Program 3 Joe Sola, Michael Mercil, Kevin Everson, Sadie Benning, Media Working Group

The new Videotheque series continues with daring work from Sadie Benning and Ohio filmmakers Michael Mercil and Kevin Everson, plus videos by Joe Sola and the Media Working Group. This program includes California artist Joe Sola's St. Henry Composition, about a high school football team in rural Ohio; Ohio State art professor Michael Mercil's The Greatest Sports Video Ever; Kevin Everson's nighttime taxi ride, Avenues; Sadie Benning's music video for Portland band The Need; and Media Working Group's ambitious Coal Black Voices, featuring the words, voices, and images of the Affrilachian Poets.

Joe Sola
St. Henry Composition, 2001
A brief glimpse of the St. Henry Redskins of Celina, Ohio, as they prepare--physically and mentally--for a high school football game. The video was shown this past summer in the California Biennale at the Orange County Museum of Art. (5 mins)

Michael Mercil
The World's Greatest Sports Video Ever, 2001 Recorded during last year's football season, The World's Greatest Sports Video Ever offers an unusual perspective on Ohio State's most beloved pastime--a view of the sky over Ohio Stadium. The work was commissioned as part of a larger installation for the Leo Yasenoff Recruitment Center. Mercil lives in Columbus and teaches in the Department of Art at Ohio State. (13 mins.)

Kevin Everson
Avenues, 2000

An evocative portrait of a teenage African-American cab driver who has to juggle a variety of tasks to keep his job. Avenues was exhibited in the experimental category at the 2000 Shorts International Film Festival in New York. A native of Mansfield and graduate of Ohio University, Everson teaches videomaking and performance art at the University of Virginia. (4:30 mins.)

Sadie Benning
The Need, 2000

This music video for the song "Dear Diary" by Portland band The Need uses puppets and other effects to evoke a moody interior dreamscape. Benning has completed videos for other bands including Come and Julie Ruin. Benning's videos have been screened nationally and internationally, including screenings at successive Whitney Biennials and also at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. She works and lives in Chicago. (5 mins.)

Media Working Group
(Jean Donahue and Fred Johnson) Coal Black Voices, 2001

A public television documentary produced by Media Working Group, this work features the words, images, and voices of the Affrilachian Poets, an ensemble of African-American writers based in Southern Appalachia. Their writing addresses issues of family, identity, place and racism while celebrating their African heritage and rural roots. (57 mins.)