This week I thought I'd do some film/video artists for this week. Unfortunately, I mainly know about video artists through an avant-garde/experimental film class I took in college that didn't really get into contemporary artists or video. For this reason, most of these people are dead!
Luis Buñeul (1900-1983) was a surrealist filmmaker who worked with Salvador Dali on his first film, the famous Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929). If you haven't seen it you definitely should!
Maya Deren (1917-1961) was an amazing and influential surrealist filmmaker (although she disagreed with being labeled as a surrealist) who only made a handful of fairly short films, and died promptly at age 44 after years of prescription amphetamine use. She was a wild, bohemian artist with strong opinions, she loved to feature herself as an actress and she insisted on specific interpretations of her films, but her work has stood the test of time well, and I find them inspirational.
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
At Land (1944)
Bruce Connor (1933-2008) is not someone who I know a lot about, but his 1958 film "A Movie" is an awesome way of showing you how much our minds want to make connections and associations between unlike things. The fact that he constructed this film from old stock footage is also fascinating, because it shows a history of human interest and focus.
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/3-9tCeFX0Eo/ (not on YouTube unfortunately)
Stan Brakhage (1933-2003) is perhaps the most famous name in experimental cinema. He made hundreds of films over five decades that vary wildly in both content and use of film as a medium. As a professor, he also taught the creators of South Park (a show that I'm not particularly fond of, but which does have its moments).
From an interview with Trey Parker (one of the creators of South Park):
Yeah, Stan was great. He was one of my favorite people at the film school [at UC Boulder]. He's been teaching there for years. He was one of the few people there that was completely supportive of going out and fucking around. A lot of the other film people there were like, "You're wasting your time making a movie; you should be studying theory," and Stan was like, "Fuck it, go fuck around."
A few of my favorites:
Stars are Beautiful (1974)
The Dante Quartet (1987) - paint on film
William Kentridge is a famous contemporary artist from South Africa who you may be familiar with. I actually learned about him in a drawing class I took in college. He has made prints, drawings, tapestries, and even sculpture, but his animated films are incredible. Rather than using tradition cell animation, Kentridge draws and erases over and over again on the same surfaces; since a mark can never totally be erased, the history of his mark making is retained after each step, making beautiful ghost trails. His work speaks for itself. I'm jealous if you've gotten to see his work in real life!
Stereoscope (1999)
I hope that some of you take the time to watch at least one or two of these short videos! Of course, I also love feature length films, whether they be very art/visual based (like the films of Bela Tarr or Andrei Tarkovsky), or the more traditional narrative/entertainment/commercially oriented ones. If you know of more contemporary video artists that I could check out, please let me know!
Some news articles and review from this week, including two (unrelated) articles about art that you "can't see" :
Finally, a funny and interesting stop motion animation centered around the question of "what is art?" If you didn't want to send the time to watch any of the videos above, at least watch this one for a laugh!
Creature Comforts USA - Art
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