Part of Fall 2009
Pleasure Dome is excited to present an evening with the wonderful Tony Conrad & Marie Losier. Conrad has been recognized since the 60s as one of the key figures of the American avant-garde, and working with the the most unlikely combination of collaborators including La Monte Young, Jack Smith, Beverly Grant and Mike Kelley, Conrad persists in being an influential and inventive musician, filmmaker, artist, and teacher. After a busy year with performances and exhibitions at the Tate Modern and the Venice Biennale, he will present his own selection of rarely-seen post-The Flicker films and videos, spanning a period of forty years.
In conversation with him and visiting from NYC, special guest Marie Losier will be showing her film portrait Tony Conrad: DreaMinimalist – plus a collection of recent works.
Programme:
Recent Works by Tony Conrad
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Tony Conrad: DreaMinimalist , Marie Losier, 2008, 16mm, 25 min. The latest in Marie Losier’s ongoing series of film portraits of avant-garde directors (George and Mike Kuchar, Guy Maddin, Richard Foreman), DreaMinimalist offers an insightful and hilarious encounter with Conrad as he sings, dances and remembers his youth and his association with Jack Smith
Snowbeard , Marie Losier, 2008, 16mm, b/w, 3 min. Losier’s poignant short film offers a moving tribute to New York icon Mike Kuchar, filmed on his last day before leaving Manhattan to relocate to San Francisco.
Papal Broken-Dance , Marie Losier, 2008, super 8 & video, 6 min. A campy music video in the style of a scopitone from the early 1960s, with the wonderful cast of 10 boys in sexy red singlets and girls in red tutus, all dancing with joy with Genesis P-Orridge in a boxing ring…all the ingredients for a slap stick boxing match in music.
Manuelle Labor , Marie Losier, 2007, 16mm, super 8 & video, 10 min. Collaboration film Marie Losier and Guy Maddin. Two sisters, five brothers, a doctor and two nurses and the miraculous birth of a pair of hands. but whose hands…“Marie, that shot of the hands coming out o’ your womb is a dilly!!! What an honour to be born of you! your son, Guy” (Guy Maddin)
“Tony Conrad has significantly influenced cultural developments from minimalism to underground film, “concept art,” postmodern appropriation, and the most sophisticated rock and roll. Creator of the “structural” film, The Flicker, collaborator on Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures and Normal Love, follower of Henry Flynt’s radical anti-art, member of the Theatre of Eternal Music and the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and early associate of Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, and Cindy Sherman, Conrad has eluded canonic histories. Yet Beyond the Dream Syndicate does not claim Conrad as a major but under-recognized figure. Neither monograph nor social history, the book takes Conrad’s collaborative interactions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks and discursive interconnections in 1960s art. Such an approach simultaneously illuminates and estranges current understandings of the period, redrawing the map across medium and stylistic boundaries to reveal a constitutive hybridization at the base of the decade’s artistic development.
This exploration of Conrad and his milieu goes beyond the presentation of a relatively overlooked oeuvre to chart multiple, contestatory regimes of power simultaneously in play during the pivotal moment of the 1960s. From the sovereign authority invoked by Young’s music, to the “paranoiac” politics of Flynt, to the immanent control modeled by Conrad’s films, each avant-garde project examined reveals an investment within a particular structure of power and resistance, providing a glimpse into the diversity of the artistic and political stakes that continue to define our time.” Branden W. Joseph, Beyond the Dream Syndicate; Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage, Zone Books
Marie Losier, born in France in 1972, is a filmmaker and curator working in New York City. She has shown her films and videos at museums, galleries, biennials and festivals. In 2009, she was invited to The Centre George Pompidou in Paris to present her work in progress on her first feature film-a portrait of on the musical genius Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, and her band Psychic TV. in 2009 she has show so far at the Berlin Film Festival, Bozar Museum in Belgium, at the Walter Reade-Lincoln Center in NYC and La Cinemateque Francaise in Paris among others. She was invited to be on the Jury for the ERA NEW HORIZONS International Film Festival in Poland in July for teh film on art section. She will be showing at the Fondation Cartier Festival in Toulouse with Tony Conrad in September.
In 2008 she was invited to present her new film portrait on musician and filmmaker, Tony Conrad-Tony Conrad DreaMinimalist– at the Tate Modern and The Basel Art Fair and at The Rotterdam and Berlin Film Festival, The Havard Film Archives, The Kassel Documentary Film Festival, The Copenhagen Film Festival, Cornell Cinema among others. At the The Berlin Film Festival, she presented seven films in a solo show at the Forum-Arsenal “Marie Losier Goes Underground”, where she premiered her new film on Tony Conrad. She was also included for the 2006 Whitney Biennial (Whitney Museum, NY) with her film on Richard Foreman, The Ontological Cowboy and at MOMA (Museum of Modern Art, NY) with Electrocute Your Stars, film on George Kuchar. In 2007, she curated a show for The Rotterdam Film Festival, “Sweet Sixteen” and was also invited to The Berlin Film Festival to present a new film that she made in collaboration with Canadian Filmmaker Guy Maddin, Manuelle Labor.
She has started her first feature film, four years ago, a portrait of on the musical genius Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, and her band Psychic TV. The work in progress was presented in 2009 at the Centre George Pompidou in April to open Hors Pistes.
She had her first Solo Show called OUTTAKES at the Luxe Gallery (53 Stanton Street, New York, NY 10002) in September 2008 on outtakes from her feature film on Genesis P-Orridge.
She has also shown her work at P.S.1 (Contemporary Art Center, NYC), Tribeca Film Festival (NYC), Berlin Film Festival (Germany), Rotterdam International Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival (Australia), The Seoul Film Festival (Korea), The Lausanne Film Festival (Swiss), The Wexner Art Center (OI), LUXE Gallery (NYC), Andrew Kreps Gallery (NYC), White Column Gallery (NYC), The Black Maria Film Festival(NY), The Biennial of Saint Etienne (France), The New York Underground Film Festival (NYC), Festival Nouveau Cinema (Canada), Ismailia International Film Festival (Egypt), Stockholm International Film Festival (Netherlands), Pleasure Dome (Toronto), Anthology Film Archives (NY), Ocularis (NY), Robert Beck Memorial Cinema (NYC), Detroit Film Center, Cinematexas (TX), Chicago Film Festival, British Film Institute (London), Berlin Film Kinemathek: Kino Arsenal ( Germany)Au Grand Action (Paris), MAC/VAL (Musée d’Art Contemporain, France) and many others.
In 2000, she became the film curator at FIAF/The French Institute Alliance Francaise in New York City, where she presents a weekly film series. She has hosted many notable directors and artists, including Raoul Coutard, William Klein, Claire Denis, Isabelle Huppert, Chantal Akerman, Jane Birkin, Jeanne Moreau, Bertrand Tavernier, and Anouk Aimée.
She also programed experimental films at the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema and Ocularis and today programs and bring experimental films series in Europe and all over in the States.
She has also performed in films by George Kuchar, Mike Kuchar, and Jackie Raynal, and in plays by Juliana Francis and Tony Torn.
