Doggerel Life: Stories of a Los Angeles Griot

A firsthand account of the 1980s Los Angeles art scene by groundbreaking artist Ulysses Jenkins

Written in 1990 and published as a limited-edition artist’s book in collaboration with Rosanna Albertini in 2018, this memoir by video artist Ulysses Jenkins (born 1946) details his family history, his formative years as a muralist in the 1970s and his experiments as an early practitioner of performance and video art. Doggerel Life also captures the flourishing artist communities of Los Angeles, including Jenkins’ collaborations with the influential Studio Z (alongside figures such as David Hammons, Senga Nengudi and Maren Hassinger); his founding of the media collective Video Venice News; and his time studying at Otis Art Institute with Charles White, Chris Burden and Betye Saar.