The American Century Film Programme
Date: 26 September 1999 | Season: American Century
THE AMERICAN CENTURY: ART & CULTURE 1900-2000
The Cool World: Film & Video in America 1950-2000
October – December 1999
New York Whitney Museum of American Art
The Cool World surveys the development of avant-garde film and video in America, from the Beats of the 1950s to the recent innovations of the 1990s. The exhibition includes experiments in abstraction and the emergence of a new, “personal” cinema in the 1950s, the explosion of underground film and multimedia experiments in the 1960s, the rigorous Structural films of the early 1970s, and the new approaches to filmmaking in the 1980s and 1990s. The program also traces the emergence of video as a new art form in the 1960s, its use as a conceptual and performance tool during the 1970s, and its exploration of landscape, spirituality, and language during the 1980s. The Cool World concludes in the 1990s, with experiments by artists in projection, digital technology, and new media.
Curated by Chrissie Iles, curator of film and video, Whitney Museum of American Art. Film Program for the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s co-curated with Mark Webber; 1970s, 1980s and 1990s programs co-curated with Mark McElhatten, Brian Frye, and Bradley Eros.
The series is divided into two parts. Part I (26 September – 5 December 1999) presents work from the 1950s and 1960s. Part II (7 December 1999 – 13 February 2000) surveys the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Each month is devoted to a specific decade.
All films are 16mm. Those marked (v) are shown on videotape. Asterisked films are shown in both the repeating weekly programs and the Thursday/weekend themed programs.
The film and video program is screened in the Kaufman Astoria Film and Video Gallery on the 2nd floor. Screenings are free with museum admission ticket. All day film ticket: $6 (admits to Film and Video program only).
THE COOL WORLD: 1950s
26 September – 24 October 1999
Avant-garde film in America had begun in the 1930s, blossomed in the 1940s, and continued to flourish in the 1950s. Many of the new experimental films were premiered at Cinema 16, which formed the focal point for avant-garde film presentation and distribution in New York throughout the 1950s. On the West Coast, abstract, Surrealist, and expressionist filmmaking continued to develop, showcased by the Art in Cinema Society in San Francisco, and, from the mid-1950s, the rebellious films of the Beats emerged. Together, this diverse body of films created a new film language that radically transformed cinematic space, structure, and subject matter.
Themed programs of 1950s films are screened on Thursday evenings and on weekends. Two general programs of 1950s classics are repeated on alternate days, Tuesday through Friday.
1950s THEMED PROGRAMS
Sunday 26 September 1999
IMPENDING DOOM
During the 1950s, America experienced a period of uncertainty brought about by the aftermath of World War II and the perceived threat of Communism. Avant-garde filmmakers, many expressing a Beat sensibility, satirized the Cold War, rejected the political establishment, and addressed the unsettled, existential mood created by the fear of nuclear weapons and an anxiety about the future.
12 pm
Doomed
Christopher Maclaine, The End, 1953, b/w & color, sound, 35 min *
Stan Brakhage, Reflections on Black, 1955, b/w, sound, 12 min *
Robert Breer, Jamestown Baloos, 1957, color, sound, 6 min
Stan Brakhage, The Dead, 1960, color, silent, 11 min
1:00 pm
Cold War Dreams
Bruce Conner, A Movie, 1958, b/w, sound, 12 min *
Stan Vanderbeek, Science Friction, 1959, color, sound, 10 min *
Gregory Corso & Jay Socin, Happy Death, c.1960, b/w, sound, 33 min
Stan Vanderbeek, Snapshots of the City, 1961, b/w, sound, 5 min
Ray Wisniewski, Doomshow, c.1965, b/w, sound, 10 min
Edward English, The Family Fallout Shelter, 1962, b/w, sound, 14 min
3:15 pm
Star Spangled To Death
A film performance presented by Ken Jacobs.
“Bestrewn with found film cadavers, the film proceeds as if on holiday, in manic fits and starts….Studied composition vies with hand-held rambunctiousness, an Action Filming akin to Action Painting….Its proto-Beat sensibility…is at odds with the lemming drift of the 1950s, when chauvinist anti-Communism threatened us all with the final star-spangling to death.” (Ken Jacobs)
Ken Jacobs, Star Spangled To Death, 1958-60, b/w & color, sound & silent, c.180 min
Thursday 30 September 1999
6pm
Early Independents: 1
The crossover between Beat and black bohemianism in the 1950s produced a number of important films, including Shirley Clarke’s raw portrayal of life in the Harlem ghetto, represented by a black teenager’s descent into crime.
Shirley Clarke, The Cool World, 1963, b/w, sound, 125 min
Saturday 2 October 1999
THE BEATS: 1
The essence of Beat lay in the literary radicalism of its writers and poets, including Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. Their existentialism, cultural displacement, and rebellious rejection of conventional values were affirmed in cinematic terms by filmmakers on both coasts. This weekend program presents a concise survey of Beat cinema, including film collaborations by Anthony Balch and William Burroughs, and rare films by Larry Jordan, Piero Heliczer, and Dion Vigne.
12 pm
Stan Brakhage, Desistfilm, 1954, b/w, sound, 7 min
Larry Jordan, Trumpit, 1955-56, b/w, sound, 7 min
Larry Jordan, The One Romantic Venture of Edward, 1956, b/w & color, 8 min
Larry Jordan, Triptych in Four Parts, 1958, color, sound, 12 min
Piero Heliczer, The Autumn Feast, 1960, color, sound on tape, 14 min
Ken Jacobs & Bob Fleischner, Blonde Cobra, 1959-63, b/w & color, sound, 30 min *
Ken Jacobs, Little Stabs at Happiness, 1959-63, color, sound, 15 min
2 pm
Wallace Berman, Aleph, 1956-66, color, silent, 7 min
Robert Pike, The Tragi-Comedy of Marriage, 1957, b/w, sound, 8 min
Frank Paine, Motion Picture, 1956, color, sound, 4 min
Alfred Leslie, The Last Clean Shirt, 1964, b/w, sound, 39 min
Dion Vigne, North Beach, 1958, color, sound, 10 min
Dion Vigne, Miscellaneous Fragments: North Beach, c.1955, b/w, silent, 10 min
4 pm
Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy, 1959, b/w, sound, 28 min *
Anthony Balch, Towers Open Fire, 1963, b/w, sound, 10 min (v) *
Anthony Balch, William Buys a Parrot, c.1963, color, silent, 2 min (v)
Anthony Balch, The Cut-Ups, 1961-67, b/w, sound, 22 min (v)
ruth weiss, The Brink, 1961, b/w, sound, 40 min (v) *
Sunday 3 October 1999
THE BEATS: 2
12 pm
The Connection
A tough exploration of the drug world in the 1950s, seen through the eyes of a group of junkies waiting for their fix. A film of The Living Theater’s adaptation of Jack Gelber’s revolutionary Off-Broadway play.
Shirley Clarke, The Connection, 1961, b/w, sound, 103 min *
2 pm
The Films of Christopher Maclaine
The complete works of this neglected Beat filmmaker and poet, whose existentialist films used radical in-camera montage techniques to alter perception. In The End, gaps in dialogue and imagery become metaphors for the world annihilation that Maclaine felt was imminent.
Christopher Maclaine, The End, 1953, b/w & color, sound, 35 min *
Christopher Maclaine, The Man Who Invented Gold, 1957, b/w & color, sound, 14 min
Christopher Maclaine, Beat, 1958, color, sound, 6 min
Christopher Maclaine, Scotch Hop, 1959, color, sound, 6 min
3:30 pm
The Irrepressible Taylor Mead
Introduced by Taylor Mead
Taylor Mead, the first “star” of the underground, will appear in person to present two of his earliest and most celebrated performances, which showcase his comic style.
Vernon Zimmerman, Lemon Hearts, 1960, b/w, sound, 26 min
Ron Rice, The Flower Thief, 1960, b/w, sound, 75 min
Thursday 7 October 1999
6 pm
Early Independents: 2
Peter Emanuel Goldman’s haunting film shows the aimless wandering of three young people in Greenwich Village. Their search for meaning is hindered by the oppression of the city.
Peter Emanuel Goldman, Echoes of Silence, 1965, b/w, sound, 75 min
Saturday 9 October 1999
ABSTRACTION AND THE LYRICAL FILM
Abstract cinema formed a central strand of early American avant-garde filmmaking during the 1940s and 1950s, particularly on the West Coast. Its non-objective colors, surfaces, and shapes create complex compositions of light in motion that often echo the structure of music. In the work of Jordan Belson and James Whitney, cosmic principles found expression through the delicate vibrancy of light and abstract forms.
12 pm
Abstractions
Mary Ellen Bute, Mood Contrasts, 1953, color, sound, 7 min *
Mary Ellen Bute, Abstronics, 1952, color, sound, 7 min
Stan Vanderbeek, Mankinda, 1957, b/w, sound, 10 min
Jordan Belson, Mandala, 1953, color, sound, 3 min
Harry Smith, No. 7 (Color Study), 1952, color, sound, 6 min *
Len Lye, Color Cry, 1952, color, sound, 3 min *
Len Lye, Free Radicals, 1957, b/w, sound, 5 min
Jim Davis, Becoming, 1955, color, silent, 9 min
Jane Conger, Odds and Ends, 1959, color, sound, 5 min
James Whitney, Yantra, 1950-55, color, sound, 7 min *
1:30 pm
Hy Hirsh
A rare screening of the abstract montage films of San Francisco filmmaker Hy Hirsh, who mostly worked in isolation in Europe during the 1950s. Hirsh mastered the techniques of optical printing, solarizing, multiple exposure, and split screens, and he was also one of the first filmmakers to incorporate electronic imagery into film.
Hy Hirsh, Eneri, 1953, color, sound, 6 min
Hy Hirsh, Gyromorphosis, 1955, color, sound, 7 min
Hy Hirsh, Autumn Spectrum, 1957, color, sound, 7 min
Hy Hirsh, Scratch Pad, 1960, color, sound, 8 min
Hy Hirsh, Come Closer, 1953, color, sound, 5 min
Hy Hirsh, La Couleur de la Forme, 1960, color, sound, 5 min *
3 pm
Graphic Cinema and the Lyrical Film
A survey of the poetic use of light in Kenneth Anger’s Eaux d’Artifice, Robert Breer’s explorations of kinaesthetic space, Peter Kubelka’s experiments with the still frame, and the dancing light of Marie Menken’s Notebook. Also included is Ian Hugo’s Jazz of Lights, without which, as Stan Brakhage remarked, “there would have been no Anticipation of the Night”.
Kenneth Anger, Eaux d’Artifice, 1953, color, sound, 13 min
Marie Menken, Notebook, 1962-63, b/w & color, silent, 10 min
Marie Menken, Hurry! Hurry!, 1957, color, sound, 3 min *
Peter Kubelka, Adebar, 1956-57, b/w, sound, 2 x 2 min
Peter Kubelka, Schwechater, 1957-58, color, sound, 2 x 1 min
Peter Kubelka, Arnulf Rainer, 1958-60, b/w, sound, 6 min
Robert Breer, Recreation, 1956, color, sound, 2 min *
Robert Breer, A Man and His Dog Out for Air, 1957, b/w, sound, 2 min
Robert Breer, Inner and Outer Space, 1960, color, sound, 4 min
Ian Hugo, Bells of Atlantis, 1952, color, sound, 9 min *
Ian Hugo, Jazz of Lights, 1954, color, sound, 16 min
4:45 pm
Stan Brakhage
Introduced by Stan Brakhage
During the 1950s, Stan Brakhage emerged as a major figure in American avant-garde cinema, creating a new, highly personal form of filmmaking. His fragmented images, delicate light, and transformation of film space into multilayered perspectives all coalesce in his key film from this period, Anticipation of the Night. Mothlight is the first of many films in which Brakhage collages, paints, and scratches directly onto the film strip, creating sequences of planes in motion that he terms “visual music”. His films are almost all silent, asserting the primacy of the image and the process of looking.
Stan Brakhage, Sirius Remembered, 1959, color, silent, 12 min
Stan Brakhage, Anticipation of the Night, 1958, color, silent, 40 min
Stan Brakhage, Mothlight, 1963, color, silent, 4 min *
Sunday 10 October 1999
THE BEATS: 1
See Saturday 2 October 1999
Thursday 14 October 1999
6pm
Early Independents: 3
Introduced by Robert Drew
This documentary about the 1960 primary elections and the functioning of the American political system received Film Culture’s Independent Film Award in 1961. The inclusion of a political documentary within the context of the New American Cinema demonstrated the increasing number of crossovers among different artistic practices.
Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, Al Maysles & D.A. Pennebaker, Primary, 1960, b/w, sound, 60 min
Saturday 16 October 1999
12 pm
Dancing and the Streets
The rhythmic movement of dance made it a natural subject for experimental film. Fusing music, light, and the fluid choreography of the body, the films in this program form poetic compositions which, in Maya Deren’s In the Very Eye of Night, become a metaphor for the unconscious mind and the universe, through which the dancers move “like celestial satellites”.
James Broughton, Four in the Afternoon, 1951, b/w, sound, 15 min
Shirley Clarke, Dance in the Sun, 1953, color, sound, 6 min
Shirley Clarke, A Moment in Love, 1957, color, sound, 8 min
Ed Emshwiller, Dance Chromatic, 1959, color, sound, 7 min
Maya Deren, In the Very Eye of Night, 1959, b/w, sound, 15 min *
2 pm
In the Cities
The architecture of New York, transformed through the filmmaker’s lens. This program includes rare screenings of Sidney Peterson’s Architectural Millinery and Shirley Clarke’s Skyscraper, which documents the construction of 666 Fifth Avenue.
Francis Thompson, NY, NY, 1957, color, sound, 15 min
Sidney Peterson, Architectural Millinery, 1954, b/w, sound, 7 min
Frank Stauffacher, Notes on the Port of St. Francis, 1951, b/w, sound, 20 min
Shirley Clarke, Bridges Go Round, 1958, color, sound, 7 min *
Shirley Clarke & Willard Van Dyke, Skyscraper, 1959, b/w & color, sound, 20 min
4 pm
In the Streets
Since the beginning of the century, artists and filmmakers have depicted the streets of New York, creating portraits of urban life from the city’s visual cacophony. The films in this program present poetic studies of New York locations, including the Brooklyn Bridge, Mulberry Street, Little Italy, and the elevated subway.
Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, and James Agee, In the Street, 1943-52, b/w, sound on tape, 16 min *
Rudy Burckhardt, Under Brooklyn Bridge, 1953, b/w, sound, 15 min
Ken Jacobs, Orchard Street, 1956, color, silent, 15 min
Joseph Cornell & Rudy Burckhardt, Aviary, 1955, b/w, silent, 5 min
Joseph Cornell & Rudy Burckhardt, A Fable for Fountains, c.1954-57, b/w, sound, 6 min
Joseph Cornell & Rudy Burckhardt, Nymphlight, 1957, color, silent, 8 min
Joseph Cornell & Rudy Burckhardt, What Mozart Saw on Mulberry Street, 1956, b/w, silent, 6 min *
Larry Jordan, Visions of a City, 1957 (edited 1978), b/w, sound, 6 min *
D.A. Pennebaker, Daybreak Express, 1953, color, sound, 5 min
Sunday 17 October 1999
ABSTRACTION AND THE LYRICAL FILM
See Saturday 9 October 1999
Thursday 21 October 1999
6 pm
Early Independents: 4
As the Beat movement reached its height, Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie’s Pull My Daisy and John Cassavetes’ Shadows became the touchstones of the era, capturing the mood of an alienated generation poised to explode in the wide-reaching revolution of the sixties.
Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy, 1959, b/w, sound, 28 min *
John Cassavetes, Shadows, 1957-59, b/w, sound, 87 min
Saturday 23 October 1999
THE BEATS: 2
See Sunday, 23 October 1999
Sunday 24 October 1999
CINEMA 16
Introduced by Amos Vogel, director of Cinema 16
A special event honoring the pivotal role of Cinema 16 – to this day the largest film society in the country – in the early days of avant-garde film in America. Founded in 1947 by Amos Vogel, with Marcia Vogel and, later, assisted by Jack Goelman, Cinema 16 drew the largest audiences for noncommercial and experimental cinema in American film history. Its programs had a profound impact on a new generation of young American filmmakers. Together with special courses and lectures given at the New School and New York University and its joint sponsorship, with Maya Deren, of the annual creative Film Awards, Cinema 16 laid the foundation for the flourishing of avant-garde cinema in America. Amos Vogel’s programming brought together disparate films from different genres in an attempt to provoke and educate audiences. This presentation includes many highlights from Cinema 16’s historic series, including several classic avant-garde films that premiered at Cinema 16, especially chosen by Vogel and assembled with Scott MacDonald.
12 pm
Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, Meshes of the Afternoon, 1943, b/w, sound, 14 min
Frank Stauffacher, Sausalito, 1948, b/w. sound, 10 min
Willard Maas, Geography of the Body, 1943, b/w, sound, 7 min
Carmen D’Avino, The Big O, 1958, b/w, sound, 3 min
Carmen D’Avino, A Finnish Fable, 1965, color, sound, 6 min
Carmen D’Avino, The Room, 1959, colour, sound, 5 min
1:15 pm
Luis Bunuel, Land Without Bread, 1933, b/w, sound, 27 min
Oskar Fischinger, Motion Painting #1, 1947, color, sound, 11 min
Roman Polanski, Two Men and a Wardrobe, 1957, 15 min
2:30 pm
Kenneth Anger, Fireworks, 1947, b/w, sound, 15 min
Weegee, Weegee’s New York, 1950-54, color, sound, 20 min (v)
Norman McLaren, Fiddle-de-Dee, 1947, color, sound, 4 min
Margaret Mead, Trance and Dance in Bali, 1952, b/w, sound, 22 min (v)
Robert Breer, Inner and Outer Space, 1960, color, sound, 4 min
Lindsay Anderson, O Dreamland, 1953, b/w, sound, 12 min
Stan Vanderbeek, Science Friction, 1959, color, sound, 10 min *
4:30 pm
James Broughton, Mother’s Day, 1948, b/w, sound, 22 min
Shirley Clarke, In Paris Parks, 1954, color, sound, 12 min
James Davis, Light Reflections, 1948, color, sound, 14 min
Sidney Peterson, The Lead Shoes, 1949, b/w, sound, 17 min
Michelangelo Antonioni, Nettezza Urbana: “N.U.”, 1948, b/w, sound, 9 min
Douglas Crockwell, Glen Falls Sequence, 1946, color, silent, 8 min
With special thanks to Amos Vogel, Marcia Vogel, and Scott MacDonald.
1950s: WEEKLY PROGRAMS
26 September – 24 October 1999
Two programs, alternating daily. Asterisked films are also screened in the theme programs on Thursday evenings and on weekends.
Tuesdays at 11:30 am, Thursdays at 1:30 pm
Robert Frank & Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy, 1959, b/w, sound, 28 min (v) *
Len Lye, Color Cry, 1952, color, sound, 3 min *
Stan Brakhage, Reflections on Black, 1955, b/w, sound, 12 min *
Tuesdays only
1 pm
Shirley Clarke, The Connection, 1961, b/w, sound, 103 min *
Tuesdays and Thursdays
3 pm
Bruce Conner, A Movie, 1958, b/w, sound, 12 min *
James Whitney, Yantra, 1950-55, color, sound, 7 min *
Roger Tilton, Jazz Dance, 1954, b/w, sound, 20 min
Shirley Clarke, Bridges Go Round, 1958, color, sound, 7 min *
Ian Hugo, Bells of Atlantis, 1952, color, sound, 9 min *
Anthony Balch, Towers Open Fire, 1963, b/w, sound, 10 min (v) *
Marie Menken, Hurry! Hurry!, 1957, color, sound, 3 min *
4:30 pm
Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb & James Agee, In the Street, 1943-52, b/w, sound on tape, 16 min *
Ken Jacobs & Bob Fleischner, Blonde Cobra, 1959-63, b/w & color, sound, 30 min *
Maya Deren, In the Very Eye of Night, 1959, b/w, sound, 15 min *
Wednesdays and Fridays
11:30 am
ruth weiss, The Brink, 1961, b/w, sound, 40 min (v) *
Robert Breer, Recreation, 1956, color, sound, 2 min *
Joseph Cornell & Rudy Burckhardt, What Mozart Saw on Mulberry Street, 1956, b/w, silent, 6 min *
Hy Hirsh, La Couleur de la Forme, 1960, color, sound, 5 min *
1 pm
Anthony Balch, Ghosts at No. 9, 1963-67 (assembled by Genesis P. Orridge, 1982), color, sound, 45 min (v)
Mary Ellen Bute, Mood Contrasts, 1953, color, sound, 7 min *
Edward Bland, The Cry of Jazz, 1958, b/w, sound, 35 min
Stan Vanderbeek, Science Friction, 1959, color, sound, 10 min *
3 pm
Christopher Maclaine, The End, 1953, b/w & color, sound, 35 min *
Larry Jordan, Visions of a City, 1957 (edited 1978), b/w, sound, 6 min *
Harry Smith, No. 7 (Color Study), 1952, color, sound, 6 min *
George Binkey (a.k.a. Adolfas Mekas), Anti-Film #2, 1951, b/w, sound, 18 min
4:30 pm
Kenneth Anger, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome: Sacred Mushroom Edition, 1954-66, color, sound, 38 min *
Peter Whitehead, Wholly Communion, 1966, b/w, sound, 33 min
THE COOL WORLD: 1960s
29 October 29 – 5 December 1999
The radical environment of the sixties produced a rich mixture of alternative art practices, including an explosion of American avant-garde and underground film. Unprecedented crossovers among different artistic media led to new forms of art, including performance, Happenings, and new dance. It was during this period that many of the acknowledged classics of underground film were made. Filmmakers and artists also experimented with the newly arrived technology of video. The rebellious counterculture produced a body of films exploring psychedelia as well as radical films that independently documented political activism and protests against the Vietnam War. As in the 1950s, filmmakers allied themselves closely with music as a means of developing self-expression and independence.
Special programs exploring these different genres are scheduled on Thursday evenings and on weekends. In addition, four daily programs of important 1960s films and videotapes are repeated Tuesdays through Fridays.
1960s THEMED PROGRAMS
Thursday 28 October 1999
4:30 pm
Extended Visions: 1
Jonas Mekas’ film diary Lost, Lost, Lost, spanning 1949 to 1963, records both the evolution of the avant-garde film movement in New York and Mekas’ own adaptation to life as a displaced person from Lithuania. Its melancholic tone is offset by the excitement and energy of a new life, which included cultural figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Robert Frank, and LeRoi Jones, intercut with footage of the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, the Women for Peace protest, and other historic events.
Jonas Mekas, Lost, Lost, Lost, 1949-63 (edited 1976), b/w & color, sound, 178 min
Friday 29 October 1999
7 pm
Jonas Mekas and the Avant-Garde Film in New York
Introduced by Jonas Mekas
An evening honoring Jonas Mekas, co-founder of the New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative, director of Anthology Film Archives, publisher of the influential magazine Film Culture, writer of the Village Voice ‘Movie Journal’ columns, and self-appointed “minister of defense and propaganda of the New Cinema.” On the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in New York on October 29, 1949, Mekas will comment on his role in the development of the American avant-garde film.
Followed by a screening of Gideon Bachmann, Jonas, 1967, b/w, sound, 30 min (v)
Saturday 30 October 1999
THE PSYCHEDELIC FILM
During the 1960s, a young generation searching for spiritual and perceptual awakening experimented with mind-altering drugs. Encouraged by visionary guru Timothy Leary and his mantra “Turn on, tune in, drop out,” young people took LSD as a means of expanding consciousness. The visionary quality of film made it an important medium for expressing the psychedelic sensibility. These programs present rarely screened experiments in hallucinogenic cinema.
12 pm
Jordan Belson
Jordan Belson, Caravan, 1952, color, sound, 4 min
Jordan Belson, Mandala, 1953, color, sound, 3 min
Jordan Belson, Allures, 1961, color, sound, 9 min *
Jordan Belson, Re-Entry, 1964, color, sound, 6 min
Jordan Belson, Phenomena, 1965, color, sound, 6 min
Jordan Belson, Samadhi, 1967, color, sound, 6 min
1 pm
Strange Trips
Introduced by Jud Yalkut
Jud Yalkut, Turn Turn Turn, 1965-66, color, sound, 10 min *
Jud Yalkut, US Down by the Riverside, 1966, color, sound, 3 min
Ben Van Meter, S.F. Trips Festival, An Opening, 1966, color, sound, 9 min *
Ben Van Meter, Acid Mantra, 1966-68, b/w & color, sound, 47 min
Bob Cowan, Rockflow, 1968, b/w & color, sound, 9 min
2:45 pm
Expanding Consciousness
Jonas Mekas, Report from Millbrook, 1966, color, sound, 12 min
Victor Grauer, Archangel, 1966, color, sound, 10 min
Victor Grauer, Certain Stars; Distant Stars; Acid, 1966, color, sound, 11 min
James Whitney, Lapis, 1963-66, color, sound, 10 min *
Will Hindle, Chinese Firedrill, 1968, color, sound, 23 min
John Hawkins, LSD Wall, 1964-65, color, sound, 7 min
Keewatin Dewdney, The Maltese Cross Movement, 1967, color, sound, 7 min
Scott Bartlett, Offon, 1968, color, sound, 9 min
Eric Siegel, Tomorrow Never Knows, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 3 min
4:30 pm
Altered States
Introduced by Ira Cohen
Ben Van Meter, Olds-mo-bile, 1965, b/w, sound, 14 min
John Gruenberger, Onset: Variation 1, 1971, color, sound, 4 min
John Schofill, Filmpiece for Sunshine, 1966-68, color, sound, 24 min
Ira Cohen, Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda, 1968, color, sound, 20 min (v)
Stan Vanderbeek, Film Form No. 1, 1970, color, sound, 10 min
Ken Kesey’s film of the Merry Pranksters’ bus trip across America will premiere on Saturday 27 November 1999, at 4 pm.
7pm
Andy Warhol and The Exploding Plastic Inevitable
Introduced by Gerard Malanga
Andy Warhol’s Uptight series and The Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) events that followed presented an innovative fusion of music and film. This evening of films related to the EPI features Ronald Nameth’s hallucinatory film of the event. Warhol’s recently restored film The Velvet Underground was conceived to be projected over the rock group as it played. The program includes other documents of, and by, the disparate factions that congregated around Andy Warhol’s Factory, among them rarely seen films by the poet Piero Heliczer, and Ron Rice’s Chumlum, featuring a cembalum solo by the Velvet Underground’s original drummer, Angus MacLise.
Ronald Nameth, Warhol’s EPI, 1966, b/w & color, sound, 22 min
Piero Heliczer, The Soap Opera, c.1964, b/w, silent, 13 min
Piero Heliczer, Joan of Arc, c.1967, color, sound on tape, 12 min
Ron Rice, Chumlum, 1964, color, sound, 26 min
Beverly & Tony Conrad, Straight and Narrow, 1970, b/w, sound, 10 min
Keewatin Dewdney, Malanga, 1967, b/w, sound, 3 min
Warren Sonbert, Where Did Our Love Go?, 1966, color, sound on tape, 15 min
Barbara Rubin, Christmas on Earth, 1963, b/w, sound on tape, 29 min (dual screen)
Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground, 1966, b/w, sound, 35 min (dual screen)
Sunday 31 October 1999
SOUND AND VISION: MUSIC AND FILM
Music was an important element of sixties avant-garde cinema and many filmmakers collaborated directly with composers or conceived works around particular soundtracks.
The musicians represented in these films are cited in parentheses in the listings.
11:30 am
Pop Culture
The close relationship between experimental filmmakers and popular music led to several dynamic works, including Mick Jagger’s Moog score for Invocation of My Demon Brother. Jagger appears in Peter Ungerleider’s film of the Rolling Stones’ 1969 Hyde Park concert. Gunvor Nelson’s kaleidoscopic portrait of her daughter, Oona, contains a mesmerizing tape composition by Steve Reich.
John Rubin, The Who, 1967-69, color, sound, 3 min (The Who)
Peter Ungerleider, Under My Thumb, 1969, color, sound, 30 min (The Rolling Stones)
Kenneth Anger, Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969, color, sound, 11 min (Mick Jagger)
Anthony Stern, San Francisco, 1968, color, sound, 15 min (The Pink Floyd)
Gunvor Nelson, My Name is Oona, 1969, b/w, sound, 10 min (Steve Reich)
Robert Shaye, Image, 1964, color, sound, 10 1/2 min (Walter Carlos)
Bruce Conner, Permian Strata, 1969, b/w, sound, 4 min (Bob Dylan)
1:30 pm
Jazz in Silhouette
Four impressionistic films with jazz scores. Harry Smith’s Number 11 (Mirror Animations) is precisely constructed to mirror Thelonious Monk’s composition Mysterioso. The Forbidden Playground and Magic Sun were both inspired by the space music of Sun Ra and were projected during the Arkestra’s legendary appearances at Carnegie Hall in 1968.
Harry Smith, Number 11 (Mirror Animations), 1956-62 (revised 1976), color, sound, 11 min (Thelonious Monk) *
Phill Niblock, Magic Sun, 1966, b/w, sound, 17 min (Sun Ra)
Maxine Haleff, The Forbidden Playground, c.1966, b/w, sound, 11 min (Sun Ra)
Bruce Baillie, All My Life, 1966, color, sound, 3 min (Ella Fitzgerald) *
2:30 pm
ESP-disk Films
Introduced by Jud Yalkut
ESP-disk was a pioneering record label that issued avant-garde rock and jazz records. Assembled here for the first time are the three films ESP-disk commissioned to promote its artists, together with Michael Snow’s film New York Eye and Ear Control (A Walking Woman Work), featuring a soundtrack by Albert Ayler that became the first ESP jazz release.
Edward English, The Fugs, 1963, color, sound, 12 1/2 min (The Fugs)
Jud Yalkut, The Godz, 1966, color, sound, 12 min (The Godz)
Edward English, Spaceways, 1968, color, sound, 18 min (Sun Ra)
Michael Snow, New York Eye and Ear Control (A Walking Woman Work), 1964, b/w, sound, 34 min (Albert Ayler)
4 pm
The Music of Terry Riley
The hypnotic and transcendental organ music of Terry Riley was chosen by several filmmakers as a soundtrack. Riley collaborated with sculptor Arlo Acton to make Music with Balls, a mantric early videotape mixed by John Coney.
Terry Riley & Arlo Acton, Music with Balls, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 24 min
David McLaughlin, Getting Together, 1968, b/w, sound, 8 min
Standish Lawder, Corridor, 1968-70, b/w, sound, 22 min
John Whitney, Matrix III, 1972, color, sound, 11min
Bruce Conner, Crossroads, 1976, b/w, sound, 36 min
Thursday 4 November 1999
3 pm
Extended Visions: 2
The Art of Vision is an expanded version of Stan Brakhage’s mythopoeic epic Dog Star Man, which expresses the cycle of the seasons and humanity’s struggle with nature. It contains the complete earlier film and is an analytical study of the footage within it.
Stan Brakhage, The Art of Vision, 1961-65, color, silent, 270 min
Saturday 6 November 1999
FILMMAKERS OF THE WEST COAST: 1
12 pm
Bruce Baillie
A key figure in the West Coast film community, Bruce Baillie created complex, multilayered films that construct a poetic social commentary influenced by Eastern philosophy. His first major statement, To Parsifal, a film poem to the summer, is structured around the German legend. In Quixote, filmed on a cross-country trip in 1963-64, the filmmaker critically observes the social environment of America, from its Native American communities to Wall Street and Vietnam.
Bruce Baillie, Show Leader, 1966, b/w, sound, 1 min
Bruce Baillie, Mr. Hayashi, 1961, b/w, sound, 3 min
Bruce Baillie, A Hurrah for Soldiers, 1962-63, color, sound, 4 min
Bruce Baillie, To Parsifal, 1963, b/w, sound, 16 min
Bruce Baillie, Quixote, 1964-65, b/w & color, sound, 45 min
Bruce Baillie, Tung, 1966, b/w & color, silent, 5 min
Bruce Baillie, Castro Street, 1966, b/w & color, sound, 10 min
2 pm
George Kuchar
Introduced by George Kuchar
George Kuchar, a celebrated figure of underground cinema, will make a return to New York to present his lesser-known films of the 1960s. Kuchar’s distinct, personal view of life through technicolor spectacles continues to entertain audiences after four decades of prolific production. After making early 8mm epics with his brother Mike, Kuchar burst onto the scene with Hold Me While I’m Naked, a parody of the frustration and loneliness which characterized his particular style of steamy, homespun melodrama. This selection features films made in New York before Kuchar’s relocation to California in 1971.
George Kuchar, Leisure, 1966, b/w, sound, 9 min
George Kuchar, Mosholu Holiday, 1966, b/w, sound, 9 min
George Kuchar, Color Me Shameless, 1967, b/w, sound, 30 min
George Kuchar, The Lady from Sands Point, 1967, b/w, sound, 9 min
George Kuchar, The Mammal Palace, 1969, b/w, sound, 31 min
4 pm
Owen Land (formerly known as George Landow)
The earliest films of Owen Land (formerly known as George Landow) foreshadowed the Structural movement which was to dominate the cinematic avant-garde in the 1970s. Film in Which There Appear Sprocket Holes, Edge Lettering, Dirt Particles, Etc.is a film in which the print’s natural degradation, through collected dirt and scratches, becomes part of the work itself. Institutional Quality of 1969 (subsequently withdrawn and revised in 1976) marked a new phase of Land’s filmmaking, characterized by a dry sense of humor and a continual undermining of conventional cinematic perception.
Owen Land, Fleming Faloon, 1963-64, color, sound & silent, 7 min
Owen Land, Film in Which There Appear Sprocket Holes, Edge Lettering, Dirt Particles, Etc., 1965-66, color, silent, 4 min *
Owen Land, Diploteratology, 1967, color, silent, 7 min
Owen Land, The Film That Rises to the Surface of Clarified Butter, 1968, b/w, sound, 9 min
Owen Land, Remedial Reading Comprehension, 1970, color, sound, 5 min
Owen Land, What’s Wrong with This Picture?, 1972, b/w & color, sound, 12 min
Owen Land, Wide Angle Saxon, 1975, color, sound, 22 min
Owen Land, “No Sir, Orison”, 1975, color, sound, 3 min
Owen Land, New Improved Institutional Quality: In The Environment Of Liquids And Nasals A Parasitic Vowel Sometimes Develops, 1976, color, sound, 17.5 min
7 pm
Friday, Apple Blossoms: An Intermedia Evening for Dick Higgins
Performances, readings, and music by Dick Higgins, performed by Larry Miller, Alison Knowles, Geoff Hendricks, Eric Andersen, Jessie Higgins, and others. Dedicated to Dick Higgins, a founding member of Fluxus, who died in December 1998.
See also Fluxday, Thursday 11 November 1999, a day of Fluxus films and documents which includes a program of Dick Higgins’ films.
Sunday 7 November 1999
FILMMAKERS OF THE WEST COAST: 2
12 pm
Spring Equinox 1966: The Magick Lantern Cycle of Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger is a highly influential figure in American avant-garde cinema, and Scorpio Rising has become one of underground film’s best-known classics. This program presents five of Anger’s key films from 1947 to the end of the 1960s that were shown together as Spring Equinox 1966: The Magick Lantern Cycle. The Cycle, which originally began with a slide sequence, fuses mysticism, alchemy, and desire with ritual, Hollywood imagery, light, and “magick.”
Kenneth Anger, Kustom Kar Kommandos, 1965, color, sound, 3 min
Kenneth Anger, Fireworks, 1947, b/w, sound, 15 min
Kenneth Anger, Eaux d’Artifice, 1953, color, sound, 13 min
Kenneth Anger, Scorpio Rising, 1963, color, sound, 29 min *
Kenneth Anger, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome: Sacred Mushroom Edition, 1954-66, color, sound, 38 min *
2 pm
Bruce Conner
Bruce Conner’s career as a leading West Coast assemblage artist deeply influenced his filmmaking. A Movie constructs an improbable continuity through an ironic juxtaposition of newsreel footage, scrap film leader, and commercial and military films. The frenzied editing of images in Cosmic Ray influenced the development of fast cutting in commercial television. This program brings together most of Conner’s extant films of the 1950s and 1960s, including his moving document about the removal of Jay DeFeo’s sculpture/painting The White Rose from her studio.
Bruce Conner, A Movie, 1958, b/w, sound, 12 min *
Bruce Conner, Cosmic Ray, 1961, b/w, sound, 4 min *
Bruce Conner, Looking for Mushrooms, 1961-67 (revised 1995), color, sound, 14 min
Bruce Conner, Report, 1963-67, b/w, sound, 13 min
Bruce Conner, Breakaway, 1966, b/w, sound, 5 min
Bruce Conner, Vivian, 1964, b/w, sound, 3 min
Bruce Conner, The White Rose, 1967, b/w, sound, 7 min
Bruce Conner, Marilyn Times Five, 1968-73, b/w, sound, 13 min
Bruce Conner, Permian Strata, 1969, b/w, sound, 4 min
4 pm
Robert Nelson
Robert Nelson’s collection of his rarely seen works from the 1960s. Nelson’s films are underpinned by a deeply felt sense of humor and the absurd. After becoming immersed in the Beat culture of San Francisco, he produced a series of anarchic comedies, including the underground classic Oh Dem Watermelons in 1965. The program will include the only existing prints of such works as Oiley Peloso, as well as films made in cooperation with Steve Reich, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the Grateful Dead. These reels were assembled in 1999, at which time many of the films were re-edited.
Robert Nelson, Plastic Haircut, 1963 (revised 1999), b/w, sound, 10 min
Robert Nelson, Oh Dem Watermelons, 1965, color, sound, 10 min *
Robert Nelson, T.P. I, 1965 (revised 1999), b/w, sound, 4 min
Robert Nelson, Oiley Peloso, 1965 (revised 1999), b/w, sound, 2 min
Robert Nelson, 60 Lazy Dogs, 1967, b/w, sound, 2 min
Robert Nelson, T.P. II, 1965 (revised 1999), b/w, sound, 5 min
Robert Nelson, 1/2 Bright, 1/2 Open, 1/2 Withered, 1/2 Lumpy, 1967 (revised 1999), color, sound, 3 min
Robert Nelson, Hot Leatherette, 1967, b/w, sound, 5 min
Robert Nelson, The Awful Backlash, 1967 (revised 1999), b/w, sound on tape, 14 min
Robert Nelson, Gourley in 67, 1967, color, sound, 3 min
Robert Nelson, Soup or Spread, 1967 (revised 1999), color, sound, 5 min
Robert Nelson, The Off-Handed Jape, 1967, color, sound, 8 min
Robert Nelson, Grateful Dead, 1967, color, sound, 8 min
Thursday 11 November 1999
FLUXDAY
Fluxus grew out of the breakdown between artistic disciplines that began during the early 1960s. Rejecting conventional definitions of high art, Fluxus created an irreverent, intermedia practice incorporating performance, music, scores, objects, and films. Centered around the forceful personality of its founder, George Maciunas, Fluxus activity was intimate, ephemeral, democratic, and poetic.This program features some of the key Fluxus films and documents, including an interview with George Maciunas.
1:15 pm
Fluxdocuments
Peter Moore, Stockhausen’s Originale, 1964-94, b/w, sound, 33 min
Shigeko Kubota, George Maciunas with Two Eyes, 1972, George Maciunas with One Eye, 1976, 1994, videotape, b/w, sound, 7 min
Larry Miller, Flux Wedding, 1978, videotape, b/w, silent, 8 min (excerpt from Some Fluxus, 1999)
Larry Miller, Interview with George Maciunas, 1978, videotape, b/w, sound, 18 min (excerpt from Some Fluxus, 1999)
Jonas Mekas, Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas, 1952-78 (edited 1992), color, sound, 34 min
3:15 pm
Dick Higgins
Dick Higgins was a founding member and major force of Fluxus. He studied composition with John Cage, participated in many early Happenings, and is credited with developing the concept of “intermedia” in 1965.
Dick Higgins, The End, 1962, b/w, sound, 12 min
Dick Higgins, Mysteries, 1969, b/w, sound, 8 min
Dick Higgins, Hank and Mary without Apologies, 1962-70, color, sound, 18 min
4 pm
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono’s films, scores, objects, and performances of the 1960s were an important contribution to early Fluxus. Her notorious film No. 4 (also known as Bottoms) is definitively Fluxus in its deadpan, irreverent structure.
Yoko Ono, No. 4 (Bottoms), 1966, b/w, sound, 80 min
5:30 pm
Fluxfilms
A collection of over thirty Fluxus films, ranging in length from 10 seconds to 10 minutes, edited by George Maciunas.
Fluxus, Fluxfilm Anthology, 1966-70, b/w & color, sound & silent, 120 min
#1 Nam June Paik, Zen For Film; #2 Dick Higgins, Invocation For Canyons And Boulders (For Stan Brakhage); #3 George Maciunas, End After 9; #4 Chieko Shomi, Disappearing Music For Face; #5 John Cavanaugh, Blink; #6 James Riddle, 9 Minutes; #7 George Maciunas, 10 Feet; #8 George Maciunas, 1000 Frames; #9 Yoko Ono, Eye Blink; #10 George Brecht, Entrance To Exit; #11 Robert Watts, Trace No.22; #12 Robert Watts, Trace No.23; #13 Robert Watts, Trace No.24; #14 Yoko Ono, One; #15 Yoko Ono, Eye Blink; #16 Yoko Ono, No.4; #17 Pieter Vanderbeck, Five O’Clock In The Morning; #18 Joe Jones, Smoking; #19 Erik Andersen, Opus 74, Version 2; #20 George Maciunas, Artype, #22 Jeff Perkins, Shout; #23 Wolf Vostell, Sun In Your Head (Television Decollage); #24 Albert Fine, Readymade; #25 George Landow, The Evil Faerie; #26 Paul Sharits, Sears Catalog 1-3; #27 Paul Sharits, Dots 1 & 2; #28 Paul Sharits, Wrist Trick; (unnumbered) Paul Sharits, Unrolling Event; #29 Paul Sharits, Word Movie; #30 Albert Fine, Dance; #31 John Cale, Police Car; #36 Peter Kennedy, Flux Film #36; #37 Peter Kennedy & Mike Parr, Flux Film #37; #38 Ben, Je Ne Vois Rien, Je N’Entends Rien, Je Ne Dis Rien; #39 Ben, La Traversé Du Port De Nice À La Nage; #40 Ben, Faire Un Effort; #41 Ben, Regardez-Moi, Cela Suffit
Saturday 13 November 1999
12 pm
The Dilexi Series
In 1969, The Dilexi Foundation commissioned artists to create a pioneering group of videotapes. The videotapes were made specifically to be broadcast on television by KQED, San Francisco. This selection of four of the twelve tapes demonstrates the creative potential of the unique collaboration that developed in the late sixties between artists and network television.
Julian Beck and The Living Theater, Rite of Guerrilla Theater, 1969, videotape, b/w, sound, 25 min
Philip Makanna, The Empire of Things, 1969, videotape, b/w & color, sound, 21 min
Anna Halprin, Right On, 1969, videotape, b/w, sound, 30 min
Terry Riley & Arlo Acton, Music with Balls, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 24 min
See also The Medium Is the Medium, 1969, which combines the works of six artists commissioned by television station WGBH Boston, screened on Sunday 28 November 1999, and Wednesdays, at 5:30 pm.
2 pm
Robert Nelson
See Sunday 7 November 1999
4 pm
Gregory Markopoulos
The films of Gregory Markopoulos are some of the most revered works in the avant-garde film canon, although they rarely have been seen since being withdrawn from exhibition in the late 1960s. The Illiac Passion, based on Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, took three years to complete, and is an acknowledged masterpiece. Ming Green, one of Markopoulos’ “films of place”, was shot in a single day and edited entirely in camera.
Gregory Markopoulos, Ming Green, 1966, color, sound, 7 min
Gregory Markopoulos, The Illiac Passion, 1967, color, sound, 92 min
Sunday 14 November 199
12 pm
Gregory Markopoulos
See Saturday 13 November 1999
2 pm
Rare Films by Jack Smith
Introduced by Jerry Tartaglia, filmmaker and restorer of Jack Smith’s work for the Plaster Foundation.
Jack Smith was a prolific actor, writer, filmmaker, photographer, and a legendary figure of the New York underground. To complement his best-known film Flaming Creatures, screened in the weekly cycles, this program presents a group of rarely seen works. Many of these films were never assembled into definitive versions, and were constantly re-edited for individual screenings or used in Smith’s theater presentations of the 1970s and 1980s. No President, a bewildering construction starring Irving Rosenthal, is arguably one of Smith’s greatest achievements.
Jack Smith, Scotch Tape, 1959-62, color, sound, 2 min
Jack Smith, Overstimulated, 1959-60, b/w, silent, 6 min
Jack Smith, Reefers of Technicolor Island, 1967, color, sound on tape, 15 min
Jack Smith, No President, 1967-70, b/w, sound on tape, 50 min
Jack Smith, Song for Rent, 1968-69, color, sound on tape, 5 min
4 pm
Spring Equinox 1966: The Magick Lantern Cycle of Kenneth Anger
See Sunday 7 November 1999
Thursday 18 November 1999
5:30 pm
Extended Visions: 3
Richard Myers’ first feature-length film overpowers the viewer with its technical virtuosity. Using an abundance of visual techniques, Akran constructs a rich mosaic that presents a subversive view of America in the late 1960s.
Richard Myers, Akran, 1969, b/w, sound, 118 min
Saturday 20 November 1999
12 pm
Seeing Double: The Dual Screen Film
The practice of projecting two 16mm film reels side by side was used extensively by Andy Warhol in the mid-1960s. Several of his films were presented in either single or dual screen. The films of Storm de Hirsch and Paul Sharits use the double screen to magnify their visual abstractions and to bombard the viewer with color and sound.
Andy Warhol, Lupe, 1965, color, sound, 36 min (dual screen)
Storm de Hirsch, Third Eye Butterfly, 1968, color, sound, 10 min (dual screen)
Ira J. Newman, French Lick, 1968-69, b/w & color, sound, 6 min (dual screen)
Paul Sharits, Razor Blades, 1965-68, b/w & color, sound, 25 min (dual screen)
2 pm
Andy Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls
Introduced by Callie Angell, adjunct curator, Andy Warhol Film Project, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Ronald Tavel, screenplay author and co-founder of the Theater of The Ridiculous.
The Chelsea Girls is a collection of scenes presented as events occurring simultaneously in different rooms of the Chelsea Hotel, New York. Individual sections feature Warhol superstars Gerard Malanga, Mary Woronov, and Nico, and original music by the Velvet Underground. Following its initial screenings in New York, The Chelsea Girls went on to become the most commercially successful underground film of all time.
Andy Warhol, The Chelsea Girls, 1966, b/w & color, sound, 210 min (dual screen)
6:30 pm
Andy Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls
Repeat screening
Sunday 21 November 1999
PERFORMANCE AND HAPPENINGS
Introduced by Chrissie Iles, curator, film and video, Whitney Museum of American Art
Performance events and Happenings proliferated in the 1960s, as artists explored a process-based form of art-making which challenged the autonomy of the art object and traditional theatrical forms. These programs present rare films of Happenings and performances that took place in and around New York in the early 1960s, extending the boundaries of art to include danger, risk, duration, process, and a liberation of the body.
11.30 am
What’s Happening
Raymond Saroff, Storedays: I & II, Ray Gun Theater, 1962, b/w, silent, 15 min (documenting Happenings by Claes Oldenburg)
Bud Wirtschafer, What’s Happening, 1963, color, sound, 14 min
Allan Kaprow, Household, 1964, b/w, silent, 22 min
Robert Whitman, American Moon, 1961 (edited by Sue Wrbican, 1999), color, sound, 12 min
1 pm
Experiments in Art and Technology, 9 Evenings: Theater & Engineering
Introduced by Barbro Schultz Lundestam
The world premiere of two recently restored and edited archival films documenting the historic performances that took place on nine evenings in 1966 at the 69th Regiment Armory, New York, by Robert Whitman, David Tudor, John Cage, Öyvind Fahlström, Robert Rauschenberg, Yvonne Rainer, Alex Hay, Steve Paxton, Robert Morris, and Deborah Hay. Organized by Experiments in Art and Technology.
Barbro Schultz Lundestam, Robert Rauschenberg: Open Score, 1996, b/w & color, sound, 34 min (v)
Barbro Schultz Lundestam, Öyvind Fahlström: Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, 1996, b/w & color, sound, 71 min (v)
3 pm
Carolee Schneemann
Introduced by Carolee Schneeman
Filmmakers’ documents of Carolee Schneemann’s groundbreaking 1960s performances.
Elaine Summers, Water Light/Water Needle, 1966, b/w, silent, 15 min
Alphons Schilling, Snows, 1966, b/w, silent, 24 min
Gideon Bachmann, Body Collage, 1967, b/w, silent, 6 min
4 pm
Dance into Performance
The 1960s saw an unprecedented crossover among disciplines, in particular those of art and “new dance”. From the late 1950s through the 1960s, the Judson Dance Theater in New York became a center for experimental art and dance, showing work by Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, Simone Forti, Carolee Schneemann, and Robert Morris. Aside from the performers at Judson, other artists incorporated dance movements into their work. Bruce Nauman’s early performances were influenced by the work of Anna Halprin, while some of Joan Jonas’ early performances involved groups of people performing everyday movements in the open air within a choreographed structure.
Yvonne Rainer, Trio A, 1978, b/w, sound, 10 min
Bruce Nauman, Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square, 1967-68, b/w, sound, 11 min
Anna Halprin, Right On, 1969, videotape, b/w, sound, 30 min
Joan Jonas, Wind, 1968, b/w, silent, 6 min
Robert Morris, Wisconsin, 1970, b/w, silent, 15 min
Saturday 27 November 1999
12 pm
Rare Films by Jack Smith
See Sunday 14 November 1999
2 pm
Bruce Baillie
See Saturday 6 November 1999
4 pm
Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters
The theatrical premiere of Ken Kesey’s film – finally edited after thirty years – of the Merry Pranksters’ legendary bus trips across America in the 1960s, as immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. A bridge between the Beats and the hippies, the Pranksters were vanguard figures of the psychedelic movement, whose destination was always “furthur”.
Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, Intrepid Traveler and His Merry Band of Pranksters Search for a Cool Place, 1964 (edited 1999), color, sound, 60 min (v)
Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, Acid Test, 1964-65 (edited 1990), color, sound, 55 min (v)
Sunday 28 November 1999
THE ELECTRONIC FILM AND THE BIRTH OF VIDEO ART
Video art was born out of two strands of sixties American counterculture: the utopian desire for an expanded perception through new technology, and a rebellion against the institutional authority of mainstream television. At the inception of video in the mid-1960s, filmmakers and artists experimented with psychedelically inflected electronic image-processing techniques using audio and video synthesizers. A number of filmmakers incorporated the new electronic imagery of video into their filmmaking, creating “electronic” films.
11:30 am
The Electronic Film: 1
Jud Yalkut & Nam June Paik, Cinema Metaphysique Nos. 1-4, 1966-67 (edited 1972), b/w, sound, 13 min
Jud Yalkut & Nam June Paik, Cinema Metaphysique No. 5, 1967, color, silent, 2 min
Jud Yalkut & Nam June Paik, Electronic Fables, 1971, color, sound, 9 min
Philip Makanna, The Empire of Things, 1969, videotape, b/w & color, sound, 21 min
John Whitney, Permutations, 1968, color, sound, 8 min
Doris Chase, Circles 1 (Subotnik), 1971, color, sound, 7 min
Standish Lawder, Runaway, 1969, b/w, sound, 5 1/2 min
1.00 pm
The Electronic Film: 2
Introduced by Stephen Beck
John Stehura, Cibernetik 5.3, 1961-65, color, sound, 8 min
Scott Bartlett, Serpent, 1971, color, sound, 14 min
Ed Emshwiller, Scape-Mates, 1972, color, sound, 28 min
Stan Vanderbeek, Videospace, 1972, color, sound, 7 min
Tom DeWitt, The Leap, 1968, color, sound, 7 min
Stephen Beck and Jordan Belson, Cycles, 1974, color, sound, 10 min
2:30 pm
Processing the Image
Jud Yalkut & Nam June Paik, Beatles Electroniques, 1966-69, b/w, sound, 3 min
Eric Siegel, Einstein, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 6 min
Eric Siegel, Symphony of the Planets, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 11 min
Eric Siegel, Tomorrow Never Knows, 1968, videotape, color, sound, 3 min
Steina and Woody Vasulka, Calligrams, videotape, b/w, silent, 12 min
Steina, Violin Power, 1970-78, videotape, b/w, sound, 10 min *
WGBH Boston, The Medium Is the Medium, 1969, videotape, color, sound, 28 min *
Nam June Paik, Global Groove, 1973, videotape, color, sound, 29 min
4:30 pm
The New Radicals
In 1969, the Raindance video collective was formed by Frank Gillette, Paul Ryan, Ira Schneider, and Michael Shamberg. Raindance’s “media primers”, which include footage of Abbie Hoffman and the Altamont concert, propose an engagement with both counterculture and mainstream television in order to create alternative communication systems. Also in 1969, Ira Schneider made a historic recording of the first exhibition of video art in the United States, at the Howard Wise Gallery, New York.
Ira Schneider, TV as a Creative Medium, 1969 (edited 1984), videotape, b/w, sound, 12 min *
Paul Ryan, Proto Media Primer, 1970, videotape, b/w, sound, 16 min *
Ira Schneider, Media Primer, 1970, videotape, b/w, sound, 23 min
Michael Shamberg, Media Primer, 1971, videotape, b/w, sound, 17 min
Thursday 2 December 1999
5:30 pm
Extended Visions: 4
Ken Jacobs’ seminal film Tom, Tom, The Piper’s Son ushered in a new era of filmmaking. Taking found footage of a black-and-white film from 1905, Jacobs dissected it, refilming it backwards and forwards, elevating details, and opening up the structure of the film to an extreme degree, thus rewriting the rules of cinema. The historical precedent for Jacobs’ making of Tom, Tom, The Piper’s Son is Rose Hobart, a film montage assembled by the artist Joseph Cornell, who re-edited footage from the 1931 Hollywood film East of Borneo.
Joseph Cornell, Rose Hobart, c.1936, color, sound on tape, 19 min
Ken Jacobs, Tom, Tom, The Piper’s Son, 1969-71, b/w & color, silent, 115 min
Saturday 4 December 1999
YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION: 1
A weekend of programs documenting how the political and social turbulence of the sixties motivated the younger generation to become deeply engaged with civil rights, black power, personal liberation, and political action. Centered around university campuses and large-scale protest marches against the Vietnam War, their radical strategies of protest, resistance, and rebellion were recorded by avant-garde filmmakers. These filmmakers demonstrated a remarkable solidarity with a new, collectivized political filmmaking centered around the New York and San Francisco Newsreels (later known as Third World Newsreel), whose anonymously produced films challenged the hierarchy of television news reportage and “professional” documentary filmmaking.
11:30 am
Power to the People
Third World Newsreel, America, 1969, b/w, sound, 30 min *
Leonard Henny, Peace Pickets Arrested for Disturbing the Peace, 1967, color, sound, 7 min
Rudi Stern & John Riley, The Flag Show: Judson Church, 1968, videotape, b/w, sound, 15 min (excerpt)
Third World Newsreel, Up Against the Wall Ms. America, 1968, b/w, sound, 8 min
1 pm
One PM
Introduced by D.A. Pennebaker
In 1969, D.A. Pennebaker assembled footage from Jean-Luc Godard’s abandoned film One AM (or One American Movie), which dealt with resistance and revolution in the USA. The resulting film, featuring Jefferson Airplane, LeRoi Jones, Eldridge Cleaver and Rip Torn, together with Pennebaker’s own coverage of Godard at work, depicts the social and political climate of America at the end of the 1960s.
Jean-Luc Godard & D.A. Pennebaker, One PM, 1969, color, sound, 95 min
3 pm
All You Need Is Love
In the summer of 1967 in San Francisco, the first Be-In drew thousands of young people searching for a new way of life. Disillusioned with authority, and building on the earlier underground actions of the Beats, this new generation created a utopian counterculture, using hallucinogenic drugs, meditation, yoga, music, free love, and erotic liberation to open up alternative ways of living and loving.
Bob Giorgio, Love Happens, 1966, color, sound, 12 min
Bob Giorgio, America’s Wonderful, 1967, color, sound, 7 min
Jerry Abrams, Be-In, 1967, color, sound, 7 min
Les Blank, God Respects Us When We Work But He Loves Us When We Dance, 1968, color, sound, 20 min
Carolee Schneemann, Fuses, 1964-68, color, silent, 22 min
4:30 pm
World Gone Wrong
During the sixties, the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, the violence which increasingly accompanied protest demonstrations, the Manson murders, and the deaths at Altamont undermined the spirit of social, political, and personal transformation and demonstrated the harsh realities behind the Flower Power generation’s attempts to create a new society.
Bruce Conner, Report, 1963-67, b/w, sound, 13 min
Ken Jacobs, Perfect Film, 1986, b/w, sound, 23 min
Will Hindle, Saint Flournoy Lobos-Logos and the Eastern Europe Fetus Taxing Japan Brides in West Coast Places Sucking Alabama Air, 1970, color, sound, 12 min *
Richard Myers, Allison, 1970, b/w, sound, 7 min
Sunday 5 December 1999
YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION: 2
11:30 am
Vietnam – Against the War
Carolee Schneemann, Viet Flakes, 1965, b/w, sound, 11 min
Paul Sharits, Piece Mandala/End War, 1966, b/w & color, silent, 5 min *
Peter Gessner, Time of the Locust, 1966, b/w, sound, 12 min
Albert Alotta, Peacemeal, 1967, color, sound, 8 min
Rudi Stern & John Riley, The Flag Show: Judson Church, 1968, videotape, b/w, sound, 12 min (excerpt)
Storm de Hirsch, Trap Dance, 1968, b/w, sound, 2 min
David Ringo, March on the Pentagon, 1968, b/w, sound, 21 min *
1 pm
Get On Up
Film, television, theater, and music played an important role in addressing issues in the black community during the 1960s. Eugene and Carole Marner’s feisty portrait of two teenage black girls living on New York’s Lower East Side predicts the ground-breaking work of Charles Hobson, whose Inside Bedford Stuyvesant series was the first locally produced black television documentary in America. Dutchman, adapting LeRoi Jones’ masterpiece representing the 1960s Black Theater Movement, captures the tension that erupts in America when race and class collide.
Eugene & Carole Marner, Phyllis & Terry, 1964-65, b/w, sound, 36 min *
Third World Newsreel, I Have a Dream, 1963, b/w, sound, 15 min
Anthony Harvey, Dutchman, 1966, b/w, sound, 55 min
Charles Hobson, Inside Bedford Stuyvesant, 1968, videotape, b/w, sound, 56 min
4 pm
Black Power
The revolutionary program of the Black Panthers proposed a militant solution to the social and political problems of the black community. Radical white filmmakers produced work in cooperation with the Black Panthers, as well as other films that independently documented this revolutionary period in black history.
Third World Newsreel, Black Panther, 1968, b/w, sound, 15 min
Leonard Henny, Black Power – We’re Goin’ Survive America!, 1969, color, sound, 15 min *
David Loeb Weiss, No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger, 1968, b/w, sound, 68 min
1960s WEEKLY PROGRAMS
26 October – 5 December 1999
Four different daily programs of 1960s films and videotapes will be shown Tuesdays through Fridays. Asterisked films are also screened in the theme programs on Thursday evenings and on weekends.
Tuesdays
11:30 am
Stan Brakhage, Songs 1-7, 1964-1980, color, silent, 25 min
Joyce Wieland, 1933, 1967, color, sound, 4 min
Mike Kuchar, Tales of the Bronx, 1969, b/w, sound, 16 min
Paul Ryan, Proto Media Primer, 1970, videotape, b/w, sound, 16 min *
1 pm
John Cage, Aspects of a New Consciousness, Dialogue III, 1969, color, sound, 30 min (v)
In this important early television interview, Cage discusses the philosophical principles of his work and his radical musical forms.
Merce Cunningham, Variations V, 1966, b/w, sound, 50 min (v)
Ben Van Meter, S.F. Trips Festival, An Opening, 1966, color, sound, 9 min *
3 pm
Robert Nelson, Oh Dem Watermelons, 1965, color, sound, 11 min *
Jack Smith, Flaming Creatures, 1963, b/w, sound, 45 min
4:30 pm
Gideon Bachmann, Underground New York, 1967, b/w, sound, 50 min (v)
A portrait of the New York underground film scene in the 1960s, with rare footage of Shirley Clarke, George Kuchar, Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas, and many others.
Storm de Hirsch, Peyote Queen, 1965, color, sound, 9 min
In this “journey through the underworld of sensory derangement, of interior vision”, abstractions drawn directly onto the film stock appear at rapid speed to the rhythm of African drumming.
Andrew Meyer, Match Girl, 1966, color, sound, 26 min
Wednesdays
11:30 am
David Ringo, March on the Pentagon, 1968, b/w, sound, 21 min *
Ed Emshwiller, Thanatopsis, 1962, b/w, sound, 5 min
Kenneth Anger, Scorpio Rising, 1963, color, sound, 29 min
Ernie Gehr, Morning, 1968, color, silent, 4 1/2 min
1 pm
D.A. Pennebaker, Don’t Look Back, 1967, b/w, sound, 96 min
Pennebaker’s documentary of Bob Dylan’s first British tour.
3 pm
James Whitney, Lapis, 1963-66, color, sound, 10 min *
Warren Sonbert, The Bad and the Beautiful, 1967, color, sound, 30 min
Chick Strand, Waterfall, 1967, color, sound, 3 min
Will Hindle, Saint Flournoy Lobos-Logos and the Eastern Europe Fetus Taxing Japan Brides in West Coast Places Sucking Alabama Air, 1970, color, sound, 12 min *
Standish Lawder, Runaway, 1969, b/w, sound, 5 min *
4:30 pm
WGBH Boston, The Medium Is the Medium, 1969, videotape, color, sound, 28 min *
Six original works created for television, by Allan Kaprow, Otto Piene, Nam June Paik, James Seawright, Thomas Tadlock, and Aldo Tambellini, all of whom explored the new medium of video, incorporating image- processing, dance, performance, and intermedia.
Gideon Bachmann, Jonas, 1967, b/w, sound, 30 min (v) *
Bruce Conner, Cosmic Ray, 1961, b/w, sound, 4 min *
Jordon Belson, Allures, 1961, color, sound, 9 min *
Bruce Baillie, All My Life, 1966, color, sound, 3 min *
Jud Yalkut, Turn Turn Turn, 1965-66, color, sound, 10 min *
“A torrent of hurtling colors and lights, forms blinking, whirling and surging. Image follows image in rapid-fire succession, distorting awareness of time and space.”
Thursdays (except 11 November 1999)
1:30 pm
Andy Warhol, My Hustler, 1965, b/w, sound, 67 min
An important film demonstrating the transition from Warhol’s early minimal style to a more traditional narrative form.
3 pm (October 28, November 18, December 2 only)
Ira Schneider, TV as a Creative Medium, 1969 (edited 1984), videotape, b/w, sound, 12 min *
Third World Newsreel, Black Panther, 1968, b/w, sound, 15 min *
Harry Smith, Number 11 (Mirror Animations), 1956-62 (revised 1976), color, sound, 11 min *
Charles Henri Ford, Poem Posters, 1960s, color, sound, 24 min
A documentary poem of the exhibition opening of Charles Henri Ford, with appearances by Edie Sedgwick and many other figures from the sixties scene.
Paul Sharits, Piece Mandala/End War, 1966, b/w & color, silent, 5 min *
Michael Snow, Wavelength, 1966-67, color, sound, 45 min (not October 28)
This classic early Structural film is composed of a single slow zoom shot of a loft space, whose sparse purity is disrupted by changes in the image color, film stock, and the appearance of people and a radio, creating a new perception of film time.
Yoko Ono, Freedom, 1970, color, sound, 1 min
Fridays
11:30 am
Stan Brakhage, Mothlight, 1963, color, silent, 4 min *
Steina, Violin Power, 1970-78, videotape, b/w, sound, 10 min *
The video camera becomes analogous to a musical instrument and the violin an image-generating tool, as the black-and-white image and a Beatles soundtrack are broken down into abstract visual and aural layers.
Tony Conrad, The Flicker, 1966, b/w, sound, 30 min
In this radical minimal work, the flicker of alternating black and clear frames creates rhythms of light and darkness that suggest aural patterns, applying the harmonic principles of serial music to film.
Third World Newsreel, America, 1969, b/w, sound, 30 min *
1 pm
Norman Mailer, Maidstone, 1969, color, sound, 110 min (v)
Set in the civil unrest of 1968, this story of the murder of a commercial film director and presidential candidate uses avant-garde techniques to break down the division between fictive artifice and historical reality.
3 pm
Takahiko Iimura, Ai (Love), 1962, b/w, sound, 12 min
“A poetic and sensuous exploration of the body.”
Jerome Hill, Death in the Forenoon or Who’s Afraid of Ernest Hemingway?, 1965, color, sound, 2 min
Ken Jacobs, Window, 1964, color, silent, 12 min
George Kuchar, Hold Me While I’m Naked, 1966, color, sound, 15 min
Leonard Henny, Black Power – We’re Goin’ Survive America!, 1969, color, sound, 15 min *
Owen Land, Film in Which There Appear Sprocket Holes, Edge Lettering, Dirt Particles, Etc., 1965-66, color, silent, 4 min *
4:30 pm
Robert Breer, 69, 1968, color, sound, 4 1/2 min
Bruce Baillie, Mass (for the Dakota Sioux), 1963-64, b/w, sound, 20 min
Tom Chomont, Orphelia/The Cat Lady, 1969, color, silent/sound, 3 min
A film poem which conveys, through intense emotion and a delicate sense of beauty, the fragility of human existence.
Jerry Abrams, Be-In, 1967, color, sound, 7 min *
The first Be-In in San Francisco, with Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and Buddha. Peace, love, and euphoria.
Larry Jordan, Duo Concertantes, 1964, b/w, sound, 9 min
Eugene & Carole Marner, Phyllis & Terry, 1964-65, b/w, sound, 36 min *
THE AMERICAN CENTURY: ART & CULTURE 1900-2000
The Cool World: Film & Video in America 1950-2000
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank M.M. Serra of the New American Cinema Group / Film-Makers’ Cooperative, New York, for her extensive help and support during the research for this program. We are particularly grateful to Jonas Mekas for his help and advice, and to Robert Haller and all at Anthology Film Archives, New York. We would especially like to thank Amos Vogel for his counsel and curatorial expertise, and Scott MacDonald for his curatorial work on the Cinema 16 program. We are grateful to Professor William Moritz and to Larry Cuba of the Iota Center for lending many rare prints. We would also like to thank Gerald O’Grady, David Sherman, Dominic Angerame, Robert Beavers, James Grauerholz of the William S. Burroughs Estate, and Genesis P. Orridge. For the video programs, we would like to thank Barbara Wise and the staff at Electronic Arts Intermix, New York: Lori Zippay, Galen Joseph Hunter, Seth Price, and Kate Travers. Stephen Vitiello’s help and advice has been invaluable throughout. We are also indebted to Jean Ma for her work on the project, and to all the filmmakers and artists who have helped us in our research and have generously agreed to make their films and videotapes available for this series.
Dream House
Throughout the exhibition, the following off-site sound and light environment can also be visited:
La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela
Dream House: Seven Years of Sound and Light
275 Church Street 3rd Floor, New York, 10013
Open Thursdays and Saturdays 2 pm-midnight
Tel: (212) 925-8270