Ulysses Jenkins

Associate Professor
Video Art, Performance Art

MFA, Intermedia-Video/Performance Art, Otis College of Art, Los Angeles
BFA, Painting and Drawing, Southern University, Baton Rouge

Ulysses Jenkins is a video/performance artist whose ongoing art activities include work with the Art Band of Othervisions Studio multimedia project, including audio CDs entitled find a hap.e.meal (1997), Serendipity (1998-1999); Audio Files-Soundtracks of the Othervisions Art Band (1999); Through a Black Hole Unreluctantly: Othervisions Art Band (1999-2000); a recorded performance art soundtrack history of Othervisions Art Band, 1980-1994 (a box set of nine CDs); and Turquoise Blue (2001).

In the aftermath of 9/11 Jenkins, initiated a project in reaction to the treatment of the women of Afghanistan. He created a video DVD project entitled Bequest (2002). This video work was screened at an exhibit entitles RE – Birth ~ Tono, Tropico De Nopal, Los Angeles (2002) and 911 – A Memorial for All, as well as at Boswell-Crowe Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles (2002) and Fade: African-American Artists in Los Angeles, A Survey Exhibition (1990-2003); and video screening of Bequest (2004), the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department at California State University, Los Angeles (2004). He completed the video Planet X (2006), for the alumni exhibition Otis-LA: 9 Decades of Los Angeles Art, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (2006). He contributed to SIDE by SIDE Part II, a collaboration with Maren Hassinger, Senga Nengudi, David Hammons, and Franklin Parker for the exhibition Les Soriee Nomades, cycle Nuits Noires, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (2006). His video Planet X was screened in the exhibition Cross Sections, 18th Street Arts Center (2007).

His latest project consists of a multi-media installation, Notions of Freedom, which employs motion capture technology and video, as well as a soundtrack, Chief Concern, by Kei Akagi. Previously, Jenkins taught video production at UC San Diego and Otis College of Art, and performance art at California State University, Dominguez Hills.