Two experimental queer works will be screened at Artists Television Access on Thursday, Sept. 23th, 2010. 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.
LUTHER PRICE is an internationally exhibited super8 filmmaker, sculptor and
performance artist. His work has been screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Thread Waxing Space and San Francisco
Cinematheque, among other institutions. He is a professor at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Massachusetts College of Art. His work is
distributed by the Filmmakers’ Coop, Canyon Cinema, Lux and Lightcone.
DAVID SCHEID received his M.F.A. from CalArts in 2005. His videos were shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, REDCAT, and Highways Performance Space. Scheid lives in Pittsburgh, PA, where he paints abstract landscapes, trains for marathons, and is pursuing his medical degree. His interests include psychiatry and pathology.
BRADFORD NORDEEN is a New York-based programmer and moving-image scholar. He has organized screenings internationally at venues in New York and Los Angeles. He has contributed articles to The Fanzine Press, X-TRA and Animal Shelter. His essay on Luther Price, ‘Watching, Wounded: Avant-Garde Psychodrama and Aversion in Luther Price’s Meat’ is forthcoming in Film-Philosophy from Open Humanities Press (Winter, 2010).
KEVIN KILLIAN is a poet, novelist, critic and playwright. He has written three novels: Shy (1989), Arctic Summer (1997) and Spreadeagle (forthcoming), a book of memoirs: Bedrooms Have Windows (1989), two book of poetry: Argento Series (2001) and Action Kylie (2008), three chapbooks: Little Men (1996), I Cry Like A Baby (2001) and Impossible Princess (2009).He has written for Framework, Artforum, Artweek, etc., etc. With Dodie Bellamy he edits the literary/art zine Mirage #4/Period[ical] in San Francisco.
