Jodie Mack

Jodie Mack

ABOUT THE WORK

The first film is this exhibition, A Joy, begins as though paying homage to Robert Breer or Len Lye's Jazz-scored animations. Mack appropriates the tropes of such works and re-contextualizes them within a contemporary music subculture, counting in with a free-jazz drum roll before ambushing it with thrashy noise-pop.  Next up is All Stars, where cartoon stars jive together and shatter into shards. In Lilly Mack explores her family history through stories told to her by her grandmother against a frame in which family photographs dissolve into abstract colors and shapes. In Twilight Spirit, brightly colored tissue paper prairies provide the score for Chicago singer-songwriter Judson Claiborne's music video. 200 Feet is a silent abstract work that revels in a sea of colorful shapes that gradually suggest deep blue oceans filled with fishes, and a fiery sun blazing on the horizon. Lastly, Mack's most accomplished film, Yard Work is Hard Work; a 29 minute musical about the pitfalls of long-term relationships and married life. Employing and sending up romantic comedies and Disney musicals, Yard Work is Hard Work both debunks the mythic notion of the happy marriage and laments the mendacity of this myth. Five minutes are excerpted here.

A Joy

(2005, 3m, 16mm→DV, color, sound) A music video four Four-Tet’s “A Joy” made with clear 16mm leader, ink, colored acetate, and stained-glass contact paper. (Jodie Mack)

All Stars

(2006, 24s, 16mm, color, silent) A bite-sized star punch exercise. (Jodie Mack)

Lilly

(2007, 6m30, 16mm, color, silent) Animated photo-negatives illustrate a WWII tragedy. (Jodie Mack)

Twilight Spirit

(2009, 4m45s, 16mm--DV, color sound) Backlit colored tissue paper illustrates desert hallucinations over Chicago's-own Judson Claiborne. (Jodie Mack)

Two Hundred Feet

(2003, 2m30s, 16mm, color silent) Shapes shake nervously. Lines sway back and forth. The sun sets. Cameraless animation with colored acetate and ink. (Jodie Mack)

Yard Work Is Hard Work

(2008, 28m, 16mm, color, sound) Part experimental animation, part romantic comedy, part light critique of capitalism, this musical follows a pair of newlyweds as they learn the perils of home ownership and life in general. (Jodie Mack)