Futurist Life Redux
| Nov ’09 |
| 16 |
| 8:00 pm |
ADDITIONAL SHOWTIME ADDED!
Monday November 16 at 8 pm (followed by Q&A with the artists) and 9:30 pm (introduced by the artists)
A wild and energetic new film that re-imagines the lost Futurist film “Vita Futurista” (Futurist Life), featuring a series of short contributions from Trisha Baga, chameckilerner, Martha Colburn, Ben Coonley, George Kuchar, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Shana Moulton, Shannon Plumb, Aida Ruilova, Matthew Silver and Shoval Zohar (The Future), and Michael Smith.
The only officially “Futurist” film ever made, “Vita Futurista” was made in 1916 by Arnaldo Ginna and several other Futurist artists, including Giacomo Balla, Remo Chiti, and the founder of Futurism, F.T. Marinetti. Comprised of eleven independent segments conceived and written by different artists, “Futurist Life” contrasted the spirit and lifestyle of the Futurist with that of the ordinary man in a series of humorous sketches—“How the Futurist Walks,” “How the Futurist Sleeps,” “The Sentimental Futurist,” etc., many of which used experimental techniques such as split screens and double exposures. The only-known copy of this film was lost several decades ago, and now all that remain are written accounts by Ginna and the journal L’Italia Futurista as well as a few still images.
For Performa 09, Performa, with SFMOMA and Portland Green Cultural Projects, commissioned eleven contemporary film and video artists to create their own, 3-5 minute versions of the eleven segments in “Vita Futurista,” re-imagining this film in relation to our own future. Each of the original segments of “Vita Futurista” was assigned to a contemporary artist via random drawing, and now the shorts have been compiled into one, all-new version of “Futurist Life” for the twenty-first century.
With a live piano performance by composer THOLLEM MCDONAS to Martha Colburn’s film, “One and One is Life,” at the 8 pm screening.
Trisha Baga (b. Venice, FL, 1985) is a video and performance artist concerned with building romantic structures that allow natural forces such as gravity, failure, and imagination to interact with its subjects in an emotion-based language, utilizing pop culture as a base for a landscape. She has exhibited at Art in General, Leo Koenig Gallery, Andes, Artist’s Space, and El Centro Cultural Montehermoso.
New York-based Brazilians Rosane Chamecki (b. 1964, Curitiba, Brazil) and Andrea Lerner (b. 1966, Curitiba, Brazil), aka chameckilerner, have been presenting critically acclaimed dance performances for the past 15 years. Known for choreography that is at once cerebral and intricately physical, the two are interested in exploring the ever-changing relationships between people and questioning concepts like power, eroticism, bewilderment, tenderness, and violence. Their 2007 award- winning short film Flying Lesson, a collaboration with Minneapolis-based filmmaker Phil Harder, has screened around the world and marked their transition from stage to screen.
Martha Colburn’s work uses the language and materials of filmmaking to comment on popular culture, consumerism, politics, and sexuality, addressing contemporary topics and expressing the artist’s personal anxieties and passions through a collage of live action (paint-on-glass) animations, found footage, and documentary filmmaking techniques. She also creates elaborately layered collages, paintings, and installations that incorporate transparencies, recordings, and live performances. Solo exhibitions by Colburn have been presented at Art Statements at Art Basel (Switzerland, 2008), Galerie Diana Stigter (Amsterdam, 2007), and Stux Gallery (New York, 2006), among other venues.
Ben Coonley (b. Boston, 1976) makes videos and performances that use consumer-grade media technologies to overturn everyday conventions of media culture and tweak avant-garde histories. His works have been presented at venues including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Underground Film Festival, Images Festival, Pacific Film Archive, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. He has taught video and media production at Princeton and the New School University.
George Kuchar (b. New York, 1942) grew up with his twin brother, Mike, in the Bronx, where he initially worked in commercial art to support his 8mm filmmaking hobby. In the 60s, the Kuchar brothers began earning enough money to be able to work in the 16mm format, and became a central part of the burgeoning underground film movement in New York. In the early 70s, Kuchar was invited to teach filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute, and he has been there ever since, working in a variety of digital video formats and continuing to be as prolific as ever. Kuchar’s films include “Hold Me While I’m Naked,” “Corruption of the Damned,” and “Color Me Shameless,” and his video titles—including diaries, dramas done with his film students, and portraits of places with living things—include Vile Cargo, Fill Thy Crack with Whitness, and Kiss of the Veggie Vixon. He recently authored a book of memoirs and filmmaking tips called ”Reflections from a Cinematic Cesspool.”
Lynn Hershman Leeson (b. Cleveland, Ohio, 1941) has worked extensively in photography, video, film, performance, installation, and interactive and net-based media. Hershman Leeson wrote, directed and produced the feature films Teknolust Conceiving Ada, and Strange Culture, as well as 14 other films and shorts. Her upcoming documentary feature film, Women Art Revolution, will be released in 2010. She has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, The Alfred P. Sloan Film Prize, and the Golden Nica Prix Ars Electronica.
In her videos and performances Shana Moulton (b. Oakhurst, California, 1976) probes, with humor, the interplay of a popular culture shaped by consumption and commercialized New Age philosophies, and an “elite” culture, exemplified in the spiritualism of Mondrian, and the late works of Georgia O’Keeffe created in New Mexico. She has exhibited and performed internationally, including solo shows at Art in General and Broadway 1602 in New York and the Migros Museum in Zurich, and has an upcoming performance at The Kitchen.
Shannon Plumb’s cinematic studies of life’s various roles and characters explore the complexities embedded in the ordinary and extraordinary, inspired by the curious spirit of slapstick comedy and the physical humor of silent film legends such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Plumb’s work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, among other venues.
Aïda Ruilova (b. Wheeling, WV) is a video artist and musician whose short, lo-fi videos use disjointed sound loops and a horror movie–influenced aesthetic to viscerally evoke psychological states. Ruilova’s work has been exhibited at White Columns, Salon 94, and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, all New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Berlin Biennal, and she was a finalist for the Hugo Boss Prize in 2006.
Matthew Silver (b. Hackensack, NJ, 1979) is a filmmaker, performing artist, and clown. A retrospective of his work was recently presented at Anthology Film Archives by Jeff Krulik, cult documentarian and director of “Heavy Metal Parking Lot.” http://www.youtube.com/maninwhitedress For Futurist Life Redux, Silver will be working with Shoval Zohar (b. Haifa, Israel, 1982), a filmmaker, writer and performer. In her work, the cheapness of the digital world and its sex appeal is brought together with the pure magic of nostalgia and collective memory . Zohar and Silver’s ongoing collabaration is known as The Future.
Michael Smith (b. Chicago, 1951) has been producing videos, performances, and installations for over three decades, often via his performance persona, “Mike.” Smith’s work has been aired on television, presented in nightclubs, and exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. He was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial and most recently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition “The Pictures Generation: 1974-1984.” Smith is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation fellowship, a Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. He lives in Brooklyn and in Austin, where he teaches at the University of Texas.
Curated by Lana Wilson and Andrew Lampert. Commissioned by Performa with SFMOMA and Portland Green Cultural Projects. Co-presented by Performa and Anthology Film Archives. Special thanks to Sally Berger and Marie Losier.
Thollem Mcdonas (composer and pianist for Martha Colburn’s “One and One is Life”) Thollem Mcdonas, pianist and “comproviser,” was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He graduated with degrees in both piano performance and composition and tours perpetually, mostly as a soloist but also in collaboration with many other individuals and groups. McDonas often leads listening and group improvisation workshops and master-classes, and is a founding member of several innovative musical ensembles. In the past 5 years alone he has added 18 albums to his discography, released on 6 different vanguard labels in 3 different countries. McDonas is a recent recipient of a Meet The Composer grant, a commission to create a new work for the Limon Dance Company in commemoration of their 50th anniversary, and, last September, an invitation to perform the works of Claude Debussy on the piano on which they were written. He is currently building a 10-piece ensemble composed of an equal mixture of American and Mexican musicians.
Tickets: $9 / $7 Students, Seniors, and Children / $6 Performa and AFA Members, available at the door.
[Image: Production still from Ben Coonley's contribution to "Futurist Life Redux."]
