DOUG HENRY
Born 1954, Las Vegas, Nevada; lives in Los Angeles, California

Influenced by the work of Conceptual artists such as John Baldessari, Jack Goldstein, Bruce Nauman, and William Wegman, Doug Henry began making films as a student at the Otis Art Institute in the late 1970s. Measuring (2004) is a humorous riff on some characteristics of that period's video art, especially its concern with systems of classification and measurement and its preoccupation with performative, repetitive actions. In the film, an actor is shown with a standard tape measure; as he repeatedly pulls the metal tape out of its green plastic casing, he flatly states, "This is eleven inches," "This is two inches," "That's six inches," and so forth. "I remember Baldessari, in a talk, saying something to the effect that he was interested in [art] that was simple, not simple-minded," Henry has said, "My recent work is something of an inversion of that idea."

HH

...read more about this artist in the Biennial Catalogue


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Stills from Eatin’ Pizza v1.0, 2004. Video, color, sound; running time variable