Clarion Vol 10: Cauleen Smith: The Wanda Coleman Songbook
Poetry Is Not Song
Excerpt:
Filmmakers are mad generalists. At their best, they follow their intense curiosity all the way to an idea and spin the resulting threads into not only a visual language but also the written word, sound, speech, movement, and song. It’s an act of not singular mastery but expert delegation: The filmmaker’s vision guides, but the result is shared among a long list of sources and collaborators. So naturally, as an artist who creates moving images for and beyond the exhibition space, Cauleen Smith positions her voice within a chorus. In a recent interview with The Brooklyn Rail, she speaks to her educational impulse as an artist, calling her work annexing or amendment or voyeurism (there’s no one way to put it, of course). Smith—with her bold palette, precise timing, and imaginative soundscapes—is no amateur, but it is, in her words, as a “student” that she makes her films.
