Churner and Churner gallery screens a Kuchar Brother pairing

The Secret of Wendel Samson (1966, Mike Kuchar) (Above and below)

Encyclopedia Of The Blessed (1967-69, George Kuchar) (above)

Two very different George and Mike Kuchar selections were screened Friday night courtesy of the Film Co-op and a 16mm projector borrowed from Light Industry at the new space Churner and Churner on 10th Avenue. Curator and Archivist Leah Churner has become an expert on the Bronx-born twins-cum-avant-garde filmmakers. She has had a hand both in physically preserving the Kuchar's works, and regenerating interest of the brothers' work through exhibition. (Read her article 'The New Flesh' on the brothers here.)

The space: clean, nice floors, good size, and most importantly; excellent location. From the website:

"Churner and Churner combines solo shows by emerging artists and art-historical public programs, connecting contemporary artists with historical influences. Between exhibitions, the gallery becomes a venue for week-long events, including film and video screenings, long-duration performances, and installations."

The gallerists: two brilliant sisters, Rachel and Leah Churner. While Altscreen already beat me to a very nice write-up about the sisters' new space and tonight's screening, I wanted to add that I am really excited that this space opened in Chelsea, because it is just the type of DIY lifeblood that is needed among such corporate-gallery-institutions. And I say this mostly because of Leah and Rachel's respective backgrounds and interests. The gallery website states,

"Rachel Churner has worked in academic, nonprofit and commercial art spaces, including Peter Freeman, Inc., New York; New Langton Arts, San Francisco; and the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany. Now completing a PhD in Art History at Columbia University, Churner has published catalogue essays on Little + Furgason, Robert Mangold, and Nina Katchadorian; written for Artforum and Artweek; and served as the managing editor of October magazine. Advising on special projects is Leah Churner, a film and video curator whose programs have appeared at the Museum of the Moving Image, Anthology Film Archives, Light Industry and X-initative, and who was formerly the archivist at Electronic Arts Intermix. Their combined experience in various art worlds lends a theoretical underpinning and broad cultural attunement to the gallery’s program."

I am so very excited to see what kind of programs and exhibitions are produced through Churner and Churner's new space, and welcome the gallery into my repertory of frequented institutions!

Churner and Churner Gallery
205 10th Ave (between 22nd and 23rd Street)
New York NY 10011
212-675-2750 info@churnerandchurner.com
hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10 - 6 pm

Barbie Video Girl

I need this ASAP.







Always wanted one of these as a kid, but never had one. Used my parents' Panasonic shoulder camcorder instead to make SWV and Juliana Hatfield home music videos. Maybe someday I will transfer them and upload them. They're pretty good..


In fourth grade, I had to earn straight A's to get a Talkboy. By the time the quarter was over, they were all sold out, and we went on a wild goose-chase trying to find one. Much to my dismay, the thing did NOT work as well as the one in Home Alone 2. It was kind of a piece of garbage actually. Overall, the experience was a character-builder for sure.

Sorta Power/ Kinda Crust/ Vaguely Wave

What I did with my tax return

William Powhida print from Jen Bekman

(don't worry, I bought the reissue)

(also the reissue)

orig (lame)

Did not buy this, but it would be awesome if someone did.

MIAP Program Offers New Summer Course on Copyright and Intellectual Property

Yeah, so I really wish I could take this course. MIAP friends sneak me a syllabus for some self-directed study!

Copyright Law for Cultural Institutions 3 credits, July 25 August 5 2011, M-F 9am-12pm (plus an additional hour of online activities each day)

Instructor: Rina Pantalony

This graduate-level course addresses the intellectual property issues and related ethical ones that surround the management, preservation, and dissemination of cultural material (such as paper records and their digital surrogates, museum objects, film, video, and other ephemera) in collecting institutions. The course is designed for current students and also for professionals who already work with cultural objects, providing either a refresher or an upgrade to existing knowledge and practice.

The first step in the registration process is to reserve a space in the course. You can do this by contacting the MIAP Coordinator, Alicia Kubes at tisch.preservation@nyu.edu or 212-998-1618 . After this step is complete, NYU students will be able to register through Albert. All other students will get instructions from the MIAP Coordinator by e-mail.

Any questions about the course or the registration process should be addressed to the MIAP coordinator.

Full Course Description:

With the advent of new technologies, content producers, aggregators and those who manage collections and related ephemera are faced with a number of legal and ethical issues concerning the use of their own works, those of others and in providing access to collections of such works to their patrons and other third parties. Because of the complexity of intellectual property rights, the answers to many such legal questions are not always apparent. Managers of collections are often faced with the need for a risk assessment that takes into account ethical considerations in order to allow a project to move forward.

What are the various legal rights that may encumber cultural material? Who holds these rights? How may they be cleared? What are the extraneous issues that must be given consideration in clearing them? How do these rights affect the subsequent long term exhibition, distribution and hosting of the works once they enter into the collection of a museum or archive? How can these issues be managed effectively? What are the international considerations in dealing with content, created in one jurisdiction, but exhibited or distributed in another? What are the legal considerations in such circumstances and what may be the cultural or ethical considerations?

The issues discussed in this course are the subject of a publication, by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), authored by the instructor, Rina Elster Pantalony, where the publication will serve as one of the primary texts for the course.

Students will be required to analyze existing collections, examine the intellectual property issues, present findings within existing standards of practice in the field, and use electronic means of communication to compare and contrast findings. All students will be required to participate in assessing risk, preparing intellectual property assessments and discussing their analysis of existing content by posting their findings to a Wiki exclusively developed for the course and hosted by NYU.

The total cost for this 3-credit course including tuition and fees is $3490

Edge of the Wedge

"In Watermelon Sugar the Deeds Were Done and Done Again as My Life is Done in Watermelon Sugar."

The Wedge
Severed Heads
Edge of the Wedge Theorem
In Watermelon Sugar

Dreamweapon: The Art and Life of Angus MacLise (1938 – 1979) at Boo-Hooray

Boo-Horray gallery on West 23rd St will present Dreamweapon: The Art and Life of Angus MacLise from May 10 - May 29 curated by Johan Kugelberg (JOHANN KUGELBERG!!!) and Will Cameron. The larger project will also encompass a Sound Installation (at 265 Canal St) and a Film series at Anthology (on May 12th) featuring the film and video works by Ira Cohen and Piero Heliczer. The exhibition marks the first overview of the artist, poet, percussionist, and composer active in New York, San Francisco, Paris, London and Kathmandu from the 1950’s through the 1970’s. Best known as the original drummer of the Velvet Underground, MacLise’s lifework included music, calligraphy, performance art, poetry, drawings, plays, and limited edition artist’s books.

The exhibition website states:

On Summer Solstice 1979, MacLise died from hypoglycemia in Kathmandu, and was cremated in the fashion of Tibetan Buddhist funerary rites.

A suitcase of Angus MacLise’s artwork, publications, and manuscript as well as more than 100 hours of recorded music was left with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela for safe-keeping thirty years ago. This extraordinary time-vault is the foundation of the exhibition, with additional materials drawn from private previously unseen collections and archives.

The 521 West 23rd Street exhibition features manuscript, calligraphy, ephemera, photography, artwork, memorabilia, posters and handbills illuminating MacLise’s multi-faceted career through a narrative of original artifacts.

The 265 Canal Street Suite 601 sound installation, the premiere exhibition at Boo-Hooray’s new Chinatown space, features previously unheard recordings from the 1960’s and 1970’s featuring Angus MacLise performing alongside notables such as: Tony Conrad, La Monte Young, John Cale, Billy Name, Terry Riley, William Breeze, Piero Heliczer, Jack Smith, Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker among others. Each day one may experience a unique set of curated programs of MacLise’s music. Every day is different.

Thursday, May 12th, 2011 at 8pm, Anthology Film Archives are hosting an evening of film and video works by Ira Cohen and Piero Heliczer. At the center is the underground classic, The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (Dir. Ira Cohen, 1968), showcasing the music of Angus MacLise. The program will also include works by Heliczer featuring MacLise, and Marty Topp's portapak video from the Ira Cohen Jefferson St. loft (1971-72). Boo-Hooray are also pumped to announce the world premiere of Heavy Canon, directed by Ira Cohen (1968/2011). This film is comprised of unseen 16mm footage shot in Cohen’s Mylar Chamber and scored with the music of Angus MacLise.

“Angus MacLise was the Velvet Underground's first drummer. He withdrew when he found out that at a paying job he had to start and stop playing when told to. No one told Angus to stop playing. So the job of a working musician was impossible for Angus, and he taught us all a lesson about purity of spirit.” -- Lou Reed

Co-curator Johan Kugelberg describes Angus MacLise as the American Henri Michaux:

MacLise was a collaborative partner in the early 1960’s with art groups and individuals such as Fluxus (George Maciunas, Yoko Ono), Theatre of the Ridiculous, and Jack Smith. As a poet, MacLise began publishing in partnership with high school friend Piero Heliczer in the late 1950’s, establishing the Dead Language Press in Paris, widely acknowledged as one a most significant small artist book presses of the 20th Century. Together with his wife, artist and underground press illustrator Hetty MacLise, he edited issue No. 9 of the magazine-in-a-box, Aspen, considered a hallmark of American publishing.

La Brune et Moi

Filmed in 1979, screened once in 1980 to a small crowd on the Left Bank, and lost until 2005, I'm sad to say that my 2011 tastes were underwhelmed with this one.

French director Philippe Puicouyoul lifted the story line (Business man falls for a young girl and vows to fulfill her dream of becoming a punk rock star) from Frank Tashlin's (also crappy) 50's Rocker flick, The Girl Can't Help It (1956) for this dumb 1980 "feature", which pieces together a lot of justly forgotten French new-wave musicians. Pierre Clementi, best known as Catherine Deneuve's lover in Belle de Jour, provides some amusement as the business manager of punk manque Anoushka, but the movie fell solidly into the "Rot" category. At least it was short!

The Bands:
Ici Paris
Artefact
Astroflash
Edith Nylon
The Questions (really known as Les Lous)
The Party
Marquis de Sade
Dogs
Go-Go Pigalles
Taxi Girl
Les Prives

Aluminum Music at the Kitchen's 40th

In celebration of their 40th Anniversary, The Kitchen is hosting a party that will be based on a memorable bday-bash-cum-fundraiser in June of 1981 at a Times Square Megaclub. "Dubbed Aluminum Nights, the marathon event saw a capacity audience of many hundreds — including, all seem to recall, Mick Jagger backstage — enjoy a diversified array of the downtown sounds being nurtured at the crossroads of The Kitchen’s music program. In 2011, as part of its 40th anniversary season, The Kitchen presents a distilled refraction of the Aluminum Music performed over that memorable weekend." Site

The Vasulka archive has a pdf of the original event here, which is pretty impressive.

The 2011 'Aluminum Music' event is described on the website:
On Friday, April 15, Industrial music pioneer Z’EV demonstrates his hypnotic, ritualized solo percussion music on a shared bill with cherished No-Wavers, Bush Tetras. Saturday, April 16, features the pairing of former Kitchen Music Director (and Aluminum Nights co-curator) George Lewis’s electroacoustic anthem Homage to Charles Parker (1979) featuring Amina Claudine Myers (piano/organ), Reggie Nicholson (percussion), Matana Roberts (alto saxophone), and Richard Teitelbaum (synthesizers) with the epic disco-minimalism of PeterGordon’s Love of Life Orchestra, featuring contributions from Kitchen alums Ned Sublette (guitar) and Peter Zummo (trombone).

I'm confused about this program for a couple of reasons. The concept of "re-doing" a party from 1981 odd enough, but then quickly just becomes depressing. Especially because most of the artists I would want to see are not participating (compare the 4 page list on the Vasulka's website to the description above). But also, some of these artists might suck really bad now. I love Bush Tetras, but I mostly like them for their musical and visual aesthetic--two things that can not ever be reproduced. So, it becomes sort of... nostalgic and banal. I'm going to give this a fair shot, but this has really never bode well for me in the past. And then you run the risk of remembering a less than perfect version of what is being re-hashed. Case in point: Wire. I saw them a few years ago when my friends opened up for them at Irving Plaza, and it was terrible. I can barely listen to them now. This is really no different. Of course there are exceptions like The Clean or The Raincoats.. and I'm not saying I wouldn't go nuts for a Velvet Underground reunion.. but generally speaking, it doesn't end well.

Also: wasn't the spirit of the original 'Aluminum Music' party contemporary artists and musicians, which attracted the glitterati A-list celebs? What will this show attract? I understand to convey a sense of authenticity, it might be confusing to add young bands or artists, but it just seems really contradictory. I love the Kitchen, and think Nick Hallett is brilliant, but sort of confused about this one.

EAI in Times Square! MTV 44 1/2 , EAI, and The Times Square Alliance Partners to Celebrate Video

This is so exciting! Instead of pontificating as usual, I think it's best to simply re-post the info from EAI's website. Video documentation to follow!

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) celebrates its 40th anniversary with a special project for Times Square. In partnership with the Times Square Alliance and MTV, EAI brings artists' visions to the MTV 44½ LED Screen. Marking EAI's 40 years of support for moving image art, EAI in Times Square celebrates video art's rich history of creative intervention in one of the world's most dynamic media landscapes.

EAI partners with the Times Square Alliance and MTV to present artists' video in the astonishing visual landscape of Times Square. From April 13 to 19, EAI will highlight the remarkable creative media interventions of artists on a spectacular scale. Works by Vito Acconci, Dan Asher, Phyllis Baldino, Dara Birnbaum, Gary Hill, Shigeko Kubota, Takeshi Murata, Nam June Paik, Martha Rosler, Stuart Sherman and William Wegman will be seen daily on MTV 44½'s large-format LED screen.

Drawn from EAI's archive, one of the world's leading resources for media art, the videos will play at the top of each hour, between noon and 4pm and between 6pm and 11pm. On Saturday, April 16 and Sunday, April 17 the complete program (25:16 min) will also play at noon.

Spanning the 1960s to 2011, the works range from bold animations and visual poems to witty performances and vibrant electronic experiments. Nam June Paik's rarely seen Hand and Face (1961) is one of his earliest media works; Dara Birnbaum's 30-second Artbreak was commissioned for broadcast by MTV in 1987. Shigeko Kubota brings a profusion of electronic cherry blossoms to the heart of Times Square, while Martha Rosler eyes domestic labor in a suburban backyard. William Wegman's dogs perform a timeless duet.

Each day's program will begin with Takeshi Murata's EAI 40th Anniversary Intro (2011). Linking video art's history to the digital present, this piece was specially commissioned by EAI for its 40th Anniversary programming. Murata's video can also be viewed online here.

Much as early video artists sought to "slow down" television and "talk back" to the media, these creative interjections will challenge viewers to reconsider their visual expectations of Times Square and experience it in new ways. Encountered on MTV's large-scale LED screen, these visions will engage the public not just as consumers, but also as active viewers.

Program Schedule
Noon Takeshi Murata, EAI 40th Anniversary Intro (2011, 1:05 min)
1 pm Shigeko Kubota, Rock Video: Cherry Blossom (1986, 3 min)
2 pm William Wegman, Dog Duet (1975, 2:37 min)
3 pm Martha Rosler, Backyard Economy I (1974, 3:20 min)
4 pm Stuart Sherman, Chess (1982, 30 sec)

6 pm Dara Birnbaum, Artbreak, MTV Networks, Inc. (1987, 30 sec)
7 pm Vito Acconci, Three Frame Studies: Push (1969-1970, 2:59 min)
8 pm Nam June Paik, Hand and Face (1961, 1:25 min)
9 pm Phyllis Baldino, Suitcase/Not Suitcase (1993, 36 sec)
10 pm Gary Hill, Objects With Destinations (1979, 3:41 min)
11 pm Dan Asher, Artificial Illuminations: Calligraphic (1997, 55 sec)


EAI in Times Square is part of an ongoing series of events and projects marking EAI's 40th anniversary year. For more information about upcoming and past programs in this series, please click here.


About the Times Square Alliance
Times Square Arts presents temporary cutting-edge art and performances in multiple forms and media to the 360,000 to 500,000 daily visitors to New York City's Times Square, making it one of the highest profile public arts programs in the United States. Since its inception three years ago, Times Square Arts has featured works by a diverse group of more than four dozen prominent and emerging artists. The Times Square Public Art Program is made possible in part by the NYC Cultural Innovation Fund of the Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. www.TimesSquareNYC.org/arts



About MTV 44½
A standout among the large electronic displays in Times Square, MTV 44½ captures the eyes of viewers with unique programming, live tapings, special events, concerts, and MTV-branded creative that breaks through the clutter in Times Square. www.mtv445.com


EAI: Celebrating 40 Years
Founded in 1971, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is one of the world's leading nonprofit resources for video art. A pioneering advocate for media art and artists, EAI fosters the creation, exhibition, distribution and preservation of video art and digital art. EAI's core program is the distribution and preservation of a major collection of over 3,500 new and historical media works by artists. EAI's activities include viewing access, educational services, extensive online resources, and public programs such as artists' talks, exhibitions and panels. The Online Catalogue is a comprehensive resource on the artists and works in the EAI collection, and also features extensive materials on exhibiting, collecting and preserving media art: www.eai.org

Electronic Arts Intermix 535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor New York, NY 10011
info@eai.org t (212) 337-0680 f (212) 337-0679

This project was made possible by the generosity and support of MTV 44½. The Times Square Alliance and EAI thank MTV 44½ for their ongoing support of the arts.

Lucy Lippard lecture at SVA

SVA's Art Criticism and Writing MFA Director, David Levi-Strauss Introducing the Lecture

The Art Criticism and Writing MFA program at SVA sponsored the brilliant curator, "critic", writer, and activist Lucy Lippard last evening. The talk, titled "Ghosts, the Daily News, and Prophecy: Critical Landscape Photography" examined the role and effectiveness of photography in generating responsibility for place. Much of the lecture was extracted from her most recent project "The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society." The Manhattan native moved to New Mexico a few years ago, and is active with city planning and watershed restoration. Always an activist, it comes as no surprise that Lippard is heavy into land use issues, and artworks as activism.

I am still processing the pithy lecture, but I expect that it will be made public soon at this website. (the other lectures in the series are here as well.)

Very interesting to me was that her talk made no argument, nor did it actually 'critique' any art work. It was more a presentation of landscape photographs which illustrated a discussion about local and global power relations, the role of art, and the deconstruction and de-contextualization of visual knowledge. Early on in the talk, she disclaimed the distinction between being a critic and an advocate of art. She identified with the latter, but accepted the former. She flat-out rejected being a theorist. To Lippard, being a theorist marks a sort of hardening of the veins. A very even-keeled, approachable, scholar, I am happy to report how refreshingly human she was, for such a prolific genius.

Dara Birnbaum at EAI

Marking the occasion of a new comprehensive catalog and retrospective on the prolific ouevre of Dara Birnbaum, a selection of the artist's early performance-videos were screened at Electronic Arts Intermix on March 30th. Editors of the new publication, Karen Kelly and Barbara Schröder introduced these early black-and-white, performance-based videos, which preceded her single channel works. Unlike the later works, which appropriated and critiqued mass media and TV culture, these direct, unmediated, and tautological performance-based works shed new insight by introducing themes recurring throughout her later work.

"In many of these works, Birnbaum appears on camera as the performer, investigating through the body intense emotional or psychological manifestations while also foregrounding the relation of the camera/viewer to the subject/performer. Such works reveal an unexpected link to the body-art and performance-video practices of artists such as Vito Acconci, Joan Jonas, and Bruce Nauman. Other early works incorporate disjunctive tactics and pop-cultural content, pointing to Birnbaum's later editing strategies and engagement with television as source material." (EAI program notes)

Following the screening, Birnbaum appeared in conversation with Lori Zippay, Executive Director of EAI, and participated in discussion with the audience.
I found Dara's citation of Vito Acconci's influence in the 1970s fascinating. Having never seen these early videos, I wouldn't necessarily have anticipated this parallel, although given their common interest in Architecture, the epistemologies of video space, and camera-viewer-performer dynamics, it makes sense. I would have expected a much stronger bond with say, Joan Jonas, who Birnbaum cited only after an audience member asked about her connection to pioneers in feminist video. She also cited early influence by Bruce Nauman and Dan Graham. (The latter whom she co-wrote a text on video/architecture in the early 80s if I'm not mistaken.) As well as the theoretical writings of Jacques Lacan, of course.

The question that resonated most with me was from EAI's Josh Kline, who asked the artist how she had conceptualized and weighed her role as a director in these early works. Since these works rest on a combination of the technical parameters of the cameras and the concept, he wondered to what extent she had directed the various players. Surprisingly, she admitted very little responsibility, saying that it was mostly a collaborative effort with her making aesthetic decisions.

Ladies Birnbaum and Zippay will also be in conversation at White Columns April 14th for the Second installment of the Skowhegan Conversations Series, (an ongoing series of collaborative dialogs between Skowhegan and White Columns)

The retrospective that was the impetus for the new catalog, is being exhibited at S.M.A.K., Ghent, in 2009 and Museu Serralves, Porto, in 2010. Hopefully after those two venues, it will come to New York!

Bits of Broodthaers

La salle blanche, 1975

Delving into a post about Broodthaers is out of the question here, because I generally don't spend more than a few minutes on posts. And there is SO much to say about the prolific artist.

I found this image of his tombstone, that he designed, and wanted to post it. Broodthaers died in Cologne on his 52nd birthday. He is buried at Ixelles Cemetery in Bussels.