Cinema and Painting Screening Tonight at NZ Film Archive

Screening: Turbulence: The Ocean as Cinematic Space
Curated with Philippe-Alain Michaud, Curator of Film, Georges Pompidou Centre, France

Nathaniel Dorsky, Alaya, 1976-87, 16mm, b/w, silent, 28 mins

Heinrich Hauser, WINDJAMMER UND JANMAATEN. DIE LETZTE SEGELSCHIFFE (Windjammer and Sailors: The Last Sailboats), 1930, 35mm, b/w, silent, 48 mins
Live music accompaniment by Jonathan Berkahn on piano accordion

Two film poems explore the atmospheric drama of an interaction of sea, sky, and sand in this special “live” cinema event. Generously supported by the Embassy of France.

The river is within us, the sea is all about us. – T.S. Eliot

Saturday 22 February, 6pm
New Zealand Film Archive Wellington
$10/$8 entry

Harry Dean Stanton Documentary

So-called "character actors" are much maligned, at least until they become "movie stars." One case in point might be the amazing Harry Dean Stanton, who although he has appeared in over 200 films, might be unknown to many (particularly younger folk). Beyond his prolific body of work in films great to mediocre to awful, he offers a spookily resonant presence. Sometimes this has been used to great advantage, as in Wim Wenders' film from Sam Shepard's screenplay Paris, Texas. In that role, Stanton didn't even utter a word for the first third of the movie, but was intensely, compellingly watchable. Just saw a rather pedestrian European documentary on this riveting subject, and if you are interested in Stanton at all, it's probably still worth a look (trailer below). As this "actor's actor" is generally taciturn and dry, many of the comments are left to "star" friends including David Lynch (who directed Stanton in six films) and Debbie Harry (who wrote a song about him). In Wenders' estimation, Stanton "allowed himself to be very vulnerable. ... he dared to be fragile." I'm now keen to revisit some of Stanton's voluminous filmography, including Repo Man, the Missouri Breaks, Alien, and The Straight Story. Many will be most familiar with his creepy Mormon patriarch on HBO's Big Love. Stanton consistently evinces so much emotional resonance in even his slightest roles, yet shrugs off a lot of his formidable craft as "playing himself."

Documentary, Switzerland 2012 Director: Sophie Huber Production: Hugofilm International Sales: First Hand Films Producers: Christian Davi, Chiemi Karasawa, Christof Neracher, Thomas Thümena Executive producers: Sophie Huber, Seamus McGarvey Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey Music: Harry Dean Stanton, Jamie James Editors: Angelo Corrao, Russell Greene No MPAA rating, 76 minutes An iconic actor in his intimate moments, with film clips from some of his 250 films and his own heart-breaking renditions of American folk songs.

Simon Starling Exhibition in Wellington

An extensive overview of the Copenhagen-based British artist Simon Starling opened last night at the Wellington City Gallery. From what I could ascertain, between the limbs and over the shoulders of the sizeable, mostly well-dressed (unlike myself) art crowd, it's a very impressive show with much to recommend, nicely representative of Starling's interdisciplinary, evocative hybridized practice that incorporates aspects of cinema, photography, installation, and sculpture with a heavy emphasis on looking at historical fact and fiction, objects and illusions. Will be musing a lot more about this in my upcoming review of the show for the NZ Listener. For more info on the show including some other links, see: http://www.citygallery.org.nz/exhibitions/simon-starling-speculum And if you're in Wellington this evening, the Turner Prize-winning artist will be delivering a free lecture at 6 PM. http://citygallery.org.nz/events/open-late-international-guest-lecture-simon-starling

Review of South of No North exhibition just posted

Just got back from Splore festival up north and will be reporting on that soon, when I get some images and words together...for now my review of Wellington City Gallery's "South of No North" exhibition featuring artists Lawrence Aberhart, William Eggleston, and Noel McKenna was just posted on EyeContact.

Back next week!

Hi intrepid subscribers and stumblers upon: taking a short break from the blog posts, will be back atcha next week. For now here's a little musical interlude from guitar virtuoso Junior Brown!

Here is a new playlist for his latest video playlist that I created....http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZK9yFhXveIWvWYSOq9bhOTCeDSRXl6E- To see Junior perform live catch a show at these locations and times...http://www.juniorbrown.com/junior-brown-tour-dates... This is a Junior Brown Rock & Roll medley that I have never heard him perform before.

Dave Hickey Lecture: What in the hell is a famous art critic?

A very long time ago, when I was undertaking my MFA studies, a visiting critic wearing a Las Vegas-emblazoned silver satin jacket told me, when viewing my art on display for a critique—I was enamored at that time with using found objects and texts in an academicized postmodern manner—“These records [some 45s I’d altered slightly] would be worth more as records than as art.” This kind of irreverent witticism, which was Dave Hickey’s trademark, seemed a bit more charming if you weren’t the target of said remark. Of course he was right…I’ve grown to thoroughly enjoy Hickey’s writings, and I’ve learned a lot from them, particularly his luminous anthology entitled Air Guitar, although I virtually never agree with his views. He has delivered roughly the same lecture for about the last decade or so, however entertaining, most recently in support of his new volume called Pirates and Farmers, published late last year. Here is a talk given in Houston Texas in December. If you are unfamiliar with Hickey’s general spiel on the “state of the art,” it is a fairly representative one in terms of his railing against arts funding, political correctness, academic institutions, and his nostalgic love of the good old days when he was a bad young man.

Alexander Payne's Nebraska

A huge recommendation for critically-acclaimed American indie director Alexander Payne’s most recent film Nebraska. The film is shot beautifully in black and white and delivers a subtle visual rendering of a broad comic premise: an aging alcoholic played by actor Bruce Dern attempts to collect on his million dollar sweepstakes “winnings” by traveling hundreds of miles with his son, who humors him (to a degree) in hopes of becoming closer. Dark at times, but essentially a stark tribute and character study drawing upon Payne’s own connections to the Midwestern US. The film recalls both David Lynch’s The Straight Story and the movies of the 1970s and 80s that paid tribute to earlier eras of monochromatic filmmaking from Peter Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon to Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law. I’ve loved Bruce Dern’s performances ever since I saw him (and he scared the daylights outa me) in reruns of old westerns and biker movies, or as the Vietnam vet in Coming Home or the pilot of the Goodyear blimp in Black Sunday. Dern’s Woody Grant in Nebraska is a well-written role allowing for a finely tuned performance by a great actor. 

http://www.joblo.com - "Nebraska" Official Trailer (HD) Alexander Payne After receiving a sweepstakes letter in the mail, a cantankerous father (Bruce Dern) thinks he's struck it rich, and wrangles his son (Will Forte) into taking a road trip to claim the fortune.

Jutta Koether and Kim Gordon performance

I've always been a huge Sonic Youth fan and will continue to be, despite their breakup. (never say never???) But it's also been really intriguing to see the upswing in visibility of and interest in the spectacular Kim Gordon, who has been performing in her new band-duo (with Bill Nace) Body/Head, and also with artist Jutta Koether often in museum contexts, such as here at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 2011--noisy arty fun--and more recently in conjunction with the travelling Mike Kelley retrospective. And are the second lives of indie icons via Twitter these days? Gordon has a very active Twitter feed, and has garnered lots of publicity for appearing on Lena Dunham's HBO series Girls. I was struck by the cool imagery on her tweets, such as below a superstar-bohemian garden party snapshot featuring Gordon, Michael Stipe, and the venerable William S. Burroughs. Yikes--several of my past obsessions compressed into a single photographic mashup!

John Peel's Captain Beefheart Documentary

Although I am terribly addicted to them, most rock music documentaries suck. The one I'm (re-)posting here does not. Here's the late British DJ-Legend John Peel's 1997 BBC documentary on his hero Don Van Vliet, or The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart. This one (short) hour contains much info, great sounds, and rare clips pertaining to one of the most important (and still underrated) artists of the late 20th Century. As Peel comments in his intro: "I've heard echoes of his music in some of the records I listened to last week, and I'll hear more echoes in the records I listen to this week. Nevertheless, no one has ever sounded quite like him." Van Vliet died in 2010 at the age of 69, but his innovative achievements in music, painting, and really fucked up neo-Surrealistic wordplay and imagery will be lasting.

Video artist Doug Aitken's series of conversations: "The Source"

Video artist Doug Aitken has been recording conversations with a wide range of cultural figures from the fields of visual art, music, cinema, photography, and architecture for his recent installation work entitled The Source. No stranger to the interview format, Aitken published the 2005 book Broken Screen: Expanding the Image, Breaking the Narrative, which in a rather similar manner offered up discussions with twenty-six other artists. Several iterations of The Source, an ongoing project, have been already shown, most recently at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival held in January, and earlier on in Liverpool, England. Interviewees include: Beck, Liz Diller, Theaster Gates, Mike Kelley, Tilda Swinton, Jack Pierson, and James Turrell. (Jack White: "Do we want Michelangelo or Robert Johnson to have a blog? We don't want to. We are telling people exactly what we think about certain topics. I don’t know what Robert Johnson or Michelangelo thought about those topics. There’s beauty in that mystery.") Aitken's website for the Source project archives much interesting material at: dougaitkenthesource.com/