JORDAN RATHUS
THAT'S WHY I'M HERE

February 2 – 18, 2017
Preview Screening with Artist Q&A Wednesday February 1 at 6:00pm
First Thursday opening February 2 from 6:00 - 8:00pm

THE WORK
For her second solo exhibition at Upfor, Jordan Rathus presents a new improvisational docu-narrative video with supporting sculpture and works on paper. That’s Why I’m Here chronicles a multi-coastal search for an alternative way of life, from the perspective of a character conceived and played by Jordan Rathus.

With a mélange of influences from many time periods and cultures, the narrative meanders through an assortment of fictional and nonfictional stories, including the cultural histories of Norway, Iceland, and the Hudson Valley. Morals taken from the Hávamál (a collection of Old Norse poems from the Viking Age attributed to the god Odin) are mixed with fragments of Hudson Valley fables, such as “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving, to create inspiration for a wandering soul as her sense of self, time, fiction and the real begin to blend.

That's Why I'm Here was produced with support of Site95 and Prosjektrom Normanns.

THE ARTIST
Jordan Rathus (b. 1983 in Princeton, New Jersey) recontextualizes storytelling formats, such as narrative film and reality television, to humorously and critically examine our collective contributions to pop culture. Rathus earned her BFA in Film and Television Production from New York University in 2005 and a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts (New Genres) at Columbia University, New York in 2012. She is a recipient of the Brooks Fellowship Award from Anderson Ranch, Snowmass Village, CO and the Tony Hawkins Award from New York University, New York. Solo and group exhibitions and performances have been held at venues such as The Jewish Museum, New York, NY; The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY; Art Institute of Malmo, Malmo, Sweden; and Adams and Ollman Gallery, Portland, OR. Rathus lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and is a professor in Media at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ.