Saturday February 6, 4 & 8 PM
$12/ $8 Members + Students ($20/ $12 for both screenings)
Admission 45 min. prior @ Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil Street
Screenings:
4 PM Motion Movies
Collaborations in Dance for Camera
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8 PM Narrative Work & Video Featureettes
Poetry, Parties & Bloodlust
&
Sunday February 7, 2 PM Free
Charles Atlas Artist Talk & Book Launch
@ Trinity Square Video, 376 – 401 Richmond Street West
Sponsored by Trinity Square Video and Art Metropole
Part of Winter 2016
Pleasure Dome is pleased to present the first ever Toronto retrospective of the film and video works by NYC-based artist Charles Atlas. This special two-day event will feature screenings, a career-spanning multimedia talk, and a book launch for the recent release of Prestel Publishing monograph Charles Atlas, featuring writings by Stuart Comer, Douglas Crimp, Douglas Dunn, Johanna Fateman, and Lia Gangitano.
For more than four decades Atlas has stretched the limits of his mediums, forging new territory in a far-reaching range of genres, stylistic approaches, and techniques. Throughout his career, he has consistently fostered collaborative relationships, working intimately with such artists and performers as Leigh Bowery, Michael Clark, Douglas Dunn, Marina Abramovic, Yvonne Rainer, Mika Tajima/New Humans, Antony & The Johnsons, and most notably Merce Cunningham, for whom he served as filmmaker-in-residence.
Jon Davies on Atlas: “Atlas has forged a unique place in the history of art: he is a pioneer in using the medium of video not simply to record but, more importantly, to reimagine how performance—and specifically dance—might take on a life beyond the body’s live moment.” (Canadianart.ca Feb. 4/16)
The Sum of Everything: An Interview with Charles Atlas by Rea McNamara (ARTFCITY February 12/16)
Excerpt of Because We Must starring Leigh Bowery, choreography by Michael Clark, music by Velvet Underground.
This two-part video program will feature early dance for camera collaborations as well as narrative driven experimental film from the 1980’s and ‘90’s that take on death, love, lust and violence through humor, eroticism and pathos. Curated by Kevin Hegge & Jaime Sin
4 PM Motion Movies; Key Collaborations in Dance for Camera
Channels/Inserts with Merce Cunningham 1982, 32:11, 16 mm film on HD video
Ex-Romance, 1987, 48:22, 16 mm film on video
Because We Must, 1989, 52:30, video. Collaboration with British choreographer Michael Clark starring Leigh Bowery, Michael Clark, and others.
8 PM Narratives & Video Featureettes: Poetry, Parties & Bloodlust
Secrets of a Waterfall, 1982-83, 28:35 video. Collaboration with choreographer Douglas Dunn & poet Anne Waldman
Mrs. Peanut Visits NYC, 1999, 6:06 video with Leigh Bowery
Son of Sam & Delilah, 1991, 26:59. 16mm film on video.
Parafango, 1983-84, 38:00. Collaboration with choreographer Michael Clark
What I Did Last Summer – 12:00, 1991, video.
+
Sunday February 7, 2 PM Free
Charles Atlas Artist Talk & Book Launch
@ Trinity Square Video, 376 – 401 Richmond Street West
Sponsored by Trinity Square Video and Art Metropole
Special monograph price for Feb. 7th!
Join us for a career-spanning multimedia talk, and a book launch of Charles Atlas monograph published by Prestel Publishing Inc. in cooperation with Luhring Augustine (2015). Developed in close collaboration with Atlas, this beautiful volume looks back at a career that has spanned four decades and covers over 75 projects, including works recently exhibited at Tate Modern and the 2012 Whitney Biennial, capturing the movement and pace of the artist’s celebrated and highly collaborative time-based art.
As one of the first artists to explore the possibilities of video as a mode of expression, especially through his long-lasting collaboration with Merce Cunningham, Atlas has teamed with numerous dancers and artists to create projects that range from feature-length documentaries to shorter media works, transforming the way performance is viewed by its audiences and the art world. In this inventive publication, Atlas’s own commentary accompanies exquisite images that capture the structure and flow of his work in film, video, dance, and performance. The volume also includes conversations between Atlas and a number of writers and collaborators who have played a critical role in the development and reception of his oeuvre, as well as an array of fascinating ephemera from the artist’s personal archives.
Recent solo exhibitions include Luhring Augustine Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York; New Museum, New York; De Hallen, Haarlem, The Netherlands; and Bloomberg SPACE, London. Atlas was featured in the 2012 Whitney Biennial. Atlas’ films and video works have been exhibited around the world, at festivals and institutions, including a nine day Los Angeles retrospective in 2015 spanning museums and galleries across the city (356 Mission, the Hammer Museum, and the ONE Archives; the Jerusalem Film Festival; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; World Wide Video Festival, The Hague, Netherlands; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Participant, Inc., New York.
Stills: Courtesy of the artist and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.
