Barron Sherer
OMW!, 2020
Single-Channel Digital Video, Color, Sound, 2:07
OMW!
Toward a paracinematic exploration of the artist’s cellphone photo gallery, OMW! is one of Barron Sherer’s most texted acronyms (On my way!) and a snappy slow jam remix of his pre-pandemic and diaristic 16mm compilation film Mobile Phone Studies 1-25 (2020) folded back onto itself several times over. Structure in the work is predetermined but at a point in the production process OMW! becomes autonomous and full of flux and surprise juxtapositions for the artist and viewer.
Since 2010, his work increasingly aggregates documentation of film handling in the studio, everyday life, family, cat pictures, and selfies commixing with degeneration of pop culture iconography. In OMW!, Sherer uses simple formulas, software, and analog filmmaking techniques to organize and create a tangible and mnemonic digital video from that commonplace and ephemeral experience of social media engagement.
Commissioned by Dimensions Variable and with support of Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Bill Orcutt, Cinelab Boston, Knight Foundation, Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives at MDC, Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs, Oolite Arts and Signal Culture.
Barron Sherer
Barron Sherer is a time-based media artist with a background in moving image archival practice. He works in Miami with a focus on altering and repurposing archived films. In the early 2000s, Sherer was curator at Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives programming film festivals and public programs, he also researched collections and managed the archive’s photochemical conservation. Sherer founded a new studio project in 2020 with Knight Foundation investment in the form of a Knight Arts Challenge award.
His work focuses on re-purposing orphaned and appropriated motion pictures, slides, video, and photographs through formal experimentation. Sherer’s exploration and artistic process in social media and digital platforms create source material and documentation of his temporary and experiential installations.
Sherer is the recipient of awards, fellowships, and residencies including a 2015 Knight Arts Challenge grant for a three-year project space dedicated to using legacy media and technology. In 2017, Sherer was recognized with a South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship. Recent acknowledgments include a 2019 Experimental Media Artist in Residence at Signal Culture, 2019 AIRIE Mini-residency, and a 2020 Oolite Arts at Anderson Ranch Artist Residency.
Recent work has exhibited widely including the Frost Museum of Art; Perez Art Museum Miami; Deering Estate; Microscope Gallery (Brooklyn, NY); Rooster Gallery (NYC); Gallery 125 (Brooklyn, NY); EMP Collective (Baltimore, MD); Art Center Berlin (Berlin, Germany); Museo de Arte Moderno (Medellin, Colombia); and Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (Lerma, Mexico). Barron Sherer’s 2018 solo exhibition, MIAMI/MIAMI featured 16mm installations and video projections in at Walls Gallery in Miami, Queensland, Goldcoast, Australia.
