Sinister Seven: Interview with Rue Morgue

18 October, 2011

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It’s pretty darn exciting that The Art of Fear has initiated the conversation about horror film and contemporary art by visualizing some of the connections between the two. Realizing that there are three somewhat diverse components – cinema, horror, and art that all have the audience as a base commonality – there is obviously an interesting road ahead in discussing these influences with each community. This is one of the reasons why I was thrilled to answer some questions coming from the horror-realm by Rue Morgue (the other is that I think they do an intelligent take on horror). It talks a bit about the film program, other projects, and why myself and certain artists found an obsession with horror films.

I’ve included excerpt below but read the whole thing here:

For many of us, these exhibits are a very different way to approach the horror genre. Can you help me wrap my head around exactly what’s going on here?

The fact that The Art of Fear and other related projects are a different approach to horror is what interests me the most. I view the horror genre as evolving over time, through different cultural and political periods, absorbing the contemporary climate. Some elements to the genre stay while others change and I think that by including visual artists into the equation, we can start to see how pervasive and influential horror, particularly horror film, is on other mediums.

The Art of Fear: Ghost Stories on October 19

16 October, 2011

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The second part of The Art of Fear artist film exhibition is this Wednesday (October 19) in the upstairs lobby at Nitehawk Cinema! The event is free and starts at 7pm with films beginning shortly after – the program will be shown twice. See  you all there!

Ghost Stories, the second program of The Art of Fear, features surreal tales of love, life, and death that are brought back from the afterlife in the bizarre and haunting works of My Barbarian (Malik Gaines, Jade Gordon and Alexandro Segade, Los Angeles), Aïda Ruilova (New York), and Marnie Weber (Los Angeles). Horror affect and narrative style are huge influencers in these films with inspiration deriving from Rod Serling’s Night Gallery television series, cult figures like Jean Rollin and Karen Black, and the theatrical monstrous characters from early Hollywood. Importantly, The Art of Fear is showing the New York debut of Marnie Weber’s most recent film, The Eternal Heart (2010).

PROGRAM
My Barbarian – Night Epi$ode: Curatorial Purgatorial (Pilot)
2009, Single channel video, 12 minutes, Color, Sound

Aïda Ruilova – Life Like
2006, Single channel video, 5 minutes, Color, Sound

Aïda Ruilova – Lulu
2007, Single channel video, 5 minutes, Color, Sound

My Barbarian – Night Epi$ode: Yoga Matt and Veronika Phoenix
2009, Single channel video, 13 minutes, Color, Sound

Aïda Ruilova – Meet the Eye
2009, Single channel video, 7 minutes, Color, Sound

Marnie Weber – The Eternal Heart (see trailer below)
2010, Shot on Super 8 and 16mm, digital projection, 28 minutes, Color, Sound

Critical Halloween

11 October, 2011

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Criticality finds its place in Halloween.

I live Halloween 24/7/365. And yet the act of dressing up on October 31 simply doesn’t do it for me. It hasn’t ever, really.

Still, I appreciate a good effort and I think I might have a hard time finding an event as clever/hilarious/yet critical than the Storefront for Art & Architecture’s Critical Halloween. Sure there are horror films being screened city-wide in celebration of all things scary but where else can one find a “costume architecture party devoted to the most feared ghost of architectural production: BANALITY”.

They even provide inspiration.

Thoughts on “the Art of Fear”: film viewership and why horror?

10 October, 2011

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The first screening of the two-part The Art of Fear series (which will hopefully become a multi-part expanded series) launched last Wednesday to great success with a collection of works by Takeshi Murata, Darren Banks, and Jamie Shovlin titled Pieces. Thanks to all who came out!

Two important strands of thought came out of this initial program (which was also, incidentally, my first foray into exhibiting artist moving images) that I’d like to explore further both in my own curatorial practice and via writing here on TGWKTM…

The first is in consideration of how artist film programs such as The Art of Fear can or should be presented and viewed. My intention with Pieces was to approach in like a gallery context – no seating, no definitive start/stop time, and flexibility of viewership. Meaning, I wanted to embrace the lobby space at Nitehawk not as a dictatorial cinematic space but rather in a manner in which you might approach a static piece of artwork. I’m very interested in an audience encountering a film in a non-time based way, choosing how much time to spend with the work and how entering in different narrative points can alter both the story-line and the audience’s perception of what he/she is seeing. I also embrace the idea of artist films entering into the cinematic sphere, especially as certain artists, like Ben Rivers, produce feature films. It’s simply a matter of context and consideration.

Still, I was surprised the the audience at The Art of Fear was interested in having seating to watch, in its entirety, a program of non-narrative films. In a way I felt as if my curatorial power had been usurped but, in another, it was exciting to see an interest in giving these works undivided attention. This of course has led me to wonder about the sematics of film programming – should this be called a screening? or an exhibition? Are there ways that we, as producers of exhibitions, can set the tone for how the audience will view the artwork or, ultimately, is it that power inherent in the audience? The next portion of the program/exhibition/screening Ghost Stories with My Barbarian, Aida Ruilova, and Marnie Weber is narrative in nature and appropriate for a proper sit-down affair. So the experiment will continue. And it’s going to be amazing so please don’t miss it, whether you sit, stand, or squat.

The other strand of thought involves the question of “why horror?” which is relevant to both my own curatorial investigation and the implementation of horror characteristics by artists. While this question is being visually represented, addressed, somewhat answered in the series of exhibitions I am doing, I believe that an essay series of why horror is of personal, cultural, and political interest is just as crucial. Stay tuned!

The Art of Fear: first program, Pieces

3 October, 2011

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The Art of Fear begins in two days! To satiate your appetite in the meantime, here is the trailer to Jesus Rinzoli’s long forgotten slasher, Hiker Meat and the program for the first screening:

Horror cinema is ripe for the slaughter as Takeshi Murata (Chicago), Darren Banks (United Kingdom), and Jamie Shovlin (United Kingdom) cut, recompose, and manipulate scenes from classic horror films. These works are montages from classic (and not so classic) giallo, slasher, and B-movies from the 1960s-1980s. By re-arranging and manipulating the actions and contexts of films such as The Burning, Friday the 13th, and Mask of Satan, these artists apply new meaning to what is familiar in horror. As the first program in The Art of Fear, Pieces is an homage to and de-construction of this influential time period of horror.

PROGRAM

Takeshi Murata, Monster Movie
US, 2005, DVD, 3:55 minutes, Color, Sound

Darren Banks, I’m sure if there were a monster in the midlands we would have seen it on the telly
UK, 2011, Found video footage, 17 minutes, Color, Sound

Darren Banks, Interiors
UK, 2005, Found video footage, 10 minutes, Color, Sound

Takeshi Murata, Untitled (Silver)
US, 2006, DVD, 11 minutes, b&w, sound

Jamie Shovlin, Hiker Meat
UK, 2009-present, Digital Video, 77 minutes, Color Sound

Read previous GWKTM posts on Jamie Shovlin here and here | Darren Banks here and here.

The Art of Fear: artist films inspired by horror cinema

27 September, 2011

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I’m so excited to announce The Art of Fear, a two-part artist film program I am curating at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn. Featuring moving image works influenced by horror cinema, it is the first manifestation of my research on horror film and contemporary art presented in New York (look out for a major upcoming exhibition in Los Angeles) and I’mthrilled to be working with such truly incredible artists. Please come support artist film, cinema, and horror this October!

The two-part screening features works by Takeshi Murata, Darren Banks, Jaime Shovlin (October 5) and My Barbarian, Aida Ruilova, Marnie Weber (October 19).

View complete program and artist information here. 

A Passion for Passion

13 September, 2011

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I’ve been inspired lately by Henri Langlois and the Cinematheque Francaise. His approach to the cinema was flawed in some areas (I would argue for more curation) but was instrumental not only to the history of showing, archiving, and promoting film but how we continue to process film. Decades after his death, Langlois is challenging me – a contemporary art curator – to re-think and re-shape how I approach my programming. And to do so, always, with passion.

Never forget, you’re always programming for ten percent of the audience. Nothing matters as long as you’ve made those ten percent happy.

Haven’t you noticed people going through art museums? They come into a room, see a picture, walk over to read the label, discover who the pictures is by and what its title is, and then move on. They have read: they know. I don’t want that sort of thing in my museum. I want people to look at everything, really look, and if there are no labels then they have to try to figure out what the object of photograph is. That is the difference between and illustrated book with its captions and a museum: it’s not important that people should know exactly what still came from which film; the whole museum has been planned as an almost autonomous living history of the cinema.

Excerpts from the book A Passion for Films: Henri Langlois and the Cinematheque Francaise by Richard Roud.

Ed Kienholz “Five Car Stud” – on view for the first time in 40 years

5 September, 2011

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Emphasizing the marginal and the forgotten, tackling racism, sex, and war Ed Kienholz (October 23, 1927 – June 10, 1994) approached his artwork much like a horror film director. His tableaus are annihilated spaces, post-apocolyptic scenes in which we, the audience, can peer into the deeps of what the “other” (still so much like us) feels. Loneliness is palpable as the uncanny figures mock us for not having the guts to be as dirty and as real as they are. These are shocking scenes, even for today, and they resonate deep within our sensibilities. He re-created the ugliness of the world in an environment to which we could safely relate.

Much of his work has an edge to it but one of his more provocative installations is being re-visited this month in Los Angeles. Kienholz’s infamous Five Car Stud (made somewhere between 1969 and 1972) that depicts a brutally violent racial attack will be seen for the first time in forty years at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as part of the city-wide Pacific Standard Time event. From the Los Angeles Times:

It is a difficult piece on multiple levels. It is enormous, for one thing: a tableau installation involving nine life-sized figures, five automobiles, several trees and a truckload of dirt. More difficult still is what the piece depicts: a circle of white men, lighted only by the headlights of the circled automobiles, pinning and castrating a lone black man, while a child cowers in one of the cars and a woman — presumably the victim’s companion — huddles and vomits in another.

The white figures are all realistically cast, but for the grotesque rubber masks on each of the men. The black figure’s face is uncannily bifurcated: a clear plastic outer face is frozen in a scream while a darker one within it is “sadly resigned and quiet,” as Kienholz put it in a statement at the time. His torso is made from a rectangular tin filled with black water, in which float letters that spell out a racial slur.

Watch Nancy Reddin Kienholz (his wife and collaborator) install the work:

For more see his galleries: LA Louver and Pace Gallery.

Faüxmish

1 September, 2011

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Performance, music, and art have deep roots in the unique creative landscape of Los Angeles. New experimental power trio (Marnie Weber, Dani Tull, & Doug Harvey) Faüxmish is sure to be a part of this legacy.

Faüxmish is celebrating the release of their debut LP & CD ‘F for Ache’ with their debut public performance at Human Resources in Los Angeles on September 2nd. More info here.

Faüxmish is a Los Angeles art-rock supergroup that came together over a shared engagement with American spiritual sects who remove themselves from established social norms and create their own culture as outsiders.

Taking as their motto “Simplicity Through Noise,” Faüxmish have developed a practice rooted in improvisational ensemble playing using electric guitars (played with rubber mallets and other extended as well as traditional techniques) and vintage synthesizers, in various combinations of three.

Initially conceived as a ‘wall of sound,’ the group’s music rapidly developed a complex and idiosyncratic audio vocabulary drawing on the members’ widely divergent individual musical backgrounds, which range from noise to prog, post-punk to film scores, and 90s alt-rock to improvisational audio collage. The results range from dreamy ambient soundscapes to theatrical rock songs.