Archive for the ‘movies’ Category

The Clock, Christian Marclay @ The Lincoln Festival thru aug 1, 2012

July 13, 2012

are you looking for something to do in this sweltering summer heat here in the city that never sleeps. well this might be right up your alley at the Lincoln Center festival. see link here for line updates. for some reason new yorkers don’t mind standing in line because there are so many of us wanting to go somewhere from buying our groceries or being entertained.

Artwork That Runs Like Clockwork

Christian Marclay/Paula Cooper Gallery

Christian Marclay’s 24-hour film montage, “The Clock,” is coming to the David Rubenstein Atrium in Lincoln Center.

By
Published: June 21, 2012

This summer the city that never sleeps will have another glimpse of an artwork that doesn’t relent much either: “The Clock,” a spellbinding, time-telling 24-hour wonder of film and sound montage by Christian Marclay, the polymath composer, collagist, video artist and pioneer turntablist.

An assemblage of time-related movie moments that had its debut in London in autumn 2010, Mr. Marclay’s “Clock” is already a popular classic. It is also a functioning timepiece; a highly compressed, peripatetic history of film and film styles; an elaborate, rhythmic musical composition; and a relentlessly enthralling meditation on time as an inescapable fact of both cinematic artifice and everyday life. Perhaps the ultimate validation of appropriation art, it thoroughly demonstrates how existing works of art — in this case films — become raw material for new ones.

“The Clock” counts off the minutes of a 24-hour day using tiny segments from thousands of films. Bits of “High Noon,” “Gone With the Wind,” “Laura,” “On the Waterfront,” “The Godfather” and “A Clockwork Orange” speed past, mixed with early silent films and less familiar foreign ones.

As the action, music, sound effects and dialogue of one film bleed into those of another, each segment specifies a time, sometimes through spoken words, but mostly through shots of wristwatches, clocks, time clocks and the like. All are synced to real time. When it is 11:30 a.m. in “The Clock,” it will be 11:30 a.m. in the world outside. Exactly.

The first New York showing of “The Clock,” at the Paula Cooper Gallery in January 2011, had people lining up around the block in a relatively deserted west Chelsea in the dead of winter. Now, for 20 days starting on July 13, Lincoln Center will present the piece in a specially built theater in the David Rubenstein Atrium on Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Streets. Admission will be first come first served in a setting — lined with movie-palace velvet curtains and outfitted with enormous couches that blur boundaries between living room and screening room — that accommodates only about 90 people at a time.

It may be a challenge to get in, even in the wee hours, which is when I want to go, but I intend to make every effort, and recommend that you do too. The piece will run Tuesday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and then settle in for three 38-hour weekend marathons beginning at 8 a.m. Fridays and running to 10 p.m. Sundays. It will be closed Mondays and ends on Aug. 1.

more information on the artist Christian Marclay can be found at the New Yorker here

enjoy, but i won’t be standing in line myself they give me the willies.

jene

things i am looking forward to do when i get back from hawaii….. woohoo

January 30, 2012

we are off to Hawaii [the big island]  tomorrow, apartment is secure from the neighborhood burglar, as secure as i can make it now, so don’t worry it never does any good anyways. have most of camera gear with me and i’ll try to be more careful this trip. i am sure i’ve over packed too much clothing but don’t know what we’ll run into. humpbacked whales breaching woohoo, redhot lava flows, volcanos active and not, lots of stars, sandy beaches, hawaiian shirts. plenty of sunscreen and cf cards.

this is our 1st year anversary after having put our dog to sleep ending her suffering. of course i have to dream about her last night. part of growing older being seperated from the ones we love. something to look forward to. oh well i’ve nothing but fond memories of her.

now if i could only figure out how to relieve my sons suffering but he’s not an honest person with anybody and without honesty there’s not going to be much progress. i think he’s on his way to living in a cardboard box and hollering curse words at passing people, talk about pain there it is. theres noting i can do about it.

yesterday we went to see ‘Crazy Horse’ at film forum, Celebrated documentary director Frederick Wiseman spent ten weeks with his camera exploring one of the most mythic places dedicated to women: ‘The Crazy Horse.’

Over the years this legendary Parisian cabaret club, founded in 1951 by Alain Bernardin, has become the Parisian nightlife ‘must’ for any visitors, ranking alongside the Eiffel Tower and The Louvre. which i thought was beautifully lit but it’s the crazy horse. what’s not to like except the length of the movie, but wonderful anyways.

these are some of the things i am looking forward to do when we get back. well these and getting ready for a joint exhibit with mary in Lancaster PA beginning in April. i will post more on the exhibit closer to the date when we figure out what’s going to be shown.

it’s so wonderful living in a cultural center, we get an opportunity to see so much as it comes through. walking down the street today i saw shoots coming up to meet the sun, they think it’s spring already. now if only i could get my wireless system to work. oh well.

heres the partial list:

Weegee at icp

Weegee: Murder Is My Business

January 20–September 2, 2012

For an intense decade between 1935 and 1946, Weegee (1899–1968) was one of the most relentlessly inventive figures in American photography. His graphically dramatic and often lurid photographs of New York crimes and news events set the standard for what has become known as tabloid journalism. Freelancing for a variety of New York newspapers and photo agencies, and later working as a stringer for the short-lived liberal daily PM (1940–48), Weegee established a way of combining photographs and texts that was distinctly different from that promoted by other picture magazines, such as LIFE. Utilizing other distribution venues, Weegee also wrote extensively (including his autobiographical Naked City, published in 1945) and organized his own exhibitions at the Photo League. This exhibition draws upon the extensive Weegee Archive at ICP and includes environmental recreations of Weegee’s apartment and exhibitions. The exhibition is organized by ICP Chief Curator Brian Wallis.

cindy sherman at moma:

Cindy Sherman. Untitled #466. 2008. Chromogenic color print, 8' 1 1/8 x 63 15/16" (246.7 x 162.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of Robert B. Menschel in honor of Jerry I. Speyer. © 2011 Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman

February 26–June 11, 2012

The Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954) is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary art. Throughout her career, she has presented a sustained, eloquent, and provocative exploration of the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation, drawn from the unlimited supply of images from movies, TV, magazines, the Internet, and art history. Working as her own model for more than 30 years, Sherman has captured herself in a range of guises and personas which are at turns amusing and disturbing, distasteful and affecting. To create her photographs, she assumes multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, stylist, and wardrobe mistress. With an arsenal of wigs, costumes, makeup, prosthetics, and props, Sherman has deftly altered her physique and surroundings to create a myriad of intriguing tableaus and characters, from screen siren to clown to aging socialite.

Bringing together more than 180 photographs, this retrospective survey traces the artist’s career from the mid 1970s to the present. Highlighted in the exhibition are in-depth presentations of her key series, including the groundbreaking series “Untitled Film Stills” (1977–80), the black-and-white pictures that feature the artist in stereotypical female roles inspired by 1950s and 1960s Hollywood, film noir, and European art-house films; her ornate history portraits (1989–90), in which the artist poses as aristocrats, clergymen, and milkmaids in the manner of old master paintings; and her larger-than-life society portraits (2008) that address the experience and representation of aging in the context of contemporary obsessions with youth and status. The exhibition will explore dominant themes throughout Sherman’s career, including artifice and fiction; cinema and performance; horror and the grotesque; myth, carnival, and fairy tale; and gender and class identity. Also included are Sherman’s recent photographic murals (2010), which will have their American premiere at MoMA.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Sherman has selected films from MoMA’s collection, which will be screened in MoMA’s theaters during the course of the exhibition. A major publication will accompany the exhibition.


The exhibition is organized by Eva Respini, Associate Curator, with Lucy Gallun, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography.

Major support for the exhibition is provided by Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, The Modern Women’s Fund, and The William Randolph Hearst Endowment Fund.

Additional funding is provided by The Broad Art Foundation, David Dechman and Michel Mercure, Robert B. Menschel, Allison and Neil Rubler, Richard and Laura Salomon, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Glenstone, Michèle Gerber Klein, Richard and Heidi Rieger, Ann and Mel Schaffer, and The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art.

whirlwind week in February, dance reviews & memories

February 18, 2011

this has been a busy week for us getting out of the house of memories, i guess soon we’ll stop looking down for shadow whom we called ‘fur trap’, as she would be waiting outside any closed-door for us to reappear. she would stick her nose in the opening and sniff  to check if we were in there. it will take some time for us to adjust to being a single couple.

of course what we are doing could be done with shadow here, going to movies, gallery openings, plays and dinners. to say nothing of making travel plans which we haven’t really begun, panama is weighing heavily on me getting back to my book project and mary is going off to europe in april. but we haven’t made any travel plans yet other than getting the xr 7 on the road and driving cross-country.

1970 xr 7 restore

it’s so nice to have someone in my life who just by being there adds another dimension, making my life so much fuller. a positive force to negate my negative vibes.

so catching up with our social life we saw ‘Black Swan‘ the only current movie up for an academy award. friends have said it was so cool  but i like my dance films closer to reality. maybe its a reflection of the times that things need to be blown up larger than life, needing more twist and turns,complications in order to hold this gen x generation’s attention.

i wasn’t thrilled with the movie, while i did connect with parts of the characters it never connected with the whole. reading Alstair Macauly ‘many faces of Black Swan deconstructed‘ in the NYTimes article on the movie didn’t help me any.

but hey i’ve aways thought Robert Altman’s movie Company the best dance company movie i’ve even seen, yes i know the hooky dance performance in thunder & lighting was a bit over the top but lovely anyways. A scene of a Lar Lubovitch pas de deux “My Funny Valentine” in a thunderstorm is no doubt meant to evoke deep, elegiac emotion with sturm-und-drang. The dancers forge on as rain and storm-detritus blow onto the stage. says dance magazine review. but whats a movie without some drama?

then we move on to an actual live dance performance at city center february 16 thru 20 called Flamingo Hoy which i urge you to see. now if i actually understood the moves and language of this dance form i might have gotten more than an evening’s entertainment but it’s director Carlos Saura, one of Spain’s most prominent filmmakers who made one of my favorite dance movies Carmen see the utube excerpt or  NYTimes review. maybe i really need to learn spanish. but having toured in the 70’s with maria alba dance company, i did learn something about the passion involved in the art form of flamingo.

Maria’s name is remembered with reverence here in new york. i remember talking to one of the flamingo dancers at ‘N’ a small tapas bar down in soho where on wednesday night you can catch a wonderful show in their small space, a real intimate experience. come on down and enjoy the show sit at the bar or one of the tables and watch the performance.

flamenco dancers at N

talk about intimate

flamenco dancer

flamenco dancers at N

last night we when down to a Adorama’s presentation by flash guru Joe McNally before heading out to dinner at Wallse located on the past site of Mother Courage, the first feminist restaurant in new york. i had a friend who managed the place who loved my son, when ever she saw him coming home from school she would give him a big hug. old neighborhood full of memories. after all it was my birthday and i decided to go to Joe’s presentation  maybe even learn something while trying something new to eat.

yes we did learn something, buy more equipment, get three assistants, and buy more equipment. well we do have each other, a big help on our shoots, if we could only get the right numbers to appear on our lottery tickets we could get more equipment. there’s an idea for another Adorama workshop ” how to pick a winning lottery number for fun and profit.” are you listening helen?

tonight we are in for a sensual experience going to Knickerbocker bar & grill for dinner and jazz, my all time favorite steak house. one never knows how long we ‘ll walk on this earth, nor be buried underneath it, and to give up a lovely experience shared with someone who loves you seems to be a shame. there may never come tomorrow so why wait? biting down on their steak is almost as good as biting  on mary’s ………………………opps.

but i’ve got to get back to work, what is writing this? yes it to is a lot of work for me to communicate with people by writing actual words on almost paper is something that’s taken me awhile to feel comfortable with. that’s where journaling has helped. so here are some non edited images from the other day.

woman on couch in black lingerie

and for the shoe fetish people

black Patten leather pumps

this is some job i’ve got, now if i could only parlay this into a money-making effort it might be more fun, oh well

mauve bra and panties with black stockings

oh it’s not too late to visit the George Segal Gallery at Montclair University as this is the last weekend to see mary’s and my prints during Art Connections 7 finally week. why don’t you stop by, hey maybe even buy something.

more of my adventures latter

jene

www.jeneyoutt.com