Sandy Williams IV

Garments to Protect Against the Suspicion of Having a Firearm, 2017

Vinyl, Thread

Exhaustion Films

What is the value of time and its passing? This compound question drives Sandy Williams IV’s artistic practice. Williams’s Exhaustion films are a collection of videos in which a subject does something until they cannot continue. It is an ongoing project and so far, his subjects have played a saxophone, treaded water, ran laps around a baseball diamond, passed around a camera, held a glass of water above their head, completed a choreographed dance, and split rocks with a sledge hammer. The only instruction for these activities, a verbal proposition that scores, or structures, the subject’s performance, is to continue performing the specific action until the subject no longer can. In most cases, Williams devises the action for the subjects to complete; however, the dancer choreographed her own movement sequence. The videos, which range from fifteen minutes to two hours and forty-one minutes, show just how long it is physically possible to do certain tasks, opening out onto questions of time and the limits of the body.

When Williams has spoken to his subjects after making the videos, some say they stopped because they were bored while others stopped because they were tired, or their bodies were unable to continue. These subjects thought their bodies were going to give up on them, but somehow, they found an extra burst of energy to continue.

This series, and Williams’s other work, addresses issues of aesthetic form, racial identity, performance, and the body. Williams’s Exhaustion films draw exhaustion and endurance into relation at a time when black bodies endure much more than other bodies. From chattel slavery to present day, African Americans have suffered structural oppression, a condition that continues in the face of claims that the United States is a post-racial—or post-racist—society. Against this historical backdrop, Williams’s Exhaustion series becomes a metaphor for the limits of bodies, black bodies. They cannot endure forever, just as no body can tread water forever.

The camera also plays an important role in this series. In many of the films, the camera is on a tripod, unmoving, simply collecting the image and the surrounding environment as they unfold. Other times, the camera tracks or moves with the subject, giving the audience more insight into the performed actions, even while the screen creates distance between viewer and viewed. These shots position the audience as if they were there in the moment, along with the subject, for the duration of the video. When installed in a gallery, the films play for the entire duration of the video, and spectators come and go as they please. The act of watching the videos in the gallery is a test of endurance similar to the actions being performed. How long will viewers watch? What is gained or missed by watching the videos for a shorter or longer amount of time? Williams’s Exhaustion films facilitate a discussion about the value of time and who dictates what value means, in abstract terms as well as with regard to racially marked bodies. As a result, mundane actions become meditative, highlighting the limits of human consciousness and agency.