Hereditary peers

Abstract

Review of Luke Willis Thompson's 35mm film '_Human' (2018) exhibited at Kunsthalle Basel in Germany, exploring the depiction of 'My Mother. My Father. My Sister. My Brother' (1997), a sculptural work by the late artist Donald Rodney. Considers both artists' experience with a degenerative hereditary disease and their efforts to foreground and codify this through their practice, including Thompson's "mechanics of (structural) filmmaking". Considers the work's "dialectic attempt toward an interrelationship as a way to speak to broader issues of racial identity, family, and structural racism in human biology". Mentions the artist's recent moving image works 'Cemetery of Uniforms and Liveries' (2016) and 'Autoportrait' (2017).