March
29,
2010, Monday,
7:00pm
Artists
of the DeCordova
Biennial: Influences of the Avante-Garde Films
LOCATION:
Coolidge Corner Theatre
290
Harvard St. Brookline, MA, 02446
Tickets: $10, purchase
here
The DeCordova Biennial (running now through April 11) http://www.decordova.org/art/exhibitions/current/biennial2010.html provides an eclectic sample of New England's contemporary art scene, emphasizing the quality and vitality of the art being made in this region. In collaboration with the DeCordova event, The Balagan Film Series is very pleased to co-present a a dazzling program of avant-garde films that have influenced the works of two of this years Biennial artists, Laurel Sparks http://www.laurelsparks.com/ and Xander Marro http://www.dirtpalace.org/. Join Balagan and these New England artists for a special screening of these amazing films and for a discussion with the artist about their art work and its relationship to the films.
Kenneth Anger - Puce Moment (1949) 16mm, 7
min
"A lavishly colored evocation of the Hollywood
now gone, as shown through an afternoon in
the milieu of a 1920s film star.
"PUCE MOMENT is a fragment from an abandoned
film project entitled Puce Woman. The soundtrack
used here is the second one; the first was
the overture to Verdi's I Villi. The film reflects
Anger's concerns with the myths and decline
of Hollywood, as well as with the ritual of
dressing, with the movement from the interior
to the exterior, and with color and sound synchronization." -
Marilyn Singer, The American Federation of
Arts
Biography
Offering a description of himself for the
program of a 1966 screening, Kenneth
Anger stated
his 'lifework' as being Magick and his 'magical
weapon' the cinematograph. A follower of Aleister
Crowley's teachings, Anger is
a high level practitioner of occult magic who
regards the projection of his films as ceremonies
capable of invoking spiritual forces. Cinema,
he claims, is an evil force. Its point is to
exert control over people and events and his
filmmaking is carried out with precisely that
intention. Whatever one's view of this belief
may be, what is undeniable is that in creating
the few films that he either managed to complete
or else released as self contained fragments,
Anger forged a body of work as dazzlingly poetic
in its unique visual intensity as it is narratively
innovative. In many ways, these wordless films
represent the resurgence and development of
the uniquely cinematic qualities widely considered
retarded or destroyed by the passing of the
silent era, especially in the area of editing.
According
to Tony Rayns, ìAnger has an amazing
instinctive grasp of all the elements of filmmaking;
his films actively work out much of Eisenstein's
theoretical writing about the cinemaÖ. [Anger]
comes nearer [to Eisenstein's theories] than
anything in commercial cinema and produces
film-making as rich in resonance as anything
of Eisenstein's own.î
Anger's
films are cinematic manifestations of
his occult practices. As such, they are
highly symbolical, either featuring characters
directly portraying gods, forces and demons
(Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome,
Lucifer Rising) or else finding an appropriate
embodiment for them in the iconography
of contemporary pop culture (Puce
Moment, Scorpio Rising,Kustom Kar Kommandos,
also Inauguration of the Pleasure
Dome).
This view of pop culture as vehicle for
ancient archetypes is also the basis
of Hollywood Babylon, his famous book
about the seedier aspects of Hollywood
history. In attempting to induce an altered
state of consciousness in his viewers,
Anger dispenses with traditional narrative
devices, although his films definitely
tell stories. Using powerful esoteric images
and, especially in his later works, extremely
complex editing strategies that frequently
feature superimposition and the inclusion
of subliminal images running just a few
frames, Anger bypasses our rationality
and appeals directly to our subconscious
mind. The structure common to his major
works is that of a ritual invoking or
evoking spiritual forces, normally moving
from a slow build up, resplendent with
fetishistic detail, to a frenzied finale
with the forces called forth running
wild. - excerpted from Maximilian Le
Cain (www.kenntheranger.org)
Red Grooms - Fat Feet (1966) 16mm, 19min
A
city symphony, with living comic strip characters
and sound, pixilated and animated.--R. G.
The
visual panache of American sculptor and filmmaker
Red Grooms is unparalleled. Red Grooms was
born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1937. He
studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and
the New School for Social Research, New York.
In the 1950s Grooms moved to New York City
to immerse himself in the art scene. For nearly
fifty years Grooms has combined color, vibrancy,
and a generous dose of self-deprecating humor
to produce art in all media that provokes and
delights. He pokes fun at the icons of American
politics, entertainment, the art world, while
paying homage to his subjects at the same time.
No artist since HonorÈ Daumier has had a greater
understanding of humor or a more direct connection
to his audience. In return, Grooms has earned
the public's unqualified admiration and appreciation.
As a painter, sculptor, printmaker, filmmaker
and theater designer Grooms' career to this
point has been prolific. His graphic works
alone includes an array of art forms including
etchings, lithographs (two and three-dimensional),
monotypes, woodblock prints and spray-painted
stencils. Throughout the late 1980s and the
mid 1990s Grooms devoted himself to a series
of prints and three-dimensional works called
New York Stories for which he is well known
and admired.
Harry
Smith - Early Abstractions #1-5, 7 & 10
(1946-52) 16mm, 23 min
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Early
Abstractions is comprised of six films that
vary in length from 2 to 5-1/2 minutes. The
works were produced over a 7-year period.
As Jonas Mekas of Anthology Film Archives
has said, "You can watch them
for pure color enjoyment; you can watch them
for motionóHarry Smith's films never stop moving;
or you can watch them for hidden symbolic meanings,
alchemic signs. There are more levels in Harry
Smith's work than in any other film animator
I know." Inspired by Native American cultures,
jazz, the Kabbala, and surrealism, Smith assembled
his own cinematic universe of shape, color,
light, and time.
Early Abstractions reveals the whimsical, mystical
side of experimental animation. To create No:
2 Message From the Sun, a film that Smith said "takes
place either inside the sun or in Zurich, Switzerland," the
artist applied round, removable stickers to
the filmstock, painted the film, and then coated
the surface with Vaseline. When the stickers
were removed, the circles remained in outline
and another layer of paint was applied. Thus
as the film is projected, the circles' rhythmic
patterns seem to travel and grow in intensity
through the layering and merging of colors.
Harry
Smith's revolutionary animation challenged
traditional filmmaking. Applying a variety
of iconoclastic techniques to the creation
of each film, Smith would use batik, collage,
or optical printing to create a tumult of
shapes and images that integrates chaos with
control. Harry Smith was raised in Washington
by parents with an interest in alchemy and
occultism. In college, he worked for an anthropologist
and lived for a period with a Native American
tribe. Around 1945, he moved to San Francisco
and became part of a circle of avant-garde
artists. In addition to producing more than
a dozen films, Smith was a painter, anthropologist,
alchemist, and music archivist. Relentlessly
curious, Smith was a voluminous collector.
His collection of paper airplanes, one of the
largest ever, is now at the Smithsonian's National
Air and Space Museum and his collection of
Ukrainian Easter eggs are now housed in Stockholm's
Goteborg Museum. Smith was also a legendary
authority on folk music. He compiled and released
Folkways Records' influential Anthology of
American Folk Music. This compilation was praised
by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and helped usher
in the folk revival of the 1960s. Smith earned
a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1991óthe year
of his deathóto celebrate his influential anthology.
Ryan
Trecartin - Valentine's Day Girl (2001) BetaSP,
7 Min
Trecartin
crafts a fantastical narrative about a girl
whose obsessive personal utopia is disrupted.
Trecartin's collaborator, Lizzie Fitch, plays
a girl obsessed with Valentine's Day. Everything
in her hyperactive, sped-up world revolves
around Valentine's Day: red, white, and pink
love-themed decorations cover every surface;
heart shapes abound; Valentine's Day treats
are everywhere. Her private festivities suddenly
go awry as a hoard of Christmas-themed intruders
appear and take her hostage in her own apartment.
Gagged and bound, she is forced to watch
while her ecstatic but sinister captors stage
a frenzied Christmas intervention.
Ryan
Trecartin's video narratives unfold
like futuristic fever dreams. Collaborating
with an ensemble cast of family and friends,
he merges sophisticated digital manipulations
with footage from the Internet and pop culture,
animations, and wildly stylized sets and
performances. While the astonishing A
Family Finds Entertainment (2005)
has drawn comparisons to Jack Smith, early
John Waters, and Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Trecartin
crafts startling visions that are thoroughly
unique. Kevin McGarry writes, "Ryan Trecartin
has established a singular video practice
that in form and in function advances understandings
of post-millennial technology, narrative
and identity, and also propels these matters
as expressive mediums. His work depicts worlds
where consumer culture is amplified to absurd
or nihilistic proportions and characters
circuitously strive to find agency and meaning
in their lives. The combination of assaultive,
nearly impenetrable avant-garde logics and
equally outlandish, virtuoso uses of color,
form, drama and montage produces a sublime,
stream-of-consciousness effect that feels
bewilderingly true to life."
– courtesy EAI
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