LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION: ARTISTS’ FILMS FOR THE CINEMA

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION: ARTISTS’ FILMS FOR THE CINEMA February 8-April 1, 2007
Films by MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ, EIJA-LIISA AHTILA, CHANTAL AKERMAN, MATTHEW BARNEY, SAMUEL BECKETT, MARCO BRAMBILLA, LARRY CLARK, BRUCE CONNER, JOSEPH CORNELL, TACITA DEAN, DEXTER DALWOOD, TRACEY EMIN, ROBERT FRANK, JEAN-LUC GODARD, DOUGLAS GORDON, JOHAN GRIMONPREZ, REBECCA HORN, DEREK JARMAN, ISAAC JULIEN, JOHN LENNON, ALFRED LESLIE, SHARON LOCKHART, ROBERT LONGO, BABETTE MANGOLTE, CHRIS MARKER, ANTHONY McCALL, SHIRIN NESHAT, GASPAR NOÉ, YOKO ONO, RICHARD PRINCE, YVONNE RAINER, ED RUSCHA, DAVID SALLE, WILHELM SASNAL, JULIAN SCHNABEL, CINDY SHERMAN, LAURIE SIMMONS, SAM TAYLOR-WOOD, ANDREW TYNDALL, CLEMENS VON WEDEMEYER, MARK WALLINGER, and ANDY WARHOL
Clemens Von Wedermeyer, Occupation, 200235mm film, color, sound,7:40 minutes Courtesy the artist and Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris.
Since the invention of film, cinema has been an inspiration for artists, and moving image installations have become a major part of the fabric of contemporary art. In recent years, artists primarily known for their works in other media--sculpture, photography, drawing, painting--have also begun to produce films meant to be viewed on the cinema’s single screen.
The exhibition’s program ranges from classic early films by Samuel Beckett, and Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie; to key narrative works of the 1960s and 1970s by Babette Mangolte, Yvonne Rainer, and Andy Warhol; to rare screenings of films by artists who first came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s such as Robert Longo, David Salle, Julian Schnabel, and Cindy Sherman.
The show also features films by a generation of artists who emerged in the 1990s and pursued a dual approach, making both films specifically for the cinema, and installations using the moving image. These include Matthew Barney, Tacita Dean, Tracey Emin, Douglas Gordon, Johan Grimonprez, Sharon Lockhart, and Clemens von Wedemeyer. Also on view are works by a small group of independent filmmakers who have not only influenced artists moving into film but also explored the gallery context themselves: Chantal Ackerman, Jean-Luc Godard, Derek Jarman, Isaac Julien, and Chris Marker.

Lights, Camera, Action brings many of these films together for the first time, allowing us to see the variety of ways in which artists have interpreted the language of cinema and to appreciate the specific qualities of cinema that artists have passionately recognized, and made their own.
Curated by Chrissie Iles, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz curator, Whitney Museum of American Art.
The Film and Video gallery in the Museum is equipped with an assistive listening system for the hard of hearing. Please request headsets at the Membership desk in the lobby.
DAILY SCREENINGS
11:30 am (Wed, Thurs) 1:30 pm (Fri)
Douglas Gordon, Feature Film, 2000. Video, color, sound; 60 min.
Shirin Neshat, Zarin, 2005. Super 35mm film transferred to video, color, sound; 20 min.
2:00 pm (Wed, Thurs) 4:00 pm (Fri)
Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy, 1959. 16mm film transferred to video, black-and-white, sound; 30 min.
Samuel Beckett, Film, 1965. 16mm transferred to video, black-and-white, silent; 21 min. Directed by Alan Schneider.
4:00 pm (Wed, Thurs) 6:00 pm (Fri)
Johan Grimonprez, Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, 1998. Video, color, sound; 68 min.(On Fridays, Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y will be followed by Neshat’s Zarin and Gordon’s Feature Film.)

WEEKEND SCREENINGS
CUT February 24th and 25th
Cut explores the language and conventions of cinema: closing credits, the close-up shot, the cinema audience, the mechanics of a film shoot.
11:30 am
Mark Wallinger, The End, 2006. 35mm film, black-and-white, sound; 12 min.
Dexter Dalwood, 1800, 2006. 35mm film, color, sound; 4:15 min.
Clemens von Wedemeyer, Occupation, 2002. 35mm film, color, sound; 7:40 min.
Sharon Lockhart, Teatros Amazonas, 1999. 35mm film, color, sound; 40 min.
Wilhelm Sasnal, Marfa, 2005. 16mm film, color, sound; 26 min.
Douglas Gordon, Feature Film, 2000, Video, color, sound; 60 min.
HYPE MY LIGHT February 10th and March 17th
Joseph Cornell’s Surrealist collage cuts up a classic Hollywood silent film; Jack Kerouac’s cut-up poem narrates the Beat classic Pull my Daisy; Buster Keaton is the star of Samuel Beckett’s surreal Film, as well as the subject of Rebecca Horn’s Buster’s Bedroom, in which a young woman searches for Keaton’s spirit in the sanitorium where he recovered from alcoholism.
11:30 am
Joseph Cornell, Rose Hobart, 1936. 16mm film, black-and-white, sound; 19 min.
Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Pull My Daisy, 1959. 16mm, black-and-white, sound; 30 min.
2:00 pm
Samuel Beckett, Film, 1965. 16mm transferred to video, black-and-white, sound; 24 min.
Rebecca Horn, Buster’s Bedroom, 1991. 35mm film transferred to video, color, sound; 104 min. Courtesy Sean Kelly Gallery, New York
NARRATIVES February 24th and 25th
Four psychological narratives explore regret and love lost (Laurie Simmons); the failure of a marriage (Eija-Liisa Ahtila); a young Iranian prostitute’s descent into psychic collapse (Shirin Neshat); and a conversation between two sons of British film industry pioneers (both the artist’s uncles) and MOMA film curator Lawrence Kardish about their fathers’ pasts (Tacita Dean).
3:00 pm
Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Consolation Service, 1999. 35mm film, color, sound; 23 min.
Laurie Simmons, The Music of Regret, 2006. 35mm film transferred to video, color, sound; 40 min.
Shirin Neshat, Zarin, 2005. 35mm transferred to video, color, sound; 20 min.
Tacita Dean, The Uncles, 2004. 35mm anamorphic film, color, sound; 77 min.
MATTHEW BARNEY March 4th
Matthew Barney’s five-part Cremaster Cycle re-defined the relationship between art and cinema. This day devoted to Barney’s films includes the second film in the cycle, Cremaster 2, loosely based on Norman Mailer’s novel The Executioner’s Song, which tells the story of convicted killer Gary Gilmour–-legendarily the son of Harry Houdini. (In the film Houdini is played by Mailer himself).
In Barney’s latest film Drawing Restraint 9, a collaboration with Bjork, a gigantic sculpture of Vaseline is gradually constructed on the deck of a Japanese whaling ship. Two ‘occidental visitors’ (Barney and Bjork) perform a series of rituals on the ship until, drowning in Vaseline from the sculpture, they undergo a physical transformation.
11:30am
Cremaster 2, 1999. 35mm film, color, sound; 79 min.
3:00 pm
Drawing Restraint 9, 2005. 35mm film, color, sound; 145 min
FEAR EATS THE SOUL February 11th and March 18th
In Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s Rape, a cameraman follows a girl through a cemetery and the streets until she becomes trapped by his persistent pursuit. Johan Grimonprez’s 1997 narrative of plane hijackings from the 1950s to the 1980s chillingly foreshadowed the post-9/11 age. Tracy Emin’s first feature evokes her years growing up in the British seaside town of Margate through the eyes of six teenagers.
11:30am
Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Rape, 1969. 16mm film, color, sound; 77 min.
2:00 pm
Johan Grimonprez, Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, 1998. Video, color, sound; 68 min.
4:00 pm
Tracey Emin, Top Spot, 2004. Video, color, sound; 63 min
ANDY WARHOL March 10th
The hundreds of films that Andy Warhol produced during the 1960s have been greatly influential to artists and mainstream filmmakers alike. The two films in this program suggest the range of concerns in Warhol’s film output. Lonesome Cowboys (1969), shot on location in Tuscon, Arizona, and a camp send-up of the traditional Hollywood Western. Poor Little Rich Girl (1965), the title of which references a 1936 Shirley Temple film, is a portrait of the young heiress, Edie Sedgwick. The film is split between a completely out-of-focus first reel and an in-focus second reel, perfectly capturing Sedgwick’s personality as she goes through her basic daily activities.
11:15 am
Andy Warhol, Lonesome Cowboys, 1969. 16mm film, color, sound; 109 min.
3:30 pm
Andy Warhol, Poor Little Rich Girl, 1965, 16mm film, black-and-white, sound; 66 min.
ART INTO CINEMA March 11th and March 31st
The 1970s saw a surge of narrative films by artists. A hot air balloon rising above a village gradually disappears into the clouds in Apotheosis. Miracle follows a car mechanic as he undergoes a mysterious transformation. In Yvonne Rainer’s Lives of Performers, a man who cannot choose between two women makes both suffer. Argument dissects the insidious meanings of news and advertisements through three men’s examination of a copy of the New York Times. Luke, shot in 1967 and completed in 2004, captures a day on the set of Cool Hand Luke. What Maisie Knew, inspired by the Henry James novel, tells of a young girl’s experience at the hands of acrimoniously divorced parents.
11:30 am
Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Apotheosis, 1970. 16mm film, color, sound; 18 min.
Ed Ruscha, Miracle, 1975. 16mm film, color, sound; 30 min.
1:30 pm
Yvonne Rainer, Lives of Performers, 1972. 16mm film, black-and-white, sound; 90 min.
3:00 pm
Anthony McCall and Andrew Tyndall, Argument, 1978. 16mm film transferred to video, color, sound; 84 min.
Babette Mangolte, What Maisie Knew, 1975. 16mm film, black-and-white, sound; 58 min.
Bruce Conner, Luke, 2004. 8mm film transferred to video, color, sound; 22 min.
CINEMA INTO ART March 3rd and April 1st
Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, and Chantal Akerman deeply influenced artists’ films of the 1990s. This program screens three of their best known works, in which the rules of cinema were re-written. The late filmmaker and painter Derek Jarman’s influence continues to ripple through the art world. His last film Blue transcends images: a haunting soundtrack meditating on the disappearance of his vision and his impending death unfolds against a luminous blue screen. In Isaac Julien’s The Attendant, a young male museum visitor fantasizes about a black museum guard.
11:30 am
Chris Marker, La Jetée, 1962. 16mm film, black-and-white, sound; 27 min.
Jean-Luc Godard, Breathless. 1960. 35mm film, black-and-white, sound; 87 min.
[Marker and Godard only on March 3rd]
Chantal Akerman, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Brussels, 1975. 16mm film, color, sound; 201 min. [Akerman only on April 1st]
4:30 pm
Derek Jarman, Blue, 1993. 35mm film transferred to video, color, sound; 79 min.
Isaac Julien, The Attendant, 1993. 35mm film, color, sound; 10 min
FIRST FEATURES Part 1 February 17th and March 25th
Robert Longo, Cindy Sherman, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel first emerged as key figures in the art world in the 1980s. In the mid 1990s, all four made their debut in cinema, creating Hollywood-style feature films. This program is a rare opportunity to see all four films, along with Larry Clark’s classic, disturbing first feature Kids.
11:00 am
Cindy Sherman, Office Killer, 1997. 35mm film, color, sound; 82 min.
David Salle, Search and Destroy, 1995. 35mm film, color, sound; 90 min.
Robert Longo, Johnny Mnemonic, 1995. 35mm film, color, sound; 98 min.
FIRST FEATURES Part 2 February 18th and March 24th
11:30 am
Larry Clark, Kids, 1995. 35mm film, color, sound; 91 min.
Julian Schnabel, Basquiat, 1996. 35mm film, color, sound; 106 min.
DESTRICTED Special screening, Saturday evening, March 3rd
7:30 pm
A compilation of erotic films by Marina Abramović, Matthew Barney, Marco Brambilla, Larry Clark, Gaspar Noé, Richard Prince, and Sam Taylor-Wood. Strictly for adults only.

In association with Lights, Camera, Action: Artists’ Films for the Cinema, Mark Wallinger’s Sleeper will be presented in its New York premiere by Artprojx NY + Anthony Reynolds Gallery at the Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, at 2nd Street), February 22-24, with screenings at 10 pm each evening. For further information, visit www.artprojx.com or call David Gryn +447711127848
© 2007 Whitney Museum of American Art



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ARTPROJX NY presents

Artprojx NY + Anthony Reynolds Gallery presents:
In association with 'Lights, Camera, Action: Artists' Films for the Cinema'
at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

SLEEPER by Mark Wallinger, 2005 (DVD 2hrs 31mins)


at
Artprojx at Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Avenue (at 2nd Street)
New York, NY 10003
212-505-5181

on
Thurs 22/Fri 23/Sat 24 February
From 10pm. Continuous screening until 12.30 each night.

$10 at the door or show the following passes Armory/ADAA/DIVA/Pulse/Scope/Gallery/Museum












This is the NY premiere of Wallinger's acclaimed work shown at the Venice Biennale 2005.

Wallinger's State Britain is currently at Tate Britain http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/wallinger/ and is represented by Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London.

Project organised by David Gryn, Artprojx events@artprojx.com +44(0)7711127848

Artprojx has shown the World premieres of Wallinger's The Lark Ascending' and most recently 'THE END' during Frieze Art Fair 2006.














THE END by Mark Wallinger is also featured in 'Lights, Camera, Action: Artists' Films for the Cinema' at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY - Feb 2007.
Read Captive audience by Christy Lange in Tate etc http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc

Event partners:
http://www.anthonyreynolds.com/
http://www.whitney.org/
http://www.artupdate.com/
http://www.fetherstonhaugh.com/
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
http://www.thearmoryshow.com/


A TEXT BY MARK WALLINGER
SLEEPER
As a bear I don’t claim any special knowledge. Only that which I have experienced and how it lead me here. Growing up in the shadow of the wall was not about proximity. Like casting a stone into water and finding that the ripples expanding in concentric rings, never diminish. Berlin was part of my subconscious before I ever set foot here
A sleeper may be planted years in advance – of all the double agents buried during the cold war, not all of them were sprung. The secret of a successful hibernation is a matter of provisions and a plausible disguise. At night I am examined for authenticity, during the day I pass unnoticed. The bears in the zoo are the last of their kind, as they are no longer allowed to breed. When the last one dies will they raze the whole sorry zoo to the ground like they did with the idiot Hess? Alone in the centre of this vast space I gaze toward Potsdamer Platz like the guilty conscience of the building. A bad sleeper.
Sometimes I feel quite adrift as if I have woken up in the middle of this story.
A transparent building is intimidating. It can only exist in a society that doesn’t fear its shattering. In the Neue Nationalgalerie we are open, we have nothing to hide – art is for all to experience. When the wall came down, there it was: naked. On the other hand when you think about the Fernsehturm it is clear that by then the model of surveillance was so irresistible, that even though they wanted to make the other people to think how clever to make such an advanced structure they couldn’t help themselves making a huge lookout tower.
The bear costume is an obvious disguise, I know. (Too much effort would appear ingratiating, I thought). It is both bear, and clearly not bear.Children for all their fear of the unknown can play with this fear. They switch from play to reality effortlessly, exist in two realms simultaneously. (Tonight I have been trailed by two small girls who tease me through the glass. I breathe a little cloud on to the pane. They fan out a pack of playing cards and bid me pick one. I point and they turn over a picture of Harry Houdini ). The portal to the other side, the underworld or wonderland is the mirror as represented in Orphee or Alice. You have to pass through your own image to reach an imagined world. Risking enchantment.
The Singing Ringing Tree was made in a fully imagined world, in Babelsberg, where a selfish princess sends a long suffering prince on a quest for a magical tree. He reaches the border of another kingdom which is protected by a ravine and a sheer rock face and guarded by a dwarf. The prince explains his quest for the magical tree, and the dwarf offers it to him on one condition. If the princess does not love him by sunset, he must return to live in the magic kingdom. The prince is so confident that he jokes. He says that if he fails he will be a turned into a bear…
What does it dream? This empty building full of limpid darkness, like the promise of a well, a reservoir of silent thought? How often does one look at the moon and think that a man has walked there? On the other side of the wall the Palast der Republik is choking with asbestos.
In Babelsberg, tongue tied over their short history and in grief at their estranged brothers and sisters, they turned to the long past for some unexpurgated truth. The two realms of Germany were like twins separated as children and raised in completely contrary ways. To cross irrevocably from one realm to another or to be divided, without appeal. This is what I have learnt and it seems very cruel. Germany invented the unconscious which is not normally credited with respecting borders.
What if I died in here?
Being alone in a Museum was a delicious recurring dream of mine, to transgress among objects of such inestimable value. But an empty museum, what would that be, exactly? But then, I have met many people who preferred the Jewish Museum empty of exhibits. Why? Something to do with Freud and the return of the repressed, I suppose. Because what do we dream until we know what we have done? The characters in Fairy tales are hapless innocents – they do not yet inhabit a moral universe.
Bauhaus is our house, Gretel.
What are we allowed to dream? The past rises up with all its vivid detail to mock our progress at every turn. The long past of our own fear. Inside the bear’s head I am aware of my own breathing. Looking out of the jaws at my narrow view, my sweating progress from stimulus to distraction gains some kind of animal momentum – to watch and be watched as a foreign, alien, strange, endearing, imprisoned, animal.
Don’t feed the bears.
Marx wrote that history weighed like a nightmare upon the brains of the living. Without the notion of a God to console history may seem random and uncontrolled. Joyce talks about the nightmare of history as the unbearable contingency of being: the accident of birth that would take more than a lifetime to understand. He chose exile from god and nationality. This is what myth and folktale claim for itself. The long past. Where you cannot cure the past any more than you can prevent the future and redemption is the task the story has set itself to reach a happy ending.
The Neue Nationalgalerie declares that the modern world, so cruelly interrupted, will resume its business from such and such a date.
Tonight, the moon shone brighter than the lights of the Sony Centre.
Did I tell you about the other bear? On the seventh night a bear appeared, identical in every detail, looking through the glass. The security cameras picked it up.
My German brother.
Mein Doppelganger.


Images:
Mark Wallinger
Sleeper
2004
Projected video installation
2 hrs 31 mins

Tate Collection.
Copyright of the artist, Courtesy Anthony Reynolds Gallery.