The Secret Public

THE SECRET PUBLIC
London ICA
15-30 April 2007

Further exploring the concerns of other moving image work in the exhibition, The Secret Public: The Last Days of the British Underground 1978-1988, this series of four screenings presents works made by artists for whom the gathering and disseminating of information has critical and political imperatives.

Close Up (Peter Gidal, 1983)

Sun 15 Apr, 13:30 / Mon 23 Apr, 20:15 / Sat 28 Apr, 16:00
BRED AND BORN & CLOSE UP
Both made in 1983, these films are experimental and formally radical. Bred and Born is shaped by the artists’ research into and interviews with three generations of women on an estate in East London. In Close Up the polemical, disembodied voices of Nicaraguan revolutionaries become an equal part in a film that profoundly problematises representation.
BRED AND BORN
Mary Pat Leece & Joanna Davis, 1983, 16mm, 75 min
CLOSE UP
Peter Gidal, 1983, 16mm, 70 min

Handsworth Songs (Black Audio Film Collective, 1986)

Sun 15 Apr, 16:30 / Mon 23 Apr, 18:30 / Sun 29 Apr, 14:00
THIS IS NOT AN AIDS AD & HANDSWORTH SONGS
BAFC’s first major film, Handsworth Songs is a brilliant and deeply affecting account of the Birmingham riots of 1985. Told through montage, interview footage, reportage and archival material it examines race, class and ideology in Britain’s colonial history. Isaac Julien’s video extends these concerns to incorporate sexuality through the excavation and re-presentation of images from the past.
THIS IS NOT AN AIDS AD
Isaac Julien, 1987, video, 11 min
HANDSWORTH SONGS
John Akomfrah & Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC), 1986, video, 58 min

Plutionium Blonde (Sandra Lahire, 1986

Mon 16 Apr, 20:45 / Tue 24 Apr, 18:45 / Sun 29 Apr, 16:00
NUCLEAR TRILOGY & CARRY GREENHAM HOME
Sandra Lahire’s trilogy is a benchmark of personal filmmaking. Flickering through rapid-fire montage and turning the camera onto herself she finds disturbing metaphors for the body in nuclear power. Carry Greenham Home is closer to traditional documentary, detailing with heartfelt attention the lives and activities of the women involved in the peace camp. It bristles with song and combats the media’s fragmented portrayal of events.
PLUTONIUM BLONDE
Sandra Lahire, 1986, video, 15 min
TERMINALS
Sandra Lahire, 1986, 16mm, 15 min
URANIUM HEX
Sandra Lahire, 1988, video, 11 min
CARRY GREENHAM HOME
Beeban Kidron, 1983, 16mm, 66 min

Bright Eyes (Stuart Marshall, 1984)

Tue 17 Apr, 20:45 / Sun 22 Apr, 16:30 / Mon 30 Apr, 18:45
BRIGHT EYES
‘One of the most important videos about AIDS’ (Douglas Crimp
Bright Eyes is an explication of the relationship between representation and prejudice. It is also a manifesto, documentary and information film. Utilising peculiar re-enactments and a parallel with the rise of Nazism, it addresses the appalling institutional and personal intolerance and ignorance of what was already a definitive epidemic.
BRIGHT EYES
Stuart Marshall, 1984, video, 80 min

at

ICA
12 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH
Nearest Tube: Charing Cross / Piccadilly
MAP OF AREA

Tickets: £8 / £7 concessions / £6 members
Box Office: 020 7930 3647
www.ica.org.uk