“Film and Video from The Kitchen’s Archive” Exhibition
Paula Cooper Gallery "521 W 21 St."
This event has ended.
he Paula Cooper Gallery presents an exhibition of film, documentary footage, and archival material organized in collaboration with The Kitchen’s Tim Griffin, Matthew Lyons, and Lumi Tan. The exhibition opens on January 14 at 521 W 21st Street with the screening of Two Moon July (1986), which will be on view through February 13. On January 24, the exhibition will be expanded to include a selection of related B reels and rehearsal footage, as well as original performance materials.
Produced by Carlota Schoolman and directed by Tom Bowes, Two Moon July features an eclectic array of video, film, visual art, performance, and music compiled in clips to form a 60-minute montage celebrating the Kitchen’s 15th anniversary. Bowes created the production by cropping and sampling footage from video and film works as well as recordings of multiple durational performances, many taped in The Kitchen’s former SoHo location. The space had been specially outfitted for the recording as an outré, hot-lit theatrical stage with installations by Jonathan Borofsky, Brian Eno, Robert Longo, and Cindy Sherman, which appear in the final production.
The compilation opens with a clip of Laurie Anderson performing Difficult Listening Hour, in which the artist delivers an introduction to a fictional radio show. In a snippet from David Byrne’s Report from LA, the Talking Heads frontman frantically recites titles of real and imagined movies that he can’t wait to see. Short segments of film and video works by Michel Auder, Dara Birnbaum, and Bruce Conner, among others, are interspersed with Bowes’ selections from the taped performances, a list which also includes Molissa Fenley, Bill T. Jones, Philip Glass, Arto Lindsay, and John and Evan Lurie. The production, in retrospect, reads like a prescient compilation of works by artists who would become icons of their time.
Two Moon July aired as a one-hour television special on PBS in the autumn of 1987. The production experimented with new modes of presenting the arts for television, reflecting a time when the diversity and creativity of the New York avant-garde was beginning to reach a broader audience, and when contemporary art centers like The Kitchen were exploring television as a new instrument for disseminating content. Founded in 1971, The Kitchen is an internationally acclaimed art and performance space committed to showing innovative works by artists from every field and area of culture.
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Schedule
from January 15, 2014 to February 12, 2014