Laura Ortman, Nanobah Becker, and others

My Soul Remainer

2017

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Laura Ortman, Nanobah Becker, and others

My Soul Remainer

Artist: Laura Ortman
Cinematographer: Nanobah Becker
Videographer: Blackhorse Lowe
Lighting designer: Autumn Chacon
Performer: Jock Soto
Producer: Martin Bisi

My Soul Remainer

2017

Physical Qualities Single-channel high-definition video (color, sound), Duration: 5 minutes, 44 seconds

Credit Line Purchase with exchange funds from the Pearlstone Family Fund and partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Object Number 2020.17

Apache oral traditions trace the origins of stringed musical instruments to the beginning of the earth, and music has played a central role in cultural traditions ever since. In My Soul Remainer, Ortman plays her violin throughout the southwestern landscape of the United States: in a forest clearing, on a mountainside, and within a rocky stream. Her collaborator Jock Soto (Diné) assumes different reverential postures while Ortman’s original score—which samples a piece by German composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)—bleeds into an atmospheric and ethereal composition. By building upon and ultimately departing from the overwhelmingly white and male history of Western classical music composing, Ortman insists upon her own Native autonomy.

The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2020; the artist

Christopher Bedford, Asma Naeem, and Katy Siegel, The Baltimore Museum of Art, "Now is the Time: Recent Acquisitions to the Contemporary Collection," May 2, 2021 to July 18, 2021

Darienne Turner and Leila Grothe, with Elise Boulanger, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Preoccupied: Idigenizing the Museum, "Laura Ortman: Wood that Sings," July 17, 2024 to January 5, 2025.

Turner, Darienne, Leila Grothe, eds. Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum. The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2024, pg. 96-99.