Ken Kobland

This compelling documentary portrait is a quiet ode to a woman whose approach to form and material are unmatched in the art world. Working primarily in cedar, von Rydingsvard creates monumental sculptures that play with texture and shape in ways that evoke surprising emotion. Born in Germany to Ukrainian-Polish parents, von Rydingsvard’s family was detained for five years in a post-WWII refugee camp before moving to America. The pain and trauma of this experience, coupled with the anger born from an abusive childhood, left indelible marks on Ursula. But her ability to channel this into her work and practice undoubtedly birthed an artist of singular determination and talent.

The dog in dreamland? Or at least one of us is…

A video reconstruction of the 1977 Wooster Group production Rumstick Road, an experimental theater performance created by Spalding Gray and Elizabeth LeCompte after the suicide of Gray's mother. Archival recordings are combined with photographs, slides, and other materials to recreate the original production.

The Wooster Group's production of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters, translated by Paul Schmidt and directed by Elizabeth LeCompte, with performances from Kate Valk, Peyton Smith, Scott Shepherd, Ari Fliakos, Anna Kohler, Beatrice Roth, Ron Vawter, and Willem Dafoe. This presentation of the 2003 production of BRACE UP!, designed by Ken Kobland and LeCompte, incorporates close-up recordings of the performers simultaneously with continuous wide-angle footage.

2-Parts: One, a residency at the MacDowell Colony in Petersboro, New Hampshire with the seasons passing ... Two, an experiment with green-screen chroma-key and a play between 2-D and 3-D space.

The fluctuation between indexical/symbolic images along with everyday small talk and gestures is at the center of this episode. The location is Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963.

This compelling documentary portrait is a quiet ode to a woman whose approach to form and material are unmatched in the art world. Working primarily in cedar, von Rydingsvard creates monumental sculptures that play with texture and shape in ways that evoke surprising emotion. Born in Germany to Ukrainian-Polish parents, von Rydingsvard’s family was detained for five years in a post-WWII refugee camp before moving to America. The pain and trauma of this experience, coupled with the anger born from an abusive childhood, left indelible marks on Ursula. But her ability to channel this into her work and practice undoubtedly birthed an artist of singular determination and talent.

The dog in dreamland? Or at least one of us is…

A video reconstruction of the 1977 Wooster Group production Rumstick Road, an experimental theater performance created by Spalding Gray and Elizabeth LeCompte after the suicide of Gray's mother. Archival recordings are combined with photographs, slides, and other materials to recreate the original production.

The Wooster Group's production of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters, translated by Paul Schmidt and directed by Elizabeth LeCompte, with performances from Kate Valk, Peyton Smith, Scott Shepherd, Ari Fliakos, Anna Kohler, Beatrice Roth, Ron Vawter, and Willem Dafoe. This presentation of the 2003 production of BRACE UP!, designed by Ken Kobland and LeCompte, incorporates close-up recordings of the performers simultaneously with continuous wide-angle footage.

2-Parts: One, a residency at the MacDowell Colony in Petersboro, New Hampshire with the seasons passing ... Two, an experiment with green-screen chroma-key and a play between 2-D and 3-D space.

The fluctuation between indexical/symbolic images along with everyday small talk and gestures is at the center of this episode. The location is Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963.

...a meditation on a familiar New York city space in which memories, fantasies and the maniacial interwine.

"It's a letter to Berlin; a graveyard meditation (with The Wall as its marker). I spent eight months in Berlin (West) as a DAAD fellow; a true guest worker, in 1986-87. I wanted to respond in some way to this strange place. I wanted to describe the landscape of Cold War Berlin, which immediately means dichotomy and invoking the imaginary; the landscape that isn't there as well as the one that is. The only spoken text in the tape are a segment of the John F. Kennedy 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech, given at the Berlin Wall in 1962, and fragments of radio news reports, from both DDR and Bundesrepublik broadcasts."

Periodic ruminations, reflections on photography, memory, aging, the woods and the homeland.

A 17-image exercise using freeze frames of a tenement hallway.

Library is a one shot take looking down at the lobby of the New York University Library at Washington Square in New York City. Shot in 1977, re-edited 2019.

A short film by Ken Kobland & James McCarthy

...a "mordantly nostalgic" sojourn across America. A landscape of mute streets, empty rooms and serene fields; the remains of a civilization which has momentarily disappeared.

Provincetown, Cape Cod. A reconstructed 'landscape' ... inspired by a drive down 6A. The norm when driving of watching the landscape approaching and receding, and the side-show of dioramas.