Bryan Konesfky is one of those “Do you know… ?” guys. Inevitably, when anyone in New Mexico brings up cinema, art or the interconnection therein, the question, “Do you know Bryan?” pops up. After all, if you know film, you really ought to know Bryan.
Konesfky is the founder and director of Experiments in Cinema, an annual showcase for worldwide experimental film that has been unspooling here in Albuquerque for the past 20 years. He is a retired faculty member of UNM’s Department of Film & Digital Arts, having taught classes on moving image production and critical studies for more than 25 years. He frequently bills himself as a cultural worker dedicated to the advancement of “un-dependent, experimental and personal cinema” and serves as the president of Basement Films, a longtime local nonprofit organization supporting and preserving “experimental, independent and under-represented” forms of film and videomaking. In 2023 Konefsky supervised Basement Films’ transfer of its physical archive of more than 7,000 historic films to its new home at Central New Mexico Community College. And at the core of it all, Konefsky is himself a moving image artist who has lectured, curated programs and presented his own work in Canada, Switzerland, Scotland, France, Spain, Germany, Cuba, Russia and at countless other universities and museums around the world. … So what took him so long to put together a retrospective exhibit back home in Albuquerque?
Ladmo: An Exhibit That Bears a Striking Resemblance to a Retrospective consists of “selected works by Bryan Konefsky (1966-2024).” It opened Oct. 10 at 1415/Alpaca Galleries and continues through the first week of November. The exhibit consists of paintings and conceptual work, plus performance and moving image installations.
“The show means a lot to me,” says Konefsky. “For the past so many years I’ve focused on moving image work, but in the grand scheme of things I’m realizing that I’ve ‘dipped my toes’ into so many different approaches of all things creative.”
Throughout the years and across the various mediums, Konefsky’s work explores issues such as identity, community and place, corruption and urban decay, notions of masculinity – from the personal to the ever-widening circles of the political.
“The thread that seems to keep popping up involves levels of pranksterism and sharp critiques of this thing that calls itself ‘the art world’ which, in reality, is only a market driven by capitalistic interested and aesthetic ambulance chasers,” says Konefsky, looking back at the work he’s chosen to highlight.
The historic multimedia exhibit is accompanied by an 84-page catalog that tracks Konefsky’s creative output since the mid-1960s and includes important essays about his creative work. Any artist’s retrospective that features glowing praise from the diverse likes of Film Threat magazine, Joe Bob Briggs and the late, great Lester Bangs is worth some up-close scrutiny. Plus, it’s a great way to get to know one of Albuquerque’s most innovative visual artists (even if, like many of us, you already know the guy).
Ladmo: An Exhibit That Bears a Striking Resemblance to a Retrospective
1415/Alpaca Galleries
1415 Fourth St. SW
Oct. 10-Nov. 7
Closing Reception: Nov. 7, 6-9 p.m.