Description: The Body Electric is the first complete survey of video artist and filmmaker Theo eshetus thirty-five-year career. eshetu examines the imagery of the collective unconscious, exploring cultural identity and challenging official media narratives through a complex interplay of signs and symbols. eshetus videos possess a dreamlike quality in which gestures, fragmented actions, and the mirroring and multiplying of images into kaleido- scopic patterns question the very reality of what an image can reveal. The catalog offers an in-depth presentation of eshetus engagement with a variety of genres and medias, including experimental cinema, documentary films, large-scale video installations, and live performances. The visuals are complemented with a critical essay by video-art historian Wulf Herzogenrath on eshetus early films in the context of experimental video-making in the 1980s; an analysis of three of eshetus feature-length films by writer and curator David elliot; commentary on his work in documenta 14, Atlas Fractured (2017) by Monika Szewczyk; and an interview with eshetu about the role of music, montage, and the representation of Africa in his films by curator Okwui enwezor.
