The back room welcomes Cinema Project for our first film event! A communal brown bag dinner on the occasion of the exhibition Jess: To and From the Printed Page, at the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, May 9th–July 20th, 2008
Jess: An evening of experimental film, music, food, and conversation
Friday, May 16
Podkrepa Hall, 2116 N. Killingsworth google map
Doors open 6:30 p.m.
Films begin at 7:30 p.m.
$6 at the door, no reservations required
Special performance by the Evolutionary Jass Band
This is a brown bag event—bring your own food!
Drinks available at the event for a modest fee
Jess Collins, known simply as “Jess” (1923—2004) was a highly influential Bay Area painter and collage artist who emerged in the 1950s within San Francisco’s burgeoning literary culture. A brilliant chemist who worked on the Manhattan Project, Jess abandoned his scientific career in protest of nuclear weapons and devoted his life to art, moving to San Francisco in the late 1940s, where he met the poet Robert Duncan. The two remained life partners until Duncan's death in 1988. In 1952, Jess, Duncan and painter Harry Jacobus, opened the King Ubu Gallery in San Francisco, which became a center for alternative art and culture. Often working on large-scale, serial projects, Jess gradually evolved his unique method of meticulous collage work and representational painting, incorporating both popular and esoteric source material in complex compositions. Jess collaborated extensively with filmmakers, poets, artists, and writers, including Robert Duncan, Larry Jordan, Denise Levertov, Micheal McClure, Wallace Berman and Harry Jacobus.
This special program, organized by Cinema Project’s Jeremy Rossen and commissioned by the Cooley Gallery, brings together films that were either directly or indirectly inspired by Jess. The films are shown in 16 mm.
In BetweenStan Brakhage [1955, 16mm, color, sound, 10 min.]
The 40 and 1 Nights (or Jess' Didactic Nickelodeon)
Larry Jordan [1961, 16mm color, sound, 6 min.]
Visions of a City
Larry Jordan [1957-1978, 16mm, sepia, sound, 8 min.]
The Man Who Invented Gold
Christopher Maclaine [1957, b/w & color, sound, 14 min.]
Aleph
Wallace Berman [1958-1976, 16mm, color, silent, 10 min.]
Beat
Cristopher Maclaine [1958,16mm, color, sound, 6 min]
Senseless
Ron Rice [1962, 16mm, b&w, sound, 28 min.]
The film In Between by Stan Brakhage, with music by John Cage, is a portrait Brakhage made of Jess, “a daydream nightmare in the surrealist tradition.” Bay Area legend filmmaker Larry Jordan collaborated with Jess on The 40 and 1 Nights (or Jess' Didactic Nickelodeon) Jess performs 41 (now lost) collages to (his) selected sound bits in the manner of a turn-of-the-century nickelodeon. Jordan collaborated with poet Micheal McClure on Visions of the City, a portrait of both McClure and San Francisco in 1957. Christopher Maclaine, was active in the early beatnik scene of North Beach in the 1940s and 1950s, as one of the authentic characters at the very emergence of the beat movement on the West Coast. The Man Who Invented Gold is MacClaine’s masterpiece about a madman’s alchemical quest for gold, while Beat captures the existential angst and futility of bohemian life. Senseless by Ron Rice portrays ecstatic travelers going to pot over the fantasies and pleasures of a trip to Mexico. Aleph, by Wallace Berman, is an artist’s meditation on life, death, mysticism, politics, and pop culture. In an eight-minute loop of film, Wallace Berman uses Hebrew letters to frame a hypnotic, rapid-fire montage that captures the go-go energy of the 1960s and has been described by Stan Brakhage as “the only true envisionment of the sixties I know.”
www.cinemaproject.orgwww.thebackroompdx.com
www.reed.edu/gallery
Jess: To and From the Printed Page, is a traveling exhibition organized and circulated by iCI, (Independent Curators International), New York. Guest curator for the exhibition is Ingrid Schaffner. The exhibition, tour, and catalogue are made possible, in part, by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the iCI Exhibition Partners. Catalog available at the Cooley Gallery.
The Evolutionary Jass Band formed around 2001, with key members of the band having been longtime members of the seminal out-rock ensemble with the notoriously large membership, Jackie-O-Motherfucker. With a steadier (and smaller) lineup and a jazz language as the focus, the Jefrey Brown-led ensemble slowly but steadily became one of Portland's most unusual live bands- absolutely dedicated to a working-band family atmosphere, their unity and focused sonic vocabulary is astonishing and immediately accessible to their audiences. Early EJB music (the band then going as The Steele Street Revolutionary Jass Band) revolved around crescendoes of modal, looping riffs, recalling Ethiopian jazz-funk as well as the ecstatic vibe of 1970s afrocentric jazz visionaries like Sunny Murray. Now, the band has incorporated even more stylistic map-points, allowing them to manipulate a highly charged jazz language with confidence and ease. Combining their aforementioned influences with bebop compositional balance, Jarmuschian cinematic moodiness, torch song, New Orleans proto-jazz, and American band music, the band is quickly forging a powerful, brave, and singular musical voice.
Audiotheque: An evening of beautiful sound + incredible stories, music, food, and conversation
Saturday, May 31
Podkrepa Hall, 2116 N. Killingsworth google map
6:30 p.m
What does it mean to listen—individually and collectively? To what degree are we inspired by, and how do we respond to, the sounds of daily life? What possibilities does listening provide—when you really close your eyes and rely on your ears-for a deeper understanding of ourselves, our world, and our relationships with others? Third Coast International Audio Festival director, curator, and sound artist Julie Shapiro, along with back room sound engineer and artist Michael McManus as her interlocutor, will engage these questions in a very special back room evening of deliberate listening. To our humble shores Shapiro is ferrying compelling stories and beautiful sounds—from childhood memories of apocalyptic awareness to the glorious BBC Radio Ballads from the 1950’s. Together we will share and discuss these rare audio gems with Shapiro and McManus as our generous guides. Shapiro has compiled this exploration of sonic diversity in conversation with McManus, especially for the back room—a community of curious, devoted listeners.
As usual, a sumptuous feast and glorious music will complete the evening. A musical guest and ticket and pricing information will be available soon, here. You may, however, reserve a spot by e-mailing the address listed below.
Julie Shapiro is managing director of the Third Coast International Audio Festival (TCF), from Chicago Public Radio. Before moving to Chicago, Julie worked at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. She was assistant director of Transmissions, an annual experimental sound and art festival from 1998-2001. These days Julie makes audio art for public presentation, teaches at Loyola University and can occasionally be heard on the public radio airwaves. She also keeps some thoughts about sound(s) at notetheslantoftheovals.blogspot.com. Since its inception, the TCF has worked to foster a culture of alternative radio-listening practices. The TCF Listening Room series regularly presents events (similar to this one) that foster listening environments in public spaces (theaters/cafes/galleries, etc.) and revel in bringing strangers together for shared listening experiences.
Michael McManus first met Julie in the summer of 2006 during a stay in Chicago working as an intern at Chicago Public Radio. The experiences of that summer and many conversations with Julie proved to be a catalyst that ignited an interest in searching for the right language to talk about the related fields of sound production, culture, and artistic practice. As a student of anthropology at Reed College, current areas of research include radio as a simultaneous tool of protest and site of civic strengthening and investigations into how the body, as a culturally constituted entity, inspires acts of listening.
To reserve a seat email thebackroompdx@gmail.com, but if you make a reservation you must come or cancel in advance, we are a not-for-profit and each seat counts!