Stanya Kahn

Stanya Kahn (born 1968) is an American video artist. She graduated magna cum laude from San Francisco State University and received an MFA in 2003 from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. Kahn lives and works in Los Angeles, California.[1]

Stanya Kahn
Kahn at the IFFR 2023
Born1968 (age 54–55)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
EducationSan Francisco State University Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College
WebsiteStanyaKahn.com

Solo career

Kahn's work intertwines personal and universal pain with off-the-wall humor, blurring the lines between fiction and document. She uses tightly written scripts in addition to her trained improvisation to complement her documentary-style and experimental videos. Kahn is often the main subject of her films, portraying lowly, powerless characters, which she hopes audiences can relate to.[2]

Previous to and during her collaboration with Harry Dodge, Kahn made solo performance works and collaborated with performers and choreographers Keith Hennessy, CORE, and Ishmael Houston Jones, touring live shows worldwide from 1992-2000.[3] Kahn starred in and was a contributing writer for the independent feature film By Hook or By Crook (2001), which won numerous awards and was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival.[4]

Outside of video, Kahn's writings have appeared in journals including Nothing Moments, LTTR and Movement Research. She has taught as adjunct faculty in New Genres at UCLA, Photo/Media at Cal Arts, Visual Arts/Media and Critical Gender Studies at UCSD, and has taught in the MFA programs at USC and UCLA.[5] Her 2014 solo show, Die Laughing, consisted of her film Don't Go Back to Sleep and accompanying paintings and drawings.[6]

Kahn's newest film, No Go Backs (2020), is unlike her previous works. Instead of a script-driven comedy, Kahn's son and his friend silently navigate a post-apocalyptic city.[7] Though the artist filmed No Go Backs before COVID-19, her video is full of emptiness with glimmers of possibility: a fitting theme amidst the pandemic.[8]

Artwork

All Together Now, 2014

All Together Now is a film directed by Stanya Kahn and Harry Dodge. This film is approximately 20 minutes long. The film opens to an abandoned town where only the main character, portrayed by Kahn, is seen bludgeoning something out of frame. The scene depicts an apocalyptic world in which material possessions are valued over life. Khan is characterized by her makeup and outfit being almost feral and caveman-like in nature. Further into the film, there are scenes depicting cults like the Ku Klux Klan and Abu Ghraib. There is an eerie undertone of violence and acceptance of this violence. Even the cinematography is done deliberately to ensue a sense of chaos. The scenes change rapidly and the camera shakes, projecting the characters emotions onto the audience.[9] Furthermore, scenes change rapidly between Kahn, who is alone in an isolated environment, and depictions of a group in masks assembling to build something. This disposition between the two shots gives viewers a sense of uncertainty about what the masked people are going to do. Between the shots of people, there are also shots of dead animals, in which they are brutally killed, and you can see the natural deterioration of their bodies. This insertion of animals between clips emphasizes the animalistic tendencies in the post-apocalyptic world. In an interview, Dodge says, “I gave myself permission to communicate with people who were already interested in art”,[10] suggesting that the audience is meant to understand that the film is a piece of art rather than a film for a wide range of audiences that are unsure of what they are watching.

Collaborations with Harry Dodge

In the early 1990s, Kahn met Harry Dodge, a video artist. The two began collaborating at Bard College in 2002.[11] Because of Kahn's history in performance art and Dodge's film experience, the duo mostly consisted of Dodge behind the camera and Kahn in front of it.[11]

Their comedic videos satirize the awkwardness of artmaking, video, and gender and are often deemed strange and ludicrous. In Can't Swallow It, Can't Spit It Out (2006), Kahn is a bloody-nosed Valkyrie, holding a foam cheese block and babbling down the streets of Los Angeles. Beyond their humor, Kahn and Dodge's videos touch upon the darker seriousness of trauma, privilege, and politics.[12]

Among several other museums and events, Kahn and Dodge's work has been shown in numerous venues nationally and internationally, including:[5]

Achievements

References
  1. "Stanya Kahn | Artists". VIELMETTER LOS ANGELES. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
  2. Rosenthal, Tracy Jeanne (2015-09-09). "In the Studio: Stanya Kahn". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  3. "Perspectives on Performance: Stanya Kahn". tdm.fas.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2020-12-17.
  4. Stanya Kahn. IMDb.
  5. "Electronic Arts Intermix : Stanya Kahn : Biography". Eai.org. Retrieved 2013-05-15.
  6. INDRISEK, S (2015). "The Apocalypse Will Be Hilarious". Modern Painters. 27 (12): 56–67.
  7. Diehl, Travis (2020-05-14). "Teens Wander a Postapocalyptic World in Stanya Kahn's New Film". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  8. "Art Review: Stanya Kahn - No Go Backs". ColumbusUnderground.com. 2020-04-30. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  9. Tumlir, Jan (2021). Stanya Kahn (216 ed.). America: Frieze. p. 216.
  10. Smith, Michael (2009). "Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn". BOMB. 108: 22–29 – via JSTOR.
  11. Calif.), J. Paul Getty museum (Los Angeles; Gonzalez, Rita; Seid, Steve; Yonemoto, Bruce (2008). California Video: Artists and Histories. Getty Publications. ISBN 978-0-89236-922-5.
  12. Volk, Gregory (2008). "Spring in Dystopia". Art in America. 5: 158 – via EBSCO.
  13. "Stanya Kahn – 2012 – US & Canada Competition Creative Arts – Film - Video". Fellowships to Assist Research and Artistic Creation. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
  14. "Stanya Kahn". Artadia. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  15. "2015 Artist-in-Residence: Stanya Kahn2015 Faculty Head, Low-Residency MFA Program: Laura Richard - Announcements - Art & Education". www.artandeducation.net. Retrieved 2020-12-16.

Further reading
  • Bell, Natalie & Burton, Johanna (2017). Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon. New York, NY: New Museum. ISBN 978-0-915557-16-5.
  • Kahn and Dodge's interview with Michael Smith in Bomb Magazine
  • Phillips, Glenn (2008). California Video: Artists and Histories. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute. ISBN 978-0-89236-922-5.
  • Kushner, Rachel.  ARTFORUM INTERNATIONAL; ARTFORUM Vol. 46, Iss. 5, (Jan 2008): 240-243.
  • Rosenthal, Tracy Jeanne. Stanya Kahn. Art in America (1939), 2015, Vol.103 (6), p.130
  • Greg, A. E. (2010). Artistic intervention in the Los Angeles urban geography: The art practices of Charles Long, Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn. ProQuest Dissertation Publishing.
  • Tumlir, J. (2021), "Stanya Kahn's Communication Breakdown", Frieze: Contemporary Art and Culture, vol. 216, p. 125, ISSN 0962-0672
  • Jennings, G. (Ed.). (2015). Abstract Video: The Moving Image in Contemporary Art (1st ed.). University of California Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1963294
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