Professor kara lynch's Work in "The Wayland Rudd Collection"

Russian Journal 1989-1999, an installation and video by Professor kara lynch, is part of "The Wayland Rudd Collection," an exhibition in New York City's Winkleman Gallery January 17 - February 15.

Organized by Yevgeniy Fiks, "The Wayland Rudd Collection" is a collaborative project focusing on the representation of Africans and African-Americans in Soviet visual culture.

Video, sound, and performance artist lynch, who teaches video production at Hampshire College, is one of 15 artists with work in the exhibition. Included from Professor lynch, and under consideration for archival preservation, are artifacts such as sketchbooks, a Russian tetrad (journal), editing logbooks, photographs, and miscellaneous objects.

The collection archivist notes of lynch's work: "The contents of Box no. 1, Russian Journal, and the video Moscow Journal provide a glimpse into a 'figurative' period for the artist. Whether this characterizes the artist's 'Russian decade' fully or, demonstrates a kind of socialist ideal/realism, remains to be theorized. The curatorial decisions here are inspired by Alexandr Deineka's drawings of Blacks in New York and Philadelphia during his 1935 visit to the U.S. accompanying the exhibition 'The Art of Soviet Russia.'"

Wayland Rudd was an American actor who first received critical acclaim for his performance in Eugene O'Neill's "Emperor Jones." Frustrated over racism in the entertainment industry, Rudd moved to the Soviet Union in 1932 and began a successful career in Soviet theater and film. He later received a degree from the Theatrical Art Institute in Moscow and worked at the Stanislavsky Opera and Drama Theater. Rudd died in Moscow in 1952.

Although only a small section of the assembled images in the gallery collection are of Wayland Rudd, the project is given his name to commemorate the American-Soviet actor's personal story as a case in point of the complex intersection of 20th century American-Soviet narrative.

The exhibition will travel to First Floor Gallery Harare in Harare, Zimbabwe in summer 2014. A book will also be produced as the result of this project.

More information www.winkleman.com