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      Raven Chacon, Report, 2001/2015, single-channel video, color, sound, and printed score shown on music stand; Component A: 03:48 minutes, Component B: 8 1211 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2020.61A-C, Video © 2015 Raven Chacon. Composition © 2001 Raven Chacon

      Artwork Details

      Title
      Report
      Artist
      Date
      2001/2015
      Location
      Not on view
      Dimensions
      Component B: 8 1211 in.
      Copyright
      Video © 2015 Raven Chacon. Composition © 2001 Raven Chacon
      Credit Line
      Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
      Mediums Description
      single-channel video, color, sound, and printed score shown on music stand; Component A: 03:48 minutes
      Classifications
      Highlights
      Object Number
      2020.61A-C

      Artwork Description

      Trained as a composer, Chacon (Diné) often starts from musically notated scores to create conceptually rich artworks across creative categories. Since scores are inherently fluid, even when they take fixed form in a video or print, the works based on them retain the possibility for further interpretation, collaboration, and reanimation in new contexts.

      A performance of his 2001 composition of the same name, the 2015 video-installation Report recasts guns as musical instruments, rather than solely as instruments of violence. Having no flexibility in tone, pitch, or volume, the firearms used in Chacon's score create a sonic complexity through the rhythmic staggering of different caliber shots. Location, casting, and framing for each performance, however, dramatically shape understandings of the shooters and their actions. In this video, percussionists of various backgrounds and genders resolutely fire across a New Mexican landscape, offering musical resistance to the myth of an uninhabited American West and a reminder that gunfire has long been the soundtrack of this land.

      Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies, 2023

      Works by this artist (3 items)

      Benjamin West, Mary Hopkinson, ca. 1764, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, George Buchanan Coale Collection, 1926.6.1
      Mary Hopkinson
      Artist
      Dateca. 1764
      oil on canvas
      On view
      Benjamin West, Self-Portrait, 1819, oil on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Capitol, 1917.2.3
      Self-Portrait
      Date1819
      oil on paperboard
      Not on view
      Benjamin West, Helen Brought to Paris, 1776, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1969.33
      Helen Brought to Paris
      Date1776
      oil on canvas
      Not on view

      Exhibitions

      Media - 2020.54.1 - SAAM-2020.54.1_2 - 139600
      Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies
      June 23, 2023January 28, 2024
      Musical Thinking explores the powerful resonances between recent video art and popular music.

      More Artworks from the Collection

      Oliver Tarbell Eddy, Self-Portrait, ca. 1850, oil on tin, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Ralph and Bobbi Terkowitz, 2019.6.3
      Self-Portrait
      Dateca. 1850
      oil on tin
      Not on view
      Jacob Maentel, Portrait of Elizabeth Sweitzer Musser, ca. 1826, watercolor and pen and ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Ralph and Bobbi Terkowitz, 2019.6.5
      Portrait of Elizabeth Sweitzer Musser
      Dateca. 1826
      watercolor and pen and ink on paper
      Not on view
      Jacob Maentel, Portrait of Adam Musser, ca. 1822, watercolor and pen and ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Ralph and Bobbi Terkowitz, 2019.6.9
      Portrait of Adam Musser
      Dateca. 1822
      watercolor and pen and ink on paper
      Not on view
      Ammi Phillips, Portrait of Helen (Lena) Ten Broeck, 1834, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Ralph and Bobbi Terkowitz, 2019.6.10
      Portrait of Helen (Lena) Ten Broeck
      Date1834
      oil on canvas
      On view