“Resident Evil,” Sondra Perry’s electrifying 2016 exhibition at the Kitchen, was among that year’s most memorable shows, its power drawing from her generative association of ideas. Through such unlikely means as a glitchy video avatar, walls painted the same color blue that signals system errors for Microsoft Windows and exercise desk stations designed for fitness freaks wanting to work out at the office, Perry reflected on institutionalized racism, police brutality and the collective black body.
Perry’s current exhibition expands on the themes of agency and representation, taking as its starting point the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s unauthorized licensing of her twin brother Sandy’s image for a basketball video game. In a projection piece, Sandy is seen reminiscing about his Georgia Southern teammates as he and his sister look for them on the game’s menu of characters.
Scattered around the gallery are several metal, stick figure-like training devices used by basketball players to improve their shooting scores. Festooned with flat screens that display computer animations depicting the insides of mouths and skulls, these pieces of athletic equipment seem possessed of the interior life denied the crude CGI likenesses of Sandy and his fellow players.