CULT Aimee Friberg and the ICA San Jose are delighted to announce their co-presentation of Adrian L. Burrell’s new film The Saints Step in Kongo Time as a Special Project at Untitled Art Miami Beach. For its East Coast premiere, the film will be presented on a screen in the entrance to the fair alongside an installation by the artist collective For Freedoms. The fair opens to the public on November 29 and runs through December 3, with VIP preview on Monday, November 28.
Through a combination of film, photography, sculpture and installation, Adrian L. Burrell’s work closes the gap between oral history, written text and moving image while creating a space for collective memory. As a masterful storyteller, Burrell foregrounds the importance of place in our practices of memory and ritual.
The Saints Step in Kongo Time is a visual meditation on Burrell’s family's untold history, using film, oral histories, primary sources, and photography. With a running time of eighteen minutes, this poetic short film spans several generations from Burrell’s roots in Louisiana to his family's relocation to California. The film weaves through time and place, from Burrell visiting the land stolen from his ancestors to the family’s archival footage from West Oakland in the 1990s to the present day, showcasing their resilience and fortitude.
Burrell writes, “For Black America, family histories did not enter the annals due to a lack of legal personhood and equal recognition by the State.” In advance of this film Burrell worked with an investigative genealogist, connecting with relatives currently living in New Iberia, Louisiana. Burrell adds, “After investigating my family history through film, photography, and archival research, I discovered that my ancestors were forced to serve the confederacy as slaves during the Civil War.” Burrell explores the traumas and joys in our familial histories and gives witness to contemporary Black life in the United States. Through The Saints Step in Kongo Time he aims to reinterpret and archive the oral and written history of his own family and to serve as a model for other Black Americans from similar backgrounds.
This presentation at Untitled Art is concurrent to Burrell’s solo exhibition Sugarcane and Lightning Pt.3 currently on display at the ICA San Jose through February 26, 2023.
About the Artist:
Adrian L. Burrell (b. 1990, Oakland) is an artist employing photography, film, and site-specific installation to examine issues of race, class, and intergenerational dynamics. His work focuses on notions of kinship, diasporic narratives, and the gaps between place and belonging. Burrell’s multimedia projects draw deeply on his own family’s history, combining interviews, video, and archival materials to trace a multigenerational journey from Senegal to Louisiana to Oakland.
His photographic series It’s the End of the World, Don’t You Know That Yet? debuted at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in 2021, exploring themes of legacy and family with personal, incisive stories of Bay Area life. Surveying lineages of revolt against racial oppression, Burrell’s work is a call to action, drawing upon his own experience with police brutality and interrogating how we confront our past and build our future. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Burrell has lived and worked on four continents and served as a volunteer educator in San Francisco, teaching film to youth in detention.
Burrell has exhibited in spaces as varied as the Pingyao International Photography Festival in China, Photoville in New York City, and at SFMOMA, where his work was acquired for the permanent collection. His work and films have been presented around the world in varied publications and venues from The New Yorker to Pop Up Magazine. Burrell earned a BFA in film from San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Stanford’s Department of Art & Art History, where he served as the Black Graduate Student Community Outreach Chair. His solo exhibition Sugarcane and Lightning Pt.3 is currently on display at the ICA San Jose. Burrell has just finished a residency in Dakar at Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock Senegal.
ZMD,
The Hunt for Consciousness 2019-2021, Batik on canvas, 90 1/2 x 212 5/8 inches, 230 x 540 cm
ZMD,
Genotype 2020-2021, Batik on canvas, 90 1/2 x 70 7/8 inches, 229.9 x 180 cm
Curtis Talwst Santiago,
A moment of reflection and self care Diorama 2021, Mixed Media Diorama in Reclaimed Jewelry Box, 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 x 2 3/4 in, 8.9 x 6.3 x 7 cm
Curtis Talwst Santiago,
Pink Memory 1 2017, Mixed media on paper, 27 1/2 x 35 inches, 27 1/2 x 35 in, 69.8 x 88.9 cm
Rebekah Goldstein,
Crawling Back To You 2021, Oil and acrylic on shaped canvas, 60 x 62 in, 152.4 x 157.5 cm
Rebekah Goldstein,
My Reflection In the Water 2021, Oil and acrylic on shaped canvas, 66 1/2 x 48 in, 168.9 x 121.9 cm
Nicki Green,
Sex ´Objects/Sex Objécts 2009, Glazed porcelain, 4 x 8 x 2 in, 10.2 x 20.3 x 5.1 cm
Nicki Green,
Morel Figure with Prosthesis 2017, Glazed earthenware and felt, 37 x 22 x 21 in, 94 x 55.9 x 53.3 cm
Masako Miki,
Hyakki Yagyo, Night Parade of One Hundred Demons – Nurikabe and Kinstugi-toujiki Yokai, Plaster wall shapesfhiter and animated golden joinery potteries gathering 2021, Ink and Watercolor on Paper, 32 1/8 x 24 5/8 in, 81.6 x 62.5 cm
Masako Miki,
Mirror Sticky Rice Shapeshifter 2022, wool on EPS foam, walnut wood, 39 x 28 in, 99.1 x 71.1 cm
CHRIS FALLON,
Last Looks 2021, Acrylic on wood panel, 48 × 60 in, 121.9 × 152.4 cm
MASAKO MIKI,
Kagamimochi Yokai - Animated Flat Rice Cakes 2021, Ink and Watercolor on Paper, 14 × 14 in 35.6 × 35.6 cm
REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN,
When All of this is Over,
2017, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 65 x 52 inches
DAN GLUIBIZZI,
Our Equals,
2016, Acrylic and watercolor on paper, 46 x 66 inches (framed)
MATTHEW F FISHER,
Sunday Mountain,
2014, Acrylic on canvas, 19 x 15 inches
HOWARD FONDA,
Untitled (Just stealin the sun),
2016, Oil and colored pencil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches
RHONDA HOLBERTON,
Best of Both Worlds (Rhythm is a Dancer),
2016, Digital Video (3D animation), no sound, 00:12;11
DESIREE HOLMAN,
Sophont,
2012, Color Pencil on Paper, 16 x16 inches (artwork) / 20 x 20 inches (framed)
MASAKO MIKI,
Waiting,
2017, Watercolor on pastel paper, 27.5 x 19.5 inches
Inquire for full list of works
![]()
Working in sculpture, installation and photography, Rhonda Holberton employs a hybrid of scientific and metaphysical practices to reveal a symbolic reading of empirical canons of belief. Throughout various bodies of her work, Holberton consistently hijacks existing technologies to reveal invisible histories and make space in the ordinary for the creation of fantastic narratives. Recently, she has been investigating the politics of a virtual landscape navigated by the corporeal body in physical space. This new body of work, SLOW MOTION MIDNIGHT, presented at Zona Maco Sur 2016 includes a suspended silk sculpture, a cast fist of the artist’s hand, sculptural floor gestures, custom wall paper, animation stills, and 3D animation.
Across the installation for ZMS, Holberton explores site as fantasy, fiction and apparition. A Fixed Resistance, the wallpaper covering the booth, creates a mise-en-scène for the work. The artist composited photographs of wandering sand dunes she took on the decommissioned Salton Sea Military Test Base in California with found images of the desert landscape in the Middle East and the Sahara Desert. Holberton likens the desert to virtual landscapes; a seemingly empty canvas ready for the projection of both militaristic and cinematic fabrication. The skinning of the booth is mirrored in the 3D animation, The Best of Both Worlds (Rhythm Is A Dancer), where the artist’s body is presented as a deconstructed digital skin – the result of algorithmic pixelation vis-à-vis the technology used in the production of the video. The fabric sculpture, No Seams to Match, is a reconstruction of a life-size military bunker sewn from silk printed with photographs shot on decommissioned military bases along the coastline of California.
Holberton downloads publicly available 3D models from an online database to create the sculpted rocks, A Fallen Pixel I, II, III. Mostly used by game designers, these rocks will have populated countless virtual spaces, but have no reference in reality other than human memory. The sculpture An Additive Inverse, employs the gesture of the “raised fist,” a symbol of solidarity and human strength. The artist describes the painting, A Short Lived Fault, as a collaborative action; using a process called data bending Holberton combines the raw code of glitched video stills with an audio recording of a reading she had with a psychic. The resulting data is opened back up in an image editing program and printed on canvas. Holberton then covers her body in paint to record a series of yogic gestures that she performs on top of the canvas. The movement takes it cues from somatic healing suggested by the psychic during her reading.
For Zona Maco Sur 2016, Holberton uses cycles of virtualization and actualization to blur the boundaries between imagination and reality. She conflates military history with cinematic fantasy and attempts to engage in subconscious interactions with computational algorithms. The desert setting has physiological and psychological appeal for Holberton who says: “Everything slows down and opens up in the barren environment. The empty space allows for both the projection of wartime fables and wild enactment of psychedelic ritual. In the desert, the human senses cannot make sense of the distance to the horizon.”
The Sur section of Zona Maco Sur is curated by João Mourão and Luis Silva, co-directors at Kuntshalle Lissabon, Lisbon.
RHONDA HOLBERTON (b. 1981, Fall Church, Virginia USA)
Working in sculpture, installation and photography, Rhonda Holberton employs a hybrid of scientific and metaphysical practices to reveal a symbolic reading of empirical canons of belief. Rhonda has recently had solo and two person exhibitions at City Limits Gallery (Oakland, CA), Royal Nonesuch (Oakland, CA) and the Berkeley Art Center (Berkeley, CA) and will have her second solo show with CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions in San Francisco in the autumn of 2016. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art and the San Francisco Arts Commission. In 2012 she received a Project Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's SECA Grant Nomination. Holberton received her B.F.A. from the California College of Arts and Crafts, and her M.F.A from Stanford University. Her work has been featured in SFAQ, Art in America, Art Practical and Daily Serving, among others. Holberton is represented by CULT | Aimee Friberg Exhibitions; her work is featured as a solo presentation in ZONA MACO SUR 2016 in Mexico City.
RHONDA HOLBERTON, The Best of Both Worlds (Rhythm is a Dancer), 2016, Digital Video/ 3D Animation, 00:12:11, Edition of 3 + 2 AP
RHONDA HOLBERTON,
Midnight, 2016, Archival Pigment Print, 20 x 30 inches, Edition of 3 + 2 AP
RHONDA HOLBERTON,
Slow, 2016, Archival Pigment Print, 20 x 30 inches, Edition of 3 + 2 AP
RHONDA HOLBERTON,
Spread, 2016, Archival Pigment Print, 20 x 30 inches, Edition of 3 + 2 AP
RHONDA HOLBERTON,
Motion, 2016, Archival Pigment Print, 20 x 30 inches, Edition of 3 + 2 AP
RHONDA HOLBERTON,
An Additive Inverse, 2016, Plaster, Graphite, Pigment with Custom Elmwood Pedestal, Unique one of a kind, 66 x 12 x 12 inches
RHONDA HOLBERTON,
A Fallen Pixel I, II & III, Foam, Polyurea, 18 x 11 x 11.25 inches (I), 22.25 x 13.75 x 13.50 inches (1I), 28.25 x 17.50 x 17.25 inches (III), Unique one of a kind
RHONDA HOLBERTON,
No Seams To Fit, 2016, Custom Printed Silk, Custom Hardware, 56 x 26 x 111 inches
RHONDA HOLBERTON,
A Short Lived Fault (Glitch), 2016, Acrylic and Ink on Canvas, 45 x 82 inches
RHONDA HOLBERTON,
A Fixed Resistance, 2016, Pigment Print on Wallcovering, Edition of 3 + 2 AP