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Dear Len is set in the first few days of spring in Chicago. I use Michael Jordan’s own commercials and branding to deconstruct the vampiric image he created for himself. The character he embodies is adjacent to the capitalism he performs.
* The video begins with Michael Jordan appearing in my own nightmare. I then take a walk through a downtown park where I see multiple monuments to Jordan. A montage set to My Kind of Town by Sinatra plays as all of Jordans amorphic representations collage across the screen. I then return home to have some cake to celebrate spring and; as I eat I recall the advertising that I have been subject to, realizing the language used in these advertisements is the same used throughout history to depict vampires: telepathy, slowed time, without shadow, takes multiple forms, able to entrance his audience, ability to fly, lives forever, etcetera. The video is bookended with a reading of Chicago by Carl Sandberd. *
This work exists within a long project that struggled to digest the legacy of Len Bias. Focus briefly shifts throughout the work from Bias to Jordan and eventually Reagan, with the three of them sometimes appearing together in installations or other videos.
“Tell me im older, Tell me im slower, Tell me i can no longer fly.”
Air Jordan XII commercial
Dear Len, 2015, digital video, 10:00
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