Kevin Jerome Everson is one of the defining voices of contemporary experimental cinema. Working with a handheld 16mm camera, he observes everyday Black life: labour, neighborhoods, gestures, movement, and meteorological phenomena. Precise, poetic works of striking formal clarity.

Everson brings together aesthetics and the politics of seeing. His films reflect on history, migration, and resistance beyond conventional modes of representation. Scratches, light flares, long takes, and the materiality of analogue film become carriers of meaning in their own right.

Curated by Greg de Cuir Jr, the Artist Focus brings together works spanning more than two decades — from early films to recent productions. Five film programmes, an installation, and an artist talk will be presented at VIDEOEX in Zürich from 22–31 May 2026. The artist and curator will be present.

Kevin Jerome Everson (b. 1965, Mansfield, Ohio, lives/works in Charlottesville, Virginia) is the Commonwealth and Ruffin Foundation Distinguished Professor of Studio Art and Director of Studio Arts at the University of Virginia. Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, Heinz Award in Arts & Humanities, Berlin Prize, Alpert Award in Film/Video, Rome Prize, and grants and commissions from Ford Foundation/Just Films, Knight Foundation, The Brick and Creative Capital, Everson's art practice encompasses photography, printmaking, sculpture and film, 13 features and over 300 solo and collaborative shorts that screen regularly at international film festivals (Sundance, Rotterdam, Berlinale, EMAF, Open City, BlackStar, Locarno, Venice, Toronto, New York Film Festival), cinemas, galleries, museums and art biennials. Everson's work has been the subject of retrospectives and solo exhibitions at: The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Highline, New York; Cinema du Reel/Centre Pompidou, Paris; Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York; Halle fur Kunst Steiermark, Graz; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; and Harvard Film Archive and included in the Whitney Biennial (2008, 2012, 2017), Sharjah Biennial, 2013, Carnegie International 2018, Contour Biennale 2023, and the 2024 Thailand Biennale.

Greg de Cuir Jr is an independent curator, writer, translator, and artistic director of Kinopravda Institute in Belgrade. He curated a solo exhibition by Everson at Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina in Novi Sad (2019) and co-curated (with Oona Mosna) a solo exhibition by Everson at Art Windsor-Essex (2023).