Warren Sonbert Retrospective at Tate Modern
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GME News
Warren Sonbert's AMPHETAMINE and Other Works Featured in Recent Exhibitions in NYC & London
/AMPHETAMINE, along with other films by Warren Sonbert, was recently featured in two presentations - one in New York and one in London - each focusing on the works of queer and underground filmmakers.
04/25/2012 •NEW YORK•DIRTY LOOKS
Dirty Looks is a Monthly Platform for
Queer Experimental Film and Video
Bradford Nordeen's April program featured works by
"two key figures in queer and underground film"
Warren Sonbert and Tom Chomont.
The program included Warren Sonbert's
AMPHETAMINE (1966, with Wendy Appel),
DIVIDED LOYALTIES (1975-78) and
HONOR AND OBEY (1987).
04/14/2012 •LONDON• THE LITTLE JOE CLUBHOUSE
The Little Joe Clubhouse is a unique
temporary film space from the creators of
AMPHETAMINE (1966), was presented by Stuart Comer,
Film Curator at London's Tate Modern.
Two Films by Warren Sonbert at LIGHT INDUSTRY
/Wednesday, December 15, 2010 at 7pm
Light Industry at ISSUE Project Room:
Two Films by Warren Sonbert
The Old American Can Factory
232 3rd Street
Brooklyn, New York
The Cup and the Lip, Warren Sonbert, 16mm, 1986, 20 mins
Friendly Witness, Warren Sonbert, 16mm, 1989, 32 mins
With readings by Charles Bernstein, Corrine Fitzpatrick, and Carla Harryman.
Though Warren Sonbert has frequently been described as a maker of diary films, the label fails to capture the emotional and formal intricacies at play in his work. In less than twenty films made from 1966 to the mid-90s—his career caught short by his death from AIDS at age 47—Sonbert’s primary method was indeed the creation of dense montages from 16mm shot in the course of daily life. The same images and ideas were often reused in different permutations for new films and, through this process, footage of his friends and colleagues attains an iconic status that transcends its documentary valence, becoming vibrant evocations of Sirkian melodrama. "I think the films I make are, hopefully, a series of arguments,” Sonbert said of his own work, “with each image, shot, a statement to be read and digested in turn." The rich use of color and delicately punctuated editing also point to the influence of his mentor, Gregory Markopoulos, and Sonbert’s love of Hitchcock, Kenneth Anger, and opera.
The Cup and the Lip and Friendly Witness both date from the late 1980s, when Sonbert was refining and deepening his use of montage. Amy Taubin noted that The Cup and the Lip “is so dense it's impossible to apprehend it at a single viewing,” calling it “Sonbert's darkest work." Precisely composed of 645 individual shots over 22 minutes, set to girl-group songs and the overture to Christoph Willibald von Gluck’s 18th-century opera Iphigeneia in Aulis, Friendly Witness was Sonbert’s return to sound after two decades of purely silent films. Tonight’s event pairs Sonbert with readings by three poets—Charles Bernstein, Corrine Fitzpatrick, and Carla Harryman—a testament to the fact that, though long-admired as a filmmaker’s filmmaker, he always worked in conversation with other forms, literary and otherwise.
Charles Bernstein is author of All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010), Blind Witness: Three American Operas (Factory School, 2008); Girly Man (University of Chicago Press, 2006), and My Way: Speeches and Poems (Chicago, 1999). From 1978-1981 he co-edited, with Bruce Andrews L=A=N=G=U=A=G=Emagazine. In the 1990s, he co-founded and directed the Poetics Program at the State University of New York Buffalo. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is co-director of PennSound.
Corrine Fitzpatrick is a Brooklyn-based poet, and former Program Coordinator of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. She is the author of two chapbooks – On Melody Dispatch and Zamboangueña, and her poetry appears in numerous print and online journals. She recently completed the MFA program at Bard College.
Carla Harryman is a poet, essayist, and playwright. Recent books include Adorno's Noise (Essay Press, 2008), Open Box (Belladonna, 2007), Baby (2005), and Gardener of Stars (Atelos, 2001), an experimental novel dedicated to the memory of Warren Sonbert. Forthcoming books include The Wide Road, an erotic picaresque written in collaboration with Lyn Hejinian (Belladonna). She is co-contributor to The Grand Piano, a project that focuses on the emergence of Language Writing, art, politics, and culture of the San Francisco Bay area between 1975-1980. She lives in the Detroit Area and serves on the faculty of the Creative Writing Program at Eastern Michigan University.
Presented as part of Couchsurfing.
Tickets - $7, available at door.
THE FRAGILE EMULSION Curated by Jon Gartenberg at UnionDocs on Sunday, December 5th at 7:30
/UNIONDOCS • 322 UNION AVE •BROOKLYN, NY 11211
Decasia by Bill Morrison
The Fragile Emulsion curated by Jon Gartenberg
Sunday, December 5th at 7:30pm $9 suggested donation.
Jon Gartenberg in attendance for discussion.
One of the most vital and richly textured art forms threatened with extinction centers around the practice of avant-garde filmmaking, particularly in 16mm format. These filmmakers treat the celluloid film emulsion as a living organism: it is an organic substance, a shimmering silver onto which they directly imprint the delicacy of their emotions. They work in relative isolation, creating their films with the hand of an artist, rather than as products for consumption by a mass audience. The style of their films most frequently challenges the conventions of linear narrative. These filmmakers recognize not only the ephemeral nature of the celluloid film stock, but also the perilous state of human existence in the modern world. They begin with their direct experiences of everyday reality and often move toward a process of abstraction in their films. They filter found objects from the world around them, and through a wide array of filmmaking techniques, including use of outdated film stock, over- and underexposure, scratching directly on the film emulsion, re-photography, and optical printing – articulate distinct, individually defined processes of creation. They evoke spiritual visions of the world in which their own livelihood is inextricably linked to the vibrancy of the film emulsion – both literally and figuratively – as a matter of life and death.
Program Runtime 73 minutes.
DECASIA
by Bill Morrison USA, 2002, 13 minutes (excerpt), digital projection
In Bill Morrison’s found footage opus, Decasia, decomposition reaches into the farthest corners of the natural and manmade world, penetrating continents, military and religious powers, the entire animal kingdom, architectural constructions as well as the celluloid film stock itself onto which all these delicate images are imprinted.
SANCTUSby Barbara Hammer USA, 1990, 18 minutes, 16mm
In Sanctus, Barbara Hammer addresses in compelling fashion the co-fragility of both human existence and the film emulsion, the artist’s raw material onto which she creates images. The filmmaker transforms historic scientific x-ray films into a lyrical journey, reworking this found footage material into a celebration of the body as temple.
HER FRAGRANT EMULSIONby Lewis Klahr USA, 1987, 11 minutes, 16mm
In Her Fragrant Emulsion, images of 1960’s B-movie actress Mimsy Farmer float on the surface of the film emulsion, evoking erotic meditations on loves gained and lost. “The images I use are outmoded, and there’s a way that they’re dead. By working with them I’m kind of re-animating them, so I don’t really think of myself as an animator, as much as a re-animator that’s bringing these things back into some kind of life.” – Lewis Klahr
HALL OF MIRRORSby Warren Sonbert USA, 1966, 8 minutes, 16mm
Throughout Hall of Mirrors Sonbert underscores the materiality of film and the self-referential aspect of the filmmaking enterprise. Sonbert incorporates black and white outtakes from a Hollywood movie with new scenes that he photographs in color; the filmmaker works the exposed leader of the film rolls in the fabric of his movie, and captures his own reflected image while shooting one of his protagonists (Warhol superstar Gerard Malanga) in artist Lucas Samaras’ Mirrored Room. Hall of Mirrors begins and ends with the protagonists’ movements enmeshed within multiple reflecting mirrors. The film’s imagery, combined with the rock and roll soundtrack, underscores the sense of visual entrapment of the characters in their respective environments, in a manner that conveys both youthful longing and human vulnerability.
WARRENby Jeff Scher USA, 1995, 3 minutes, 16mm
Jeff Scher turns the table on his former teacher and mentor, Warren Sonbert (at a time when Sonbert was secretly afflicted with AIDS), creating an intimate dialogue between friends and colleagues, as well as a tense battle of directorial wills.
WHIPLASHby Warren Sonbert (restoration editor: Jeff Scher) USA, 1995/7, 20 minutes, 16mm
Whiplash is a compelling, multilayered portrayal of filmmaker Warren Sonbert’s struggle to maintain equilibrium in his physical self, his perceptual reality, and the world of friends and family around him, as his own mortality pressed upon his psyche. In it, Sonbert articulated the ideas and values by which he intended to be remembered. Most important among these is the theme of love between couples.
Jon Gartenberg is an archivist, distributor, and programmer. He began his career on the curatorial staff of The Museum of Modern Art, followed by jobs in the business sector both at Broadway Video and Golden Books. In 1998, he established Gartenberg Media Enterprises (www.gartenbergmedia.com), a company that is dedicated on the excavation, repurposing, and distribution of library assets in film, television, photographic, and print media.
In terms of experimental cinema, Gartenberg acquired avant-garde movies for the permanent collection of MOMA’s Film Department and restored the films of Andy Warhol. He also initiated a film preservation project with the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, which culminated in the conservation of films by artists Warren Sonbert, David Wojnarowicz, Curt McDowell, and Jack Waters.
Currently, his company distributes avant-garde films on DVD and licenses them as well for documentary film productions. GME also advises and supports cutting edge filmmakers on the economics of experimental film production, distribution and exhibition. Gartenberg has programmed experimental films for the Tribeca Film Festival since 2003.
Presented with
24th Leeds International Film Festival Program Celebrates The Films of Warren Sonbert
/Warren Sonbert (1947 - 1955)
Director Warren Sonbert
Country USA
Running Time: 60 mins
Sun 21st Nov, 2010 - 16:00 @ East Street Arts (ESA) - £5.00 / £4.00
A celebration of just a small part of the superb oeuvre of Warren Sonbert, one of the seminal figures of American wondermental film and rarely shown in the UK. He started making films in 1966 and was given a retrospective before he was 20! His early films feature denizens of the Warhol scene, with his late works culminating in astonishing symphonic montages, both silent and sound, uniting universal human gestures into singular works of moving image artistry. A prolific theorist and critic as well as filmmaker, his films display a deep love and understanding of cinema. The programme, curated by Jon Gartenberg, is entitled ‘Silent Rhythms / Sound Symphonies II’ and includes the films ‘The Cup and the Lip’ (1986, colour, silent) and ‘Short Fuse’ (1992, colour & b/w, sound), both on 16mm.
Read more: http://www.leedsfilm.com/film/warren-sonbert-1947-1995/#ixzz15xneKLQd
“Warren Sonbert: Friendly Witness and Other Films” in Atlanta Celebrates Photography Film Series
/ACP FILM SERIESEYEDRUM
Warren Sonbert: Friendly Witness and Other Films
Atlanta Celebrates Photography and Film Love present three nights of films by this crucial figure of the American avant-garde.
A "friendly witness," Warren Sonbert (1947-1995) holds a unique place in American independent film. On one hand he shows the distinct influence of Hitchcock and the Hollywood melodramas of Douglas Sirk, and on the other he was a rigorous avant-gardist. Sonbert's films have been the subject of retrospectives at the Guggenheim Museum and other institutions, but remain available only in 16mm prints and are too rarely screened.
Film Screening: Tue, Oct 26, 7pm - 9pm
PROGRAM ONE - Juxtaposing early and late works, tonight's program (one of three) explores the maturation of Sonbert's style as well as his masterful use of music. His early trilogy of short films, set to exuberant rock and roll and documenting the seedy glamour of the 60s New York art world, established Sonbert's notoriety while he was still a teenage film student at NYU. Twenty years later, Sonbert returned to the music soundtrack in his masterpiece Friendly Witness - an intricate and deeply moving mosaic of people and places around the globe.
Film Screening: Thu, Oct 28, 7pm - 9pm
PROGRAM TWO - Sonbert's later filmmaking combines his precise but unconventional eye for color, composition, and shot content with his intricate and highly personal editing technique. Tonight's program presents Sonbert's magnum opus in this style (and his longest film), Carriage Trade.
Film Screening: Fri, Nov 19, 7pm - 9pm
PROGRAM THREE - Program three explores Sonbert's career-long fascination with coupling - the dynamics of communication, romance, and desire. Honor and Obey, made at the peak of Sonbert's late period, and The Bad and the Beautiful, a restored 1960s film set to an effective popular music soundtrack. Also screened are films by two of Sonbert's influences, Stan Brakhage and Marie Menken.
Presented by ACP, Film Love and Eyedrum. Curated and hosted by Andy Ditzler for Frequent Small Meals. Film Love was voted Best Film Series in Atlanta by the critics of Creative Loafing in 2006.
Free Admission
EYEDRUM290 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr, Suite 8 Atlanta, GA 30312 [map: Google Maps] p: (404) 522-0655 web: http://www.eyedrum.org
International Tour of Films by Warren Sonbert Previewing in Paris on September 15
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On the evening of September 15, 2010, two programs of films by Warren Sonbert will be featured in public projections at Cinema Action Christine (4 rue Christine, 75006 Paris, Métro St-Michel, price: 6€). The programs will be introduced by curator Jon Gartenberg, and are held as part Light Cone’s Preview Show, an annual event gathering experimental film programmers from around the world. The two programs, which span Sonbert’s entire artistic career, announce the launch of an international tour of his films by Light Cone, the exclusive European distributor of his films.
Warren Sonbert was one of the seminal figures of American experimental cinema. He began making films in 1966 while a student at New York University. Sonbert built upon his early experiments with camera movement, lighting, and framing to subsequently create brilliantly edited masterworks that encompass not only his New York milieu, but also the larger sphere of global activity. Sonbert’s passionate interest in film, music, experimental poetry, and travel is reflected in his films; he lived a completely engaged life, and the images culled from that life formed the raw material of his artistic expression. His late works culminated in symphonic montages (both silent and sound) that unite universal human gestures into singular works of moving image artistry.
Following Warren’s untimely death in 1995, a project was undertaken under the auspices of the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, in conjunction with curator Jon Gartenberg, to restore his final film, WHIPLASH, to public view as well as to preserve his entire extant body of work. A complete set of preservation negatives of Sonbert’s films are now housed at the Academy Film Archives in Los Angeles. Sonbert retrospectives have subsequently taken place at the Guggenheim Museum (1999), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2000), the Centre Pompidou (2002), the Austrian Filmmuseum (2005), Anthology Film Archives (2006), and the Harvard Film Archive (2008).
Prints of Sonbert’s films are now available for European distribution exclusively from Light Cone. Light Cone, in collaboration with Gartenberg Media Enterprises, will present a new tour of Warren Sonbert’s films throughout European cinematheques, festivals, and other cultural institutions beginning in the fall of 2010.
For more information visit: www.lightcone.org
Or contact us at: info@gartenbergmedia.com
FELLOW TRAVELER: THE CINEMA OF WARREN SONBERT
/September 26-28
Harvard Film Archive (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
FELLOW TRAVELER: THE CINEMA OF WARREN SONBERT
Warren Sonbert
The Harvard Film Archive has recently acquired the entire experimential film collection of Warren Sonbert (1947-1995), through a preservation project organized by Jon Gartenberg. For more information, go to: http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/