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Event
Moving Pictures: Painting, Photography, Film
Saturday May 12, 2012, 8:00 pm
Los Angeles Filmforum Presents
Moving Pictures: Painting, Photography, Film
Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, Screening 26
At the Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N. Alvarado St., Los Angeles CA 90026
For full information, please visit http://www.alternativeprojections.com/screening-series/moving-pictures-painting-photography-film/?stage=Live
Movies are made up of many still images, moving rapidly through a projector. And they are among the two-dimensional pictorial arts, along with painting and photography. And here's a show bringing these ideas front and center, with lively deconstructions of movies into stills; commentaries on the "death" of painting; explorations into the possibility of making moving paintings; and intense explorations into the meaning of still images in the creation of identity of a people. Including films by many artists, often people who also work in paint: John Baldessari, Paul McCarthy, Sam Erenberg, Morgan Fisher, Gary Beydler, and more!
In person: Sam Erenberg, Sylvia Morales, Eugene Timiraos(schedules permitting)
Screening (Subject to change):
The Last Statement of Painting I (Sam Erenberg, 1970, 7:58, super 8 trans to video, silent)
The Last Statement of Painting II (Sam Erenberg, 1970, 4:08, super 8 trans to video, silent)
Production Stills (Morgan Fisher, 1970, 16mm, 11 min)
PRODUCTION STILLS may be the most elegant of Fisher's early films. In a single, continuous, roll-long shot, we see at first a blank screen (actually a portion of a white wall) and a flash of light; then, after thirty seconds or so, hands enter the image and mount a black-and-white Polaroid photograph in the center of the image: this photograph, and the seven which are subsequently mounted, one at a time, in the same way, reveal the procedure we are apparently seeing the results of. -- Scott Macdonald, "Morgan Fisher: An Interview," Film Quarterly, Spring 1987
Pasadena Freeway Stills (Gary Beydler, 1974, 16 mm, color, silent, 6:00)
"I had one of my graduate students drive the car, and I filmed 16mm black and white negative driving through these four consecutive tunnels on the Pasadena freeway. I wound up doing about 1400 paper prints from the individual frames in the negative. I mounted a piece of glass in my garage, with a square of tape marked out on it. I sat down behind the glass with a white T-shirt on and started shooting the stills. My wife Sarah shot the first part, and as the shots got shorter and shorter, I shot it myself using a bulb hooked up to the camera that I operated with my foot. I originally meant to shut it off and fade it out to end it, but while I was shooting, I decided instead to reverse the procedure, slowing the shots back down. I called Sarah back to shoot the last part. I always had the idea of sound, but I could never figure out what the heck kind of sound to have in this film." -- Gary Beydler, 2008
"Possibly the most lucid, vivid, and awesome demonstration of the building up of still images to create moving ones, Pasadena Freeway Stills simply, gracefully and powerfully shows us the process by which we are fooled by the movies. By doing so, Gary Beydler mines a very rich vein of associations and metaphor, without the slightest ostentation.
"Constructed as a thrilling arc of realization and, in a quite moving way, disappointment, the film is a beautiful articulation of our emotional entanglement with moving images, while simultaneously creating a form in which the illusion of cinema is brought into incredible relief as the film we're watching gradually catches up to the film Gary is holding up to the camera with his hands, one frame at a time."
Walking Forward-Running Past (John Baldessari, 1971, b&w, sound, 12:45)
In Walking Forward-Running Past, Baldessari ingeniously employs photography and video to examine and ultimately deconstruct film. In this conceptual exercise, he tapes up photographic film stills of himself walking toward the cameracoming closer with each successive imageand then photos of himself running past it. The sequentiality of this action results in a crude montage, an ultimately futile attempt to recreate the phenomenological experience of cinematic movement. Gasping with exertion, Baldessari quickly and repeatedly replaces photo after photo. In his efforts to evoke the cinematic experience, a layered metonymic relationship develops between the static, photographic image of Baldessari running and his "real" movements on video. Electronic Arts Intermix
Abacus (Lyn Gerry & Estelle Kirsh, 1980, silent, 5 minutes)
Still lives with changing light
Dada Knows Best (Eugene Timiraos, 1979, video, color, sound) is an attempted tour of modern 20th century western art. Our fabulous guide (Amy Halpern) distractedly interacts with numerous visual artworks, borrowing a line from Tristan Tzara's 1920 Dada play, The Gas Heart. ("This conversation is lagging, isn't it?"). The soundtrack is pataphysical collage of jazz or music of the day. Blink and you'll miss it. 'Cause, y'know, the kids and their music, that's where it's at.
Painting Face Down - White Line (Paul McCarthy, 1972 , video, b/w, 2.5 min)
Whipping the Wall with Paint (Paul McCarthy, 1975, video, b/w, 2 min.)
From McCarthy's Black & White Tapes, these early black and white performance tapes from the 1970s reveals the nascent development of the themes, the raw physicality, and the performance personae that mark McCarthy's well-known later works. In several pieces, McCarthy uses his own body as a tool to examine the process of making art: In the first, he becomes a human paintbrush as he drags himself across the floor while holding an open can of white paint; in the second, he violently whips the walls and pillars of his studio with a large paint-soaked sheet. Electronic Arts Intermix
Medea (Ben Caldwell, 1973, Digital video, transferred from 16mm, color, 7 min.)
Video courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive
Made as Ben Caldwell's first project at UCLA, Medea is a collage film that explores the information that permeates into a child before it is born. Allyson Nadia Field
Chicana (Sylvia Morales, 1979, 16mm, color, sound, 23 min)
CHICANA traces the history of Chicana and Mexican women from pre-Columbian times to the present. It covers women's role in Aztec society, their participation in the 1810 struggle for Mexican independence, their involvement in the US labor strikes in 1872, their contributions to the 1910 Mexican revolution and their leadership in contemporary civil rights causes. Using murals, engravings and historical footage, CHICANA shows how women, despite their poverty, have become an active and vocal part of the political and work life in both Mexico and the United States.
"A well-researched and spirited documentary made with much love."
Linda Gross, Los Angeles Times
Sylvia Morales began directing, writing, and directing short narrative television in 1996 for Showtime and two years later began directing episodic television on Showtime's RESURRECTION BLVD. Before that, she directed, wrote, produced and edited award winning and nationally recognized film and video documentary work ranging from the farm worker's struggle to the music of Los Lobos.
Morales was part of the producing and writing teams for the award winning civil rights Chicano series, CHICANO! The Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, produced for PBS. She directed an ACE and Emmy nominated two-hour documentary, part of a six hour series for Turner Broadcasting, A CENTURY OF WOMEN, focusing on 20th century US women narrated by Jane Fonda. She is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Film/Television at Loyola Marymount University and completed the documentary A CRUSHING LOVE in 2009. (2/10)
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Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980 will feature over 24 shows between now and May 2012. Alternative Projections is Filmforum's exploration of the community of filmmakers, artists, curators and programmers who contributed to the creation and presentation of experimental film and video in Southern California in the postwar era. Film series curated by Adam Hyman and Mark Toscano, with additional contributions by Rani Singh, Jerri Allyn, David James, Christine Panushka, Terry Cannon, Ben Caldwell, Stephanie Sapienza, Amy Halpern, and more.
Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980 is part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980. This unprecedented collaboration, initiated by the Getty, brings together more than sixty cultural institutions from across Southern California for six months beginning October 2011 to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.
Primary funding for Alternative Projections was provided by the Getty Foundation, with additional support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This screening series is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Special support provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Metabolic Studio. Additional support generously provided by American Cinematheque.
Coming Soon to Los Angeles Filmforum:
May 18, 2012 Alternative Projections: The Marathon at the Echo Park Film Center
May 20 - Alternative Projections: L.A. Filmworks The State of the Art, 1980 at the Egyptian Theater
June 3 Rembrandt's J'Accuse, by Peter Greenaway 35mm, at the Egyptian Theatre. Los Angeles premiere!
Los Angeles Filmforum is the city's longest-running organization screening experimental and avant-garde film and video art, documentaries, and experimental animation. 2012 is our 37th year
Memberships available, $70 single, $105 dual, or $50 single student
Contact us at lafilmforum@yahoo.com. www.lafilmforum.org
Become a fan on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter!
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LocationEcho Park Film Center (View)
1200 N Alvarado St. (@ Sunset Blvd.)
Los Angeles, CA 90026
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: Yes! |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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