And So It Goes

 

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Collaborative Silverware

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Welded silverware, installation & performance, 2009-2010. Collaborative Silverware is an installation and performance piece for 2 performer, 1 table, 2 plates, elongated silverware and food. The 36 inch-spoons, forks and knives will prove themselves to be too long to feed oneself individually; the two performers will have to feed each other. Conceived and directed by Richard Jochum; performed by Jessica Sugerman and William Penrose.

Formats available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4), Flash Video (.flv)

Atlas Goes Superman

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by Richard Jochum, video performance, Athens 2009.

Atlas is the Greek God and Titan who led the rebellion against Zeus for which he was condemned to bear the heavens upon his shoulders. The story has it that he became the personification of endurance. The short video picks up on the ancient legend and continues a series of trials, tribulations, and enactments by the Austrian sculptor and media artist Richard Jochum.
Atlas goes Superman takes the theme one step further and melts the American superhero motif Superman with ancient Greek mythology, home of many potent ueberheros and crafty Gods. Where Atlas had to be turned on his head, Superman does it with a simple rotation: pushing the planet while flying midair.

Atlas (3 Frames)

Mama

2008, Sound with motion sensor and video installation, 1 min 35, DVD. Movie-Link

Mama is a video and sound installation in which a man cries out for his mother. The video reverberates the visceral relationship between a mother and her son, a relationship that goes beyond the eloquence of verbal language. The video is looped, the sound however is connected to a motion sensor, thus only audible when visitors are walking by.

Halt2

2007, Videoperformance and photographic images. 2001-2007. DVD and digital print 18 x 24 inches. Movie-Link

Artist saws himself off the branch he sits on. He falls and lands on the same bough. Photographic image and video performance series. Sounds: birds twittering, sawing noises, and branch cracking.

Twenty Angry Dogs - Installation

Twenty Angry Dogs is a video and sound installation presenting 10 select videos with people barking. Each video depicts a single person barking, intentionally angry or anxious. The selection comprises a diversity of people in regard of their gender, age, race, and profession. The installation will be put up as a circle of monitors in order for the viewers to walk into and through. Each video screen is equipped with proper loud speakers. The sound as well as the videos will be put on a loop.

Twenty Angry Dogs - Group Portrait

Artist's Statement

(1) I am a post-minimalist and post-conceptual sculptor and media artist drawing from a variety of media and artistic practices. (2) I think art continually has to create new images for the time we live in. For the conditions and issues we deal with: existentially, politically, physically, and globally. Searching such images is what I am aiming for. (3) My artistic work is often based on performance, participation or embedded in local communities. I believe in an intriguing encounter between art producers and the public. Audiences can make us learn better, and see things we would not have known yet. I understand both, intelligence and creativity to be profoundly social.

Short Bio

Richard Jochum is a studio member at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and adjunct professor at Columbia University. He works as a media artist since the late 1990s setting up exhibitions all over the world. An Austrian citizen, Richard received an MFA in sculpture and media art from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and a PhD from the University of Vienna before he moved first to Berlin and later to New York. One of his most recent solo exhibitions – 20 works in photography, video, and installation – has been on display at the Gallery Bundo in South-Korea till March 18, 2010. More information can be found at http://richardjochum.net and http://richardjochumprojects.blogspot.com.