Kahlil Joseph is known for his short films and music videos for musicians like Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus, as well as the original companion film to Beyoncé Knowles’s 2016 concept album Lemonade. His black-and-white short film Wildcat (2013), on view at AB6, portrays a subculture of black cowboys in Grayson, Oklahoma. With slow pans filmed on the rodeo ground in the town formerly known as Wildcat, portrayals of individuals riding bulls in the arena, as well as drives through the Southern landscape, Joseph captures iconic symbols of the United States and evokes the experience of Black America. Joseph is influenced by the feverishly intense and sedative films of the artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul, sensations amplified in Wildcat through the meditative and drone-like soundscape devised by Flying Lotus. Joseph captures moments of contemporary life that otherwise pass fleetingly and depicts Black culture beyond representations that prevail in the mainstream.

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