Los Angeles Art Shows- “Agnés Varda in Californialand” at LACMA

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Films, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Video and Film
Dec 072013
 

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Image from Agnés Varda in Californialand at LACMA

Tonight (12/7) at 7:30pm, LIONS LOVE (…AND LIES) is playing at LACMA along with Black Panthers.

Info from LACMA’s website for this event:

Agnès Varda’s first-ever American feature film was shot while she was living in Los Angeles with husband Jacques Demy (his own U.S. debut, Model Shop, was released the same year). LIONS LOVE (…AND LIES) finds Warhol superstar Viva joined by Hair cocreators James Rado and Gerome Ragni as the trio, in various states of undress, play host to visiting cinéma vérité luminary Shirley Clarke (The Cool World, Portrait of Jason) in a Hollywood bungalow. Sunsoaked Southern California counterculture, New York bohemia, and Left Bank abandon all intermingle in this film about a film. LIONS LOVE (…AND LIES) graced the debut cover of Warhol’s Interview magazine and is Varda’s anarchic paean to the age of aquarius and Tinseltown transience with guest spots by everyone from Eddie Constantine to Peter Bogdanovich. This is an encore screening of the brand-new, LACMA-supported restoration of this film—in partnership with the Annenberg Foundation and The Film Foundation—which is also the inspiration for the filmmaker’s LACMA exhibit Agnès Varda in Californialand.

Also screening, Black Panthers (1969, 30 minutes, color, DCP)—another film newly restored by LACMA, the Annenberg Foundation and The Film Foundation—and Varda’s American debut: a powerful document of the eponymous Oakland movement’s efforts to free activist Huey Newton.

Some interesting facts about Viva– aside from being one of the stars of this film and Warhol’s movies, she also had small parts in Paris, Texas; Midnight Cowboy; and Play It Again, Sam. Both her daughters, Alexandra Auder and Gaby Hoffman, are actresses as well. She currently lives and paints in Palm Springs.

Definitely two films worth checking out. If you miss this screening, clips from the LIONS LOVE(…AND LIES) are playing in the exhibition as well.

Los Angeles Art Shows- “The End of the Night” at LACE based on Henri-Georges Clouzot film “L’Enfer”

 Art, Artists, Films, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Sound Art, Video and Film
Nov 142013
 

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Images from the film L’Enfer by Henri-Georges Clouzot

From the press release for The End of the Night:

LACE is proud to continue the collaboration with Ceci N’est Pas… in presenting The End of the Night, organized by curator Martha Kirszenbaum and designed by Exhibition Designer Marianne Zamecznik, is a bold group exhibition exploring the impact of French filmmaker, Henri-Georges Clouzot and his unfinished 1963-1964 film, L’Enfer, on notions of abstraction, the kinetic, and optical illusions in contemporary French art. For this exhibition, Kirszenbaum has invited five artists whose works reflect on Clouzot’s pictorial and sound experimentation and respond to his visual and sensorial imagination: a historical figure, Julio Le Parc, and four emerging artists, Florian & Michael Quistrebert, Isabelle Cornaro and Pierre-Laurent Cassière. Kirszenbaum’s project is a double exhibition – the other half taking place at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, emphasizing a similarly themed exploration of the work of Los Angeles experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger.

When you see the clips from Clouzot’s film at this show, it is easy to see how it could inspire an exhibition.  His use of spinning lights to create the illusion of changes in the actress’s face is one of the more mesmerizing aspects of the film.

One of the standouts from the show is the double channel projection video installation, The Eighth Sphere, by Florian & Michael Quistrebert.  The two projections of geometrical shapes merge and separate creating interesting effects.

Also at LACE tonight (11/14) there is a town hall forum that is open to the public.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Candice Breitz at Perry Rubenstein Gallery

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Video and Film
Nov 132013
 

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Image from the film- The Audition- by Candice Breitz

From the press release for her show, The Woods, at Perry Rubenstein Gallery –

The Woods encompasses installations filmed in three of the world’s leading centers of film production – Hollywood (Los Angeles, USA), Bollywood (Mumbai, India) and Nollywood (Lagos, Nigeria). Two of the three installations that make up the trilogy – The Audition (filmed in Los Angeles) and The Rehearsal (filmed in Mumbai) – present aspiring and working child actors, situating them in scenarios in which they ventriloquize voices and personae that would typically belong to adults. The third installation, The Interview (filmed in Lagos), features two adult actors who are best known on the African continent for their portrayal of child characters, and mimics the format of a conventional celebrity interview. As suggested by their titles, The Audition, The Rehearsal and The Interview zoom in on generally unseen show business rituals, which collectively become the loci of meaning through which Breitz reflects on and decodes the myth-making machinery of mainstream cinema.

The Audition, pictured above, has two video sets running at the same time- the child actor’s screen tests on one wall and on another wall, a set of screens with different child actors alternating between performing lines of advice from industry professionals, introducing themselves, and singing songs. The juxtaposition between their reading the words of adults and their free-form (no direction was given) screen tests, really accentuates this world where children grow up early for the sake of fame.

Each of these installations run close to or longer than an hour (the longest is 76 minutes). That said, they make an impression even without being seen in their entirety.

Films to Watch- Room 237

 Films, Halloween, Holiday Guides, Los Angeles Events, Los Angeles Halloween, Video and Film
Oct 262013
 

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The Shining is playing at LA State Historic Park tonight (10/26).

If you love The Shining, it is also worth watching Room 237, now on Netflix. It is filled with interesting theories on the potential meaning of the images used in the film.  Different interviewees suggest it could be about the Holocaust or Native American genocide or even Kubrick’s confession to taking part in the faking of the moon landing.  It’s a fascinating new look into an already captivating movie.

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