Category Archives: FILM

MICHAEL CLARK — COSMIC DANCER

I never really had a plan, except to express myself as purely as possible… I still make work on my own body first, as I always have. I can only understand it from the inside. — Michael Clark

MICHAEL CLARK—COSMIC DANCER, recently at the Barbican, was the first comprehensive retrospective of the British dance artist. Interrupted by the pandemic shutdowns, the exhibition lives on in the catalog, edited by Florence Ostende.

Bringing together materials from his choreographic work and collaborations with artists—including Elizabeth Peyton, Silke Otto-Knapp, Sarah Lucas, Wolfgang Tillmans, Leigh Bowery, Peter Doig, Cerith Wyn Evans, and Duncan Campbell—the book is a beautiful complement to MICHAEL CLARK, a 2011 monograph edited by Suzanne Cotter and Robert Violette.

See link below for details.

MICHAEL CLARK—COSMIC DANCER

Edited by Florence Ostende.

Prestel Publishing

From top: Charles Atlas, Hail the New Puritan (1986), Michael Clark, stills, 16mm film transferred to video, image courtesy and © Charles Atlas and Luhring Augustine; Michael Clark and Company, I Am Curious, Orange, 1988, photograph by Richard Haughton, image courtesy and © the artists and the photographer; Michael Clark, Before and After: The Fall, 2001, in Berlin, Lorena Randi and Victoria Insole, photograph by Andrea Stappert, image courtesy and © the artists and photographer; Clark during the filming of Hail the New Puritan, photograph by Alexander James, image courtesy and © the artists and the photographer; Wolfgang Tillmans, man with clouds, 1998, image courtesy and © the artist, Galerie Buchholz, Maureen Paley, and David Zwirner; Elizabeth Peyton, Michael Clark, 2009, image courtesy and © the artist and Sadie Coles HQ; Silke Otto-Knapp, Group (Formation), 2020, watercolor, image courtesy and © the artist, Galerie Buchholz, and Greengrassi; Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer (2020), edited by Florence Ostende, exhibition catalog cover image—Clark, Mmm, photograph by Hugo Glendinning—courtesy and © the artist, the photographer, the Barbican, and Prestel Publishing; Leigh Bowery and Rachel Auburn in Hail the New Puritan; Clark at the opening of Derek Jarman’s 1984 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, photograph by Steve Pyke; Hail the New Puritan, courtesy and © Atlas and Luhring Augustine; Ellen van Schuylenburch and Clark in Hail the New Puritan, photograph by Haughton. Images courtesy and © the artists, the photographers, and the Barbican.

KYLE ABRAHAM — WHEN WE FELL

The dance event of the season, understandably, happens to be a film. WHEN WE FELL—choreographed by Kyle Abraham and directed by Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant—was commissioned by the New York City Ballet and was shot inside their Lincoln Center home.

WHEN WE FELL is danced by India BradleyJonathan FahouryChristopher GrantClaire KretzschmarLauren LovetteTaylor Stanley, KJ Takahashi, and Sebastian Villarini-Velez. Music for the 16-minute work is by Morton Feldman, Jason Moran, and Nico Muhly.

The film is introduced by dancer-choreographer Wendy Whelan, Associate Artistic Director, New York City Ballet. See link below for free streaming details to the film as well as the short RETURN TO FORM: CREATING KYLE ABRAHAM’S WHEN WE FELL.

WHEN WE FELL

Directed by Kyle Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant.

New York City Ballet

Streaming through April 22

Kyle Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant, When We Fell (2021), stills by Helfant. Images © Kyle Abraham and Ryan Marie Helfant, courtesy of the artists and New York City Ballet.

SHATARA MICHELLE FORD — TEST PATTERN

Some of the ideas that I wanted to express with the character of Renesha come from the many moments in the film where she’s pushed to the background, or to the side, or is out of focus. That’s for a reason, to make you think about how we choose not to see or hear people. Then in the moments where I let you sit with her, what do you notice in what she’s not saying? All of that was intentional. — Shatara Michelle Ford

In her feature debut TEST PATTERN, writer-director Ford presents her case—against the ineptitudes of the health care system, the inadequacies of the police, and the insidious predations of hipster Austin’s bro-culture—against a wonderfully sensitive consideration of the relationship between Renesha (Brittany S. Hall) and Evan (Will Brill), before and after a sexual assault.

Streaming now on the Kino Marquee. See link below for details.

TEST PATTERN

Written and directed by Shatara Michelle Moore.

Kino Marquee

Now streaming.

Shatara Michelle Ford, Test Pattern (2019), from top: Brittany SHall; Will Brill; Test Pattern poster; Amani Starnes; Ford. Images courtesy and © the filmmaker and Kino Lorber.

ON WOJNAROWICZ

On the occasion of the streaming release of WOJNAROWICZ—F**K YOU F*GGOT F**CKER, filmmaker Chris McKim will join editor Dave Stanke and artist-activist Leo Herrera in conversation.

The film features commentary by Fran Lebowitz, Peter Hujar, Kiki Smith, Richard Kern, Nan Goldin, and Carlo McCormick. See links below for information.

WOJNAROWICZ Q & A—CHRIS MCKIM, DAVE STANKE, and LEO HERRERA

Film Forum

Tuesday, March 30.

4 pm on the West Coast, 7 pm East Coast.

WOJNAROWICZ—F**K YOU F*GGOT F**KER

Directed by Chris McKim.

Laemmle Virtual Cinema

Through April 1.

Chris McKim, Wojnarowicz (2020), from top: Untitled, David Wojnarowicz image courtesy of the David Wojnarowicz Papers, Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University; Wojnarowicz, image courtesy of Tom Rauffenbart; Wojnarowicz poster courtesy and © World of Wonder and Kino Lorber; David Wojnarowicz, Fuck You Faggot Fucker, 1984, image © the Estate of David Wojnarowicz, courtesy of the estate and P.P.O.W.; Wojnarowicz, image © the Estate of David Wojnarowicz, courtesy of the estate and P.P.O.W.

ALICE NEEL — VIRTUAL SCREENING

In her beautiful, hard, and certain essay, “The Love of God and Affliction,” the religious philosopher Simone Weil said: “The great enigma of human life is not suffering but affliction. It is not surprising that the innocent are killed, tortured, driven from their country, made destitute or reduced to slavery, imprisoned in camps or cells, since there are criminals to perform such actions.” I am certain that Alice Neel, more than many an American artist, had a deep understanding of affliction. She did not use her work to escape it, but rather to plunge further into it—into the trauma of being despised, or forsaken. Indeed, if she had any credo as an artist, it was to show us ourselves, and herself, even when (or especially when) it was dangerous and hard to do so. Hilton Als*

ICA Boston presents the singular documentary ALICE NEEL—directed by her grandson Andrew. See link below for streaming information.

ALICE NEEL

Directed by Andrew Neel.

ICA Boston

Through April 1.

*Hilton Als, “Carmen and Judy, 1972,” in Alice Neel, Uptown (New York: David Zwirner Books: London: Victoria Miro, 2017), 111.

Andrew Neel, Alice Neel (2007), from top: Alice Neel; Neel with her sons Richard (left) and Hartley. Images courtesy and © the filmmaker and SeeThink Productions.