HANNE'S ART AND CULTURE BLOG

October 3 to 15, 2007.

Michael Haneke is one of contemporary cinema's most provocative and incisive filmmakers. The most comprehensive U.S. presentation to date, this exhibition includes all of Haneke's theatrical features and the North American premieres of eight Austrian-German television productions. Born in 1942 in Germany, and raised in his current home of Austria, Haneke studied philosophy, psychology, and drama at the University of Vienna before becoming a screenwriter and director of theater, film, and opera. (Upcoming directing projects will be seen at the New York City Opera under General Manager Gerard Mortier.) Much of Haneke's early work—based on his own writing or adapted from modernist and postmodern literature by Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, Ingeborg Bachmann, Peter Rosei, and others—centers on the historical amnesia of Old Europe and its wartime past, and on the loss of identity and individuality, whether during the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (The Rebellion, 1993), in the decade following World War II (Lemmings - Part 1 - Arcadia [1979] and Fraulein [1986]), or in the present day (Three Paths to the Lake [1976], Lemmings - Part Two - Injuries [1979], Variation [1983], and Who Was Edgar Allan? [1984]).

Note that on Ocotber 15, Haneke will introduce Funny Games (1997) in an event called An Evening with Michael Haneke. More info on the screenings here.

Thierry Kuntzel was an internationally known film theorist before he started making eloquent videos and installations. Based primarily in Paris, with several years spent in Berkeley, California, he was preoccupied with time and memory, and with what happens beneath the surface of representation, beyond a narrative story line. In the late 1970s he wrote regularly for Camera Obscura and Film Quarterly Journal and explored the strong subliminal hold of films like The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and King Kong (1933). Absorbed in the work of experimental filmmakers, Kuntzel meticulously analyzed six pivotal frames of Chris Marker's landmark La Jetée (1963) to examine the effect upon viewers of recurrent, highly charged visual images accompanied by forceful, repetitive sound effects.

There is currently an ongoing screening program at the MoMA, organized by Barbara London, entitled In Memoriam: Thierry Kuntzel. Details here.

9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering - a 10 DVD set of films on a legendary series of theater, dance, music and performances at the New York 69th Regiment Armory in 1966 by 10 New York artists: Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, David Tudor, Yvonne Rainer, Deborah Hay, Robert Whitman, Steve Paxton, Alex Hay, Lucinda Childs and Öyvind Fahlström.
You can buy the first ones in the series here.
More on Robert Rauschenberg's Open Score here.

In 1966 10 New York artists worked with 30 engineers and scientists from the world renowned Bell Telephone Laboratories to create groundbreaking performances that incorporated new technology. Video projection, wireless sound transmission, and Doppler sonar - technologies that are commonplace today - had never been seen in the art of the 60's. The 9 Evenings DVD Series is an important documentation of the collaborations between the artists and engineers that produced innovative works using these emerging technologies. These performances still resonate today, as forerunners of the close and rapidly-evolving relationship between artists and technology.

The DVDs – one on each artist’s performance -- will be released sequentially over the next two years with the initial publication of the series: Robert Rauschenberg - Open Score, available Feb 27, 2007, followed by the second in the series: John Cage - Variations VII, available June 26, 2007. Each DVD will be PAL and NTSC system compatible.

Cheburashka (Russian: Чебурашка) is a character in children's literature, from a 1965 story by the Russian writer Eduard Uspensky. He is also the protagonist (voiced by Klara Rumyanova) of the animated film series by Soyuzmultfilm studio, the first episode of which was made in 1969. According to the story, Cheburashka is a funny little animal, unknown to science, who lives in the tropical forest. He accidentally gets into a crate of oranges, eats his fill, and falls asleep.

Cheburashka was chosen as an official mascot for the Russian Olympic Team for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece. Cheburashka dolls were also seen with members of the Russian team in 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. He is also one of the few Russian animation characters to be a subject of numerous Russian jokes and riddles.
The word "Cheburashka" is also used in a figurative sense to name objects that somehow resemble the creature (such as an An-72 aircraft which, when seen from the front, resembles the character's head) or are just as nice as it is (e.g. it's a jargon name for a small bottle of lemonade - from brand name "Cheburashka"). (Via Lars).

"High School Film Studies project (Fall 1978) that explores the concept of freedom through flight. Yes, that's me doing the unplanned (and incredibly awkward) interview with the hang glider. Filmed with a Kodak 8mm film camera in Ellenville, NY (www.ellenvilleflightpark.com)".

This trippy tribute to America's 200th birthday was funded by a Bicentennial Project Grant and animated by Vincent Collins who made other psychedelic cartoons. This film was produced by the United States Information Agency -the government's propaganda agency

Graffiti Rock was a hip-hop based television program, originally screened June 29, 1984. Intended as an on-going series, the show only received one pilot episode and aired on WPIX channel 11 in New York City and a few other markets. The pilot episode has since been released as a DVD and features rare extra material.

Graffiti Rock resembled a hip hop version of the popular television dance shows at the time such as Soul Train and American Bandstand. The show was created and hosted by Michael Holman, who was the manager of the popular break-dancing crew, the New York City Breakers.

The episode features Run D.M.C., Shannon, The New York City Breakers, DJ Jimmie Jazz and Kool Moe Dee and Special K of the Treacherous Three. The New York City Breakers, who were fresh off of their success from the movie, Beat Street, made a showcase appearance. The episode also features television and film actress, Debi Mazar and actor/director Vincent Gallo as dancers on the show.

A segment of the show was sampled on The Beastie Boys' LP Ill Communication. "[...] alright, you're scratchin it right now, cut the record back and forth against the needle, back and forth, back and forth, make it it scratch, but let me tell you something don't try this at home on yor dad's stereo only under hiphop supervision, alright ?" The show has since become an important 'must-see' for hip-hop enthusiasts, alongside such titles as Wild Style and Beat Street.

George Kuchar (born 31 August 1942, New York City) is an American film director, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic, playful use of no-talent actors, plotless plots, and themeless themes. Trained as a commercial artist in a vocational high school, the School of Industrial Art, he drew weather maps for a local news show. During this period, he and his twin brother Mike were making 8 mm movies which were showcased in the then-burgeoning underground film scene alongside films by Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, and Stan Brakhage.

Hedgehog in the Fog (Russian: Ёжик в тума́не, Yozhik v tumane) is a 1975 Soviet animated film directed by Yuriy Norshteyn, produced by the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow. The script (in Russian) was written by Sergei Grigoryevich Kozlov, who also published a book under the same name.

This is a story about a little hedgehog (voiced by Mariya Vinogradova) and his friend bear cub (voiced by Vyacheslav Nevinniy). They would meet every evening to drink tea, converse, and count the stars. One day, the hedgehog decided to bring raspberry marmalade. As he went to the bear to count the stars, he passed through the woods and found a horse standing in a fog. He is curious as to whether the horse would suffocate if it lay down in the fog. Being an explorer, the hedgehog decides to explore the fog.

Hedgehog in the Fog has a fanclub.
If you're interested, this is a history of Russian animation.

"This is a short video experimental"

Composers and Performers is a performance documentation of two groups of friends. In one side you have the documentation of 'Composser Club" and in the other a dance performance that mimics knights and constructivist style movements. The use of Cage and Mozart emphasizes the old and the new style, where Cage's musical style served as an inspiration for the structure of a performance film.

by Cory Arcangel.

Live:

Michael Williams has a great new show of paintings up at Canada in New York! From the press release:
Williams creates a wild funhouse atmosphere glowing with intensely felt self-realization. The acute craziness of Ivan Albright, the ecstatic urbane visions of Florine Stettheimer, and the manically tender paint handling of Jess all collide in some of most unique paintings to hit New York in a long time. Williams has created a determined and highly idiosyncratic surrealism that feels genuine and individual.

Working almost entirely with a small brush, Mr. Williams manages to create texture that takes on an alive quality, similar to a burrowing parasite living under the skin or cream cheese frosting on a carrot cake. Whatever it is, the texture begins to overtake the potentially allegorical or symbolic meanings of the paintings, and launches them into a place all there own. An incredible and sickly world of human excess, the excess of the human mind when it has too much time on its hands.

Williams is a cheerful sort of surrealist, a New England surrealist. With an aptitude for portraiture (even when it is a portrait of a lamb) and a keen attention for detail, his paintings remind of another New England artist, Norman Rockwell. To Williams, the person best qualified to interpret one of his paintings would be his thirteen-year old cousin. Earnest, searching and free, that is the type of person who would feel a strong connection to a world where there are no hierarchies, where art, in the classic sense, is the only thing worth having.

The one and only picture from Frieze Art Fair; courtesy Gavin Brown's Enterprise.

New music video: notice Jay's new interest in contemporary art; Murakami, Hirst, and more...