Sculpture Magazine Kenneth Tam’s solo exhibition Tender is the hand which holds the stone of memory features a series of commissioned sculptures alongside a two-channel video installation. In his exhibition, Tam unearths forgotten histories in order to reimagine our own identities and to question dominant myths that shape and govern our bodies. Tam’s examination of American westward expansion is rooted in the unrecorded lives of nameless Chinese laborers, who toiled under the most physically arduous conditions in the late nineteenth century. Silent Spikes, the video installation on view at Ballroom, weaves together improvised dialogue and movement sequences from a group of participants, along with semi-fictional scenes of a Chinese worker from inside the tunnels of the Transcontinental Railroad. During Tam’s site visit to West Texas in 2021, his encounter with artifacts and fragments of objects left at workers’ camps along the railroad led him to consider how physical remnants function as stand-ins for the disappeared histories of laborers. Tam’s sculptures suggest other ways of thinking about these men. His use of archaeological fragments as visual and material language complicates the simple narratives that have been constructed about migrant lives. In their lifetimes, Chinese laborers were reviled for their race but praised for their industriousness, their worth as people always tied to their ability to labor. Bits of dried food, broken jewelry and other personal items are integrated into the sculptures to point to experiences of precarity, but also tenderness and care. Physical traces–and even the sounds of the railroad passing through Marfa still today–can serve as reminders of how this nation was built, and by whom. Tender is the hand which holds the stone of memory is organized by Daisy Nam, Ballroom Marfa Executive Director and Curator with assistance from Alexann Susholtz, Exhibitions and Curatorial Assistant. Fabricator: Shisanwu LLC, NY Photographs by Heather Rasmussen https://kennethtam.info/Images-1 Sat, 11 Feb 2023 03:55:56 +0000 Kenneth Tam https://kennethtam.info/Images-1 <img width="1600" height="1067" width_o="1600" height_o="1067" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/046f32f748908dbda816d3298badaa05c76874bbe548b115629f41385e15b2ea/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0542.jpg" data-mid="168016733" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/046f32f748908dbda816d3298badaa05c76874bbe548b115629f41385e15b2ea/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0542.jpg" /><img width="1600" height="1067" width_o="1600" height_o="1067" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3ce9896951d1b72f61dd9f3477bc5551d35a45a45cb58dc3dd4991a592be7d59/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0641.jpg" data-mid="168016729" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3ce9896951d1b72f61dd9f3477bc5551d35a45a45cb58dc3dd4991a592be7d59/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0641.jpg" /><img width="1067" height="1600" width_o="1067" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fdccc389af5fc424eff1ae75cf80dabeece144b812a01e29a4400f65566f67f8/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0553_w1.jpg" data-mid="168016732" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fdccc389af5fc424eff1ae75cf80dabeece144b812a01e29a4400f65566f67f8/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0553_w1.jpg" /><img width="1067" height="1600" width_o="1067" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8b2c699d02eadb0a6a63fefbd9bc851acc65d51e6d9e4c86024cbf10bd857af5/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0620.jpg" data-mid="168016736" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8b2c699d02eadb0a6a63fefbd9bc851acc65d51e6d9e4c86024cbf10bd857af5/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0620.jpg" /><img width="1067" height="1600" width_o="1067" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ad900fbc6ea904b6a744279915d94aac5edfd6fd21bcc709b746b404c6c64dba/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0643.jpg" data-mid="173904417" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ad900fbc6ea904b6a744279915d94aac5edfd6fd21bcc709b746b404c6c64dba/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0643.jpg" /><img width="1067" height="1600" width_o="1067" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/d360f41de653a888bebc98e3ff0bae477400acf1f39d8154064d379b2de61297/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0594.jpg" data-mid="173904571" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/d360f41de653a888bebc98e3ff0bae477400acf1f39d8154064d379b2de61297/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0594.jpg" /><img width="1067" height="1600" width_o="1067" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7c8c95b15b12847134c54b292cb6854c1e3a19f4bf88f307b27a88b0aa76b34b/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0587.jpg" data-mid="173904572" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7c8c95b15b12847134c54b292cb6854c1e3a19f4bf88f307b27a88b0aa76b34b/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0587.jpg" /><img width="1067" height="1600" width_o="1067" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c162359cf769e29e63d2bc2df8a9a7c5101db3fff83796d817a8ec5ec14a9119/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0601.jpg" data-mid="173904568" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c162359cf769e29e63d2bc2df8a9a7c5101db3fff83796d817a8ec5ec14a9119/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0601.jpg" /><img width="1067" height="1600" width_o="1067" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e364d532e87e5836665bf8636613b4b5e6bca1bb071c485ec2c47b18df1b65a4/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0614.jpg" data-mid="173904565" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e364d532e87e5836665bf8636613b4b5e6bca1bb071c485ec2c47b18df1b65a4/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0614.jpg" /><img width="1067" height="1600" width_o="1067" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a0de0a158cbab5d45c4a4212bb39a201876a4762da0dac3690ee44388de175fc/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0616.jpg" data-mid="173904564" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a0de0a158cbab5d45c4a4212bb39a201876a4762da0dac3690ee44388de175fc/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0616.jpg" /><img width="1067" height="1600" width_o="1067" height_o="1600" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/dafe20eb945ee775bd6876ee046a6d9b66b75be44355c7f01f837b58aa20683b/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0671.jpg" data-mid="173904511" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/dafe20eb945ee775bd6876ee046a6d9b66b75be44355c7f01f837b58aa20683b/cHeatherRasmussen_BM_0671.jpg" /> https://kennethtam.info/Intro-text Sat, 29 Jan 2022 01:58:15 +0000 Kenneth Tam https://kennethtam.info/Intro-text More information at Queens MuseumArt in America HyperallergicThe Brooklyn Rail Frieze Document Journal Art Papers Midnight Moment at Times Square Arts The two-channel video Silent Spikes uses movement, theatrical staging and historical narrative to question existing ideas about the performance of masculinity, and the way those normative performances become mythologized in figures like the cowboy.&nbsp; If the cowboy can be understood as shorthand for a set of ideas that says as much about the violent foundations of maleness in the American imagination as it does about how we celebrate the values exemplified by this figure, then where do men of Asian descent find themselves within this representational landscape? And how can sensuousness complicate these performances, and allow for an erotics of both resistance and care? &nbsp; The video&nbsp; incorporates references to a strike that was organized by thousands of these Chinese laborers working in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1867. Interpretative narration of their act of defiance is interwoven with dramatic location imagery and documentation of Tam’s work with five untrained performers. In loosely scored individual and group activities, these participants generate new, unconfined expressions of male selfhood and intimacy.&nbsp; &nbsp;Through their unscripted collaboration, the artist and his participants honor inherited struggles while centering vulnerability and connection as reparative forms of male embodiment. Curated by Sophia Marisa Lucas Commissioned by the Queens Museum with support from the Asian Art Circle of the Guggenheim Museum Participants: Tyler Chen, Theodore Lee, Virgo Raaz, Alfred Tom, Ahnaf ZitouDancer: Andrew ChungDirector of Photography: Christian CarrollAdditional Photography: Camen HodgesChoreography: Alyssa ForteCantonese voiceover and translation: Christopher SinSound Technician: Jeffrey RowellWardrobe Stylist: Daisy De JesusCostume Designer: Curie ChoiFabricator: Francis Louvis Photographs by Jason Mandella&nbsp; <img width="2700" height="1981" width_o="2700" height_o="1981" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/2095129a12404edbee9e3aceae4351f6d54acfd2c85e9819e94824ad1a4631c5/kt-22b.jpg" data-mid="208521169" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/2095129a12404edbee9e3aceae4351f6d54acfd2c85e9819e94824ad1a4631c5/kt-22b.jpg" /><img width="2700" height="1981" width_o="2700" height_o="1981" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ec385179fa66de8b4869942aa025a90ffa455f8fe65bfffa028eddc082838596/kt-18a.jpg" data-mid="208521177" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ec385179fa66de8b4869942aa025a90ffa455f8fe65bfffa028eddc082838596/kt-18a.jpg" /><img width="2700" height="1981" width_o="2700" height_o="1981" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fbac1c51e7708e90c5983bb187966ed67a7790028f315b4c65e47386f2ebcfe7/kt-28a.jpg" data-mid="233556927" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/fbac1c51e7708e90c5983bb187966ed67a7790028f315b4c65e47386f2ebcfe7/kt-28a.jpg" /> <img width="2700" height="1981" width_o="2700" height_o="1981" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/02bb4323e92907796bbfbf1b9fe4ddc4739b9d283e23f774e33230d7099ac5ba/kt-26a.jpg" data-mid="208521181" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/02bb4323e92907796bbfbf1b9fe4ddc4739b9d283e23f774e33230d7099ac5ba/kt-26a.jpg" /> https://kennethtam.info/Intro Sat, 29 Jan 2022 04:09:36 +0000 Kenneth Tam https://kennethtam.info/Intro More information at The Kitchen OnScreen An Artist’s View of Hazing Rituals, Haunted by Tragedy - by Dawn Chan for The New York TimesIn this new performance, The Crossing, the artist trains his lens onto the rituals of Asian American fraternities, inquiring into the ways they create belonging and identity while also adopting practices that undermine these very bonds. For Tam, these organizations offer a way for young men to negotiate the pressures of assimilation while constructing normative identities based on race and gender. These forces find symbolic urgency in the elaborate ceremonies staged by these young men, and such rites of initiation suggest the power performance has in maintaining dominant social structures and hierarchies. &nbsp; Asian American fraternities were founded in part to educate their members about historic Asian oppression by offering consciousness raising around contemporary anti-Asian racism. They provide a close-knit community that uplifts young men as they navigate life away from their families and acclimate to college environments that are often defined by white ideals of success. But these communities can also expose pledges to violence and trauma through their initiation rites—an aspect brought to light in the tragic case of Michael Deng, a freshman at Baruch College who in 2013 died while being hazed. Tam’s performance probes how multicultural fraternities represent the search for male intimacy, the way masculinity is used to negotiate cultural identity, and the ritualization of violence within all-male spaces. For The Crossing, Tam will work with a group of performers to create a piece that pulls from the structure and choreography of highly stylized probates—the public unveiling of new fraternity pledges. Recognizing the symbolism of these ceremonies as a type of rebirth—the erasure of one identity and the emergence of a new one within the context of the fraternity—Tam will also look to Taoist funeral rites, ceremonies that shift the focus away from death and onto the value of life and caretaking by spirits.&nbsp; Curated by Lumi Tan Performers: Martin Richard Borromeo, James Lim, Paulina Meneses, Resa MishinaLighting Designer: Jeanette Oi-Suk YewContributing Choreographer: Alyssa ForteSound Supervisor: Ian Douglas-MooreVideo Supervisor: Ross KarreCamera operators: Adele Fournet, Merve Kayan, Felipe WurstCOVID-19 Supervisor and Stage Manager: Randi RiveraLighting and Production Assistance: Mike FabaCostume Production: Curie Choi Photographs by ©Paula Court https://kennethtam.info/The-Crossing Sat, 10 Jun 2023 03:45:48 +0000 Kenneth Tam https://kennethtam.info/The-Crossing https://kennethtam.info/Page1-Lumi Sat, 29 Jan 2022 04:20:30 +0000 Kenneth Tam https://kennethtam.info/Page1-Lumi https://kennethtam.info/Page2-1 Sat, 29 Jan 2022 04:22:55 +0000 Kenneth Tam https://kennethtam.info/Page2-1 <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/485d2eb11990836f6dc14e8583110040c934d04193f7e159f4259f917912abac/03_TheCrossing.jpg" data-mid="131814807" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/485d2eb11990836f6dc14e8583110040c934d04193f7e159f4259f917912abac/03_TheCrossing.jpg" /> https://kennethtam.info/Page6-1 Sat, 29 Jan 2022 04:27:37 +0000 Kenneth Tam https://kennethtam.info/Page6-1 <img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/1cc0326372a5dd0202389ea51e1c81fa51c1aa2276b2361c07d7a6eef4950263/vlcsnap-2020-12-21-14h46m10s182.jpg" data-mid="131814944" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/1cc0326372a5dd0202389ea51e1c81fa51c1aa2276b2361c07d7a6eef4950263/vlcsnap-2020-12-21-14h46m10s182.jpg" />