Reading Response 7: Due TUESDAY November 23

Please note due date, not due before class this week but by Tuesday of next week (to compensate for the late posting).

1. First, as requested earlier, post your response to Peggy Awhesh's Martina's Playhouse.

Keller and Ward, "Matthew Barney and the Paradox of the Neo-Avant-Garde Blockbuster"

2. What has changed in the gallery art world that allows Barney to describe his work as “sculpture”? In other words, how has the definition of sculpture changed since the 1960s, and why?

Performance art has developed out of and in relation to sculptural practices –principally minimalism – leading to the destabilization of sculpture as an object (both physically and discursive).

Barney claims his performance and art as a “family of objects.”

3. Tricky but important question: Why was minimalist sculpture seen as a reaction against the “modernist hymns to the purity and specificity of aesthetic experience”? In other words: Why do they say that minimalist sculpture is post-modernist?

Minimalism issued a call to understand the experience of art as public, in the sense that viewers were to discover the meaning of the object in their interaction with its context.

A couple things, Modernist were more about exploiting their medium. And Post-modernism was opening the range of materials, artwork being about the process of art, not the end result, questioning the medium specifity and encouraging intermedia, questioning the role of the artist, and pastiche.

Star Wars is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Cremaster is once upon a time in a gallery far, far uptown. (pastiche).

Minimalism encourages intermedia (“the family of objects”) and the process of the artwork as does post-modernism.

4. Describe the role of the body in the works of Vito Acconci and Chris Burden. You may wish to consult the following links to supplement the descriptions in the readings:

http://www.ubu.com/film/acconci.html

http://www.ubu.com/film/burden.html

Acconci felt the body is the source of minimalism. Ex. Seedbed (1972), masturbating 6 hours a day, two days a week. Burden is another artist whose transition into performance was mediated by minimalism, whose performance can be seen to be both enabled by and critical of minimalism. Ex. Slightly peculiar gym equipment (mistaken for traditional object sculpture). Burden put himself through a lot of pain for his art. Getting shot in the arm, pushpins stuck in his body by the audience, lying in bed for 22 days (others had to take care of his needs with no instructions).

Performance= endurance connected to physicality

Avant-garde = duration is purely temporal

Burden used his body and performance by sitting still atop a stool for forty-three hours until he fell. The audience was those in attendance (even if passer-bys) and secondary audience would experience his work in documentation.

5. In the opinion of the authors, what are the key differences between performance art of the 1960s/1970s and Barney’s Cremaster cycle? What do they mean by the term "blockbuster" in relation to the gallery art world?

In the 1960’s and 1970’s had a tension between presence and absence, between an event and it’s dispersal through time, so as to consider the relations between body and the way it is mediated. In Barney’s Cremaster, the body is akin more to the iconic status of the movie star’s on screen body, mythologizing system.

Barney insisted that the function of his films is “to generate sculpture.” Props and sets are relics of performance art. Climbing the walls of the Guggenheim was to remove the temple-like quality of museums, bringing the viewer from the status of pilgrim to that of patron.

It is rumored $8 Million was spent on making Cremaster, only grossing $515,000, yet is considered a success in the art world. Being a financial bomb puts it in the realm of an art success. With Barbara Gladstone Gallery refusing to discuss the film’s budget, it places the film in a realm of priceless and above such concerns. Also, Barney’s film is not distributed for or to the public, which is unlike most avant-garde film (they usually try to get anyone who is willing, to exhibit their film).

Hard Body Redux = Rambo, Die Hard, Terminator, Lethal Weapon, how much can they endure?

Walley, "Modes of Film Practice in the Avant-Garde"

6. What is meant by “mode of film practice”?

The two bodies of work tentatively identified thus far as “avant-garde cinema” and “artists film” are the two different modes of practice in the avant-garde. The term ‘mode of film practice’ refers to the cluster of historically bound institutions, practices and concepts that form a context within which cinematic media are used. These are defined by the formal and stylistic norms used to create the work.

Give two well known examples of non-experimental modes of film practice. Why does Walley argue that the concept of the mode of film practice can help distinguish between the experimental film and gallery art worlds?

It’s not just the production of the works that define wether is traditional (ha) avant-garde or a new form of art cinema, it is also the methods of distribution, exhibition, and reception of viewing that separate the two.

7. What are some of the key differences between the experimental and gallery art worlds in terms of production and distribution?

Avant-garde cinema is acollaborative, meaning the filmmaker controls every aspect of production from the initial conception of the film’s idea to post production, even sometimes being in the film itself. Their films are scarce due to budget. These works are more abstract. Avant-garde cinema, film is the artist’s primary and often sole medium.

Artist’s film is collaborative as we see in Matthew Barney’s Cremaster. Meaning they have many individuals such as cinematographers, editors, sound recordists, composers, etc., although a lot of the worker’s names are subsumed under the rubric of the auteur. Their films are limited in hopes of making it valuable due to scarcity. Because of the higher costs involved galleries sometimes contribute financially to the works. The works connote both narrative and illusionism. Film is but one medium of many to the artist.

White cube of the gallery

Sculptural Space

Mobile viewer

Enables freedom of choice and movement among viewers

Black box of the theatre

Film’s two dimension

Seated cinema spectator

Constriction of the viewer’s temporal and spatial experience

Reading Response 6: Due Nov. 3 @ 5 p.m.

Michael Zryd, "The Academy of the Avant-Garde : A Relationship of Dependence and Resistance"

1. What changes in the American avant-garde are associated with the rise of structural film and the creation of Anthology Film Archives in 1970?

The avant-garde of the 60’s became an institutionalized legitimacy with the establishment of Anthology Film Archives and “structural film:

How does these changes affect:

a. The participants (filmmakers, critics) in the avant-garde community?

They “came in from the cold” I feel like they mean there was now more organization to these avant-garde filmmaker’s works, they were being taking serious enough to even teach their work now. Some filmmaker’s worried about the “theory” and pretentiousness that came along with academization. I found this a very interesting thought, “paradox of success as proof of failure”. If their film was embraced by academization, it had failed the avant-garde. I suppose I understand, I don’t want a scientist breaking down/analyzing an abstract picture I painted. If the scientist likes it, then maybe I wasn’t creative enough. And what does a scientist know about art anyways, who is he to judge my work?

b. Canon formation (which films are considered “important,” and taught in classes).

This canon-formation favored established filmmakers and those well-liked by academic fashion at the expense of young developing artist. With cutbacks in arts and education, led to a scarcity of resources creating an increased tension in the avant-garde film world. With the canon, it does not allow enough work by new filmmakers to be screened.

c. Distribution and exhibition practices.

Even by 1967 when Michael Snow came out with Wavelength, already 60% of the AG films were academic rentals. (reflecting the explosive growth of film studies). Exhibition in classrooms instead of theater is considered a betrayal of the 1960’s energy.
AG was an “underground fad”, Hollywood shifted to a more relaxed censorship regulations (one of AG selling points), recession of the 1970s created budgetary restrictions, and AG film had a visible decline in the the 1970s. The unruly, chaotic, free and rebellious AG from the 1960’s to the 1970’s was replaced by a tamed formalist, theory driven, institutional art world and university culture. In the 1980’s AG was “taught rather than fought”.

2. Briefly explain the debate between autonomy and engagement within the avant-garde. How does this debate play out in the 1980s?

The source of AG film is the desire to resist mainstream or established structures, institutions and values. The AG filmmaker “authenticity” or “personal urgency could be compromised by an academic establishment. However, the desire for purity and autonomy could be achieved through the film’s engagement with society (breaking down distinctions between art and life).

3. What are the negative aesthetic connotations of the “academic avant-garde film”?

According to Fred Camper “one quality of academic art is that it avoids reflecting the complexities, the contradictions, the violent impulses of a life lived with passion, in favor of the airless repetition of the techniques of part art.”
One positive, the classroom offers a potentially critical and collective experience in cinema viewing rather than passive theatrical product consumption.
What is the major critique from new filmmakers who emerged in the 1980s?
While some attacked the academization as institutionalization in the 1980s, most AG filmmakers, co-ops and other institutions ignored the university as a site for consideration.
AG fosters critical thinking for the universities and shows they tolerate free expression.
AG has been in academia since the 1920’s but boomed in 68-69.

4. What are the five legacies of the academicization of the avant-garde?

1) the maintenance of distribution co-ops, as the classroom became the dominant site of exhibition
2) regionalization, as centers of avant-garde film activity expanded beyond New York to multiple regional sites
3) publication mechanisms for the writing and dissemination of the history, criticism, and theory of the avant-garde
4) employment for filmmakers as faculty or technical personnel
5) development of second (and third) generation students becoming filmmakers, critics, teachers, programmers, and archivists.

Broadening classroom screenings by not restricting themselves to a canon.
The support of universities can be seen as essential for the support and survival of AG film.

5. Name at least three similarities between the punk music scene and the punk/no-wave filmmaking scene, in terms of technology, style, and community.

If someone could just pickup a guitar and play then someone could just pickup a camera and film. Learn as you go. The rotation of roles in films was used as would be the rotation of instruments in the band. They enlisted their friends to act in films, much the same way bands formed based on social connections. The films produced by this run-and-gun style were as raw and aggressive as No Wave music.

6. What were the exhibition venues for punk/no-wave films such as those by Beth B. and Scott B., and how did the venues affect film content and style?

Frequently, they screened their work in rock clubs like CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. The goal was a populist cinema that could connect with the audience outside the art world. Screenings at the New Cinema (opened by Nares and Mitchell through “Colab” were fun. You could drink beer, some whatever, talk back to the screen. Scott B and Beth B were more interested in ideas and political issues and actually having their work speak. The sound screeching in the film Black Box reminds me of Warhol’s use of this same intensity in public viewings.

7. What are some similarities and differences between the American avant-garde we have studied so far and the Punk or No Wave filmmaking in the late 1970s? Address the following areas:

a. Aesthetic similarities and differences (which filmmakers do the cite as influences, which filmmakers do they reject?)

A conscious separation between the Punk and the Michael Snows and Jonas Mekases. Punk wanted to make films where people in the audience talked back. Super 8 was cheap enough for non-professionals, associated with home movies, which added the connotation of unscripted reality. Also, it makes me think of Andy Warhol and Fluxus as anyone could make a movie. More Andy Warhol, bc they just pointed and pushed a button on the camera the way Andy would push the button and leave the camera, whatever happens, happened. I think the AG though used 16 mm. Amos Poe, generally considered the first No Wave filmmaker. Poe found inspiration in the main pioneers of New Wave – Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer. In print they championed Hollywood filmmakers such as John Ford and Nicholas Ray.

b. Technological similarities and differences

Both AG and Punk used the technology they could get their hands on. Super 8 film, like Jack Smith finding his film in dumpsters. Use of non-actors, and no costly crew.

c. Economic similarities and differences

Both did not have a lot of money to spend on their movies and financed by themselves. AG is
similar to punk, as they sought working methods that were fast, cheap, and easy to learn. Different in that modernist and structuralist AG want to exploit their mechanisms of making film. Post modernism is more about human tendencies I feel similar to Punk.
The comment of “the process was learned by making all the mistakes along the way” reminds me of Andy Warhol’s films, Vinyl.

d. Social similarities and differences

Both AG and punk exhibited elements of their own personalities and their histories. They were both against making films like mainstream. In the late 1970’s Poe wanted to create a movement similar to the Nouvelle Vague on the 1950’s. That “anyone-can attitude is No Wave Cinema’s strongest legacy.” Created by a whole community in NY starting in the late 1970’s.
Janet Cutler, “Su Friedrich, Breaking the Rules”

8. In what ways does Friedrich “break the rules” in terms of mixing filmmaking practices?

Her films are a mixed genre in nature, they juxtapose avant-garde, documentary, and narrative modes. She uses private material, blends the past and present, displaces painful experiences into ironic tales using humor, mixes popular culture and gender politics, and makes use of conventional melodrama.

How have different critics approached her different films?

As auto-ethnography or domestic ethnography, with her films as personal history implicated in larger social formations and historical processes. Critics like Bruce Jenkins credit Friedrich with reworking the traditions of avant-garde, turning existing film practices to her own purposes.
What kinds of avant-garde sub-genres has she explored?
The psychodrama Damned if you Don’t, the trance film Gently Down the Stream, the structural film Sink or Swim, and the diary film Rules of the Road.

9. What are some of the distinguishing characteristics of “Sink or Swim”?

Domestic ethnography that in assembling a portrait of her father as other, Friedrich is also representing the self. Friedrich establishes a rigorous structure – twenty six scenes, each corresponding to a letter of a reversed alphabet from Z to A – to address painful but ultimately liberating childhood memories.
Sink or Swim contains Friedrich’s most complex interweaving of sounds and images and includes a mix between past and present, poetry and reportage.
Also, the film material’s include home movie footage, tv images, educational and documentary footage, and some newly shot images.