Event

Screening: What Is Life Without the LivingPost an Event »

Artists’ Television Access

September 23 - September 23, 2010

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992 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110
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Screening: What Is Life Without the Living A, 1995 Luther Price / Margot Kidder, 2005 David Scheid
Program: Margot Kidder 2005, 13 min, video A 1995, 60 min, B&W and Color Super8mm (screened on DVD) $6 Entrance Two experimental works that address queer narrativity will be screened at Artists Television Access. The program title misremembers the opening lyric to the theme to Imitation of Life. The tune hauntingly floods Luther Price’s A (1995). Alongside David Scheid’s video, Margot Kidder (2005), these works reconstruct Hollywood from a space of queer fantasy, creating private narratives from popular fiction. The event is curated by moving-image scholar Bradford Nordeen and co-hosted by local author and critic Kevin Killian. Named one of the top-20 living avant-garde filmmakers in Film Comment’s recent poling, Boston-based super-8 filmmaker Luther Price has been frequently likened to Jack Smith, Karen Finley and Matthew Barney for his raw, visceral cinema. In A (1995) Price concocted the most narrative tale of his 25-year career: a cyclical feature in which a faded starlet (Edie) courts suitor after suitor and fades into an alcoholic Lassie-laden haze. Price portrays the heroine as she spirals deeper into destructive delusions, turning on her lovers like an amped-up Jeanne Dielman. Edie is also a ghostly, childhood memory, based on Price’s mother and her obsessive viewing of woman’s pictures. David Scheid is a video artist whose work addresses pathology and obsessive compulsive disorder. Margot Kidder meticulously reconstructs 3 films from the actress’ golden period to illuminate Kidder’s peculiar personal narrative. Scheid infers that Kidder’s infamous downfall was present all along in these fragile performances. Margot Kidder throws these clues into plain view, presenting a dismaying decoding of these otherwise commercial films. Like Price’s work, the film also serves as an intimate portrait of a male fan’s obsession with a female star. The 13-minute found-footage film is an alarming depiction of the filmmaker’s arousal, disdain, compassion and compulsion towards the eponymous subject. This event will be accompanied by a free publication of images, illustrations, an essay, and artist writings.
Screening: What Is Life Without the Living 'Margot Kidder' 2005, David Scheid / 'A' 1995, Luther Price