On Friday, April 7th at 8 pm, White Flag Projects will be screening three short films by Japanese American artist, Bruce Yonemoto. He is currently a visiting artist/professor at Washington University in St. Louis and the recipient of 2009-10’s Freund Fellowship.

Yonemoto has worked in collaboration with his brother Norman Yonemoto since 1975 and is known for his focus on media-based social commentary and trans-cultural investigations. While Yonemoto employs strategies gleaned from mainstream television, cinema, and advertising as a means to manipulate his audience, he also strives to make viewers aware of how these strategies are working. With a mix of parody, psychoanalytic undertones, and broadly attuned cultural awareness, Yonemoto examines the shaping of a collective consciousness. His films stand as both a critique of current social constructs and rich artistic documents.

The 1986 film Kappa deals with the tales of Oedipus and Kappa, a malevolent Shinto god of water. By dissecting themes of reality versus fiction, this film demonstrates the power of cultural mythos. 1984’s Vault assembles a clichéd narrative of love and loss in order to explore themes of desire through subversion and Freudian tropes. Lastly, 1980’s Garage Sale II follows a troubled punk couple played by video artist Tony Oursler and actor Wendon Baldwin.

Yonemoto has shown widely in the United States and Japan. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; and the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, among others. He has also received numerous awards and grants for his films including the Maya Deren Award for Independent Film and Video Artists in 1993.

The evening’s program is curated by Washington University Professor, Robert Gero. The event takes place Friday, April 7th; doors open at 7 pm, screening begins at 8 pm. For more information on this and upcoming WFP events, please visit www.white-flag-projects.org.