2. Kate Gilmore: Action Scupltor

Walking into the back room of a gallery in 2006 and seeing a video of a woman trapped inside an extremely narrow, ramshackle, splintery, danger inducing wooden passageway with barely enough room to move at all, clawing to her escape in deteriorating, crumbling fancy dress as cameras captured her painful expression and sweating and tearing and seeming anguish was one of the single most intense displays of video/performance art I have ever seen! In recent years Kate Gilmore, the woman behind this grueling display (and many other displays of equal (di)stress: constructing a swaying tower out of twine and rickety furniture to scale, reaching the camera hanging above [Anything, 2006, film still immediately below] ascending a staircase, arms loaded with heavy pots filled with brightly colored paint, dumping them down a sculptural hatch like a ticking Pollack hourglass [Break of Day, 2010], beating her way through a tiny four walled dry-walled room climbing upward using only her fists and high heel clad feet as her bright red polka dotted dress hinders her progress [Standing Here, 2010, film still in middle]) has since become somewhat of a contemporary art world legend, catapulted to fame after being in the 2010 Whitney Biennial. When I saw her work it immediately struck me as a completely new, modern voice in art taking issues of femininity, time, creativity, physicality and molding them around the fact that sometimes even violent or repetitive tasks can possibly lead to an escape or freedom or something beautiful/lasting, even if that thing is just a memory or experience…or a mess. 

1. At what point did you decide to use yourself in your art…I mean when did you stop and say “I am going to plaster my leg into this bucket and see if I can get it out? O, and videotape it.” It seems like a big leap, or was it just a natural progression?

I made my first video at SVA when I was in graduate school. Coming from a pretty traditional sculpture background, this was a big step for me. It became clear in school that the sculptures did not have the energy and excitement that the process of making them did. So, I had to figure out a way to incorporate process, movement, chaos (all elements of my sculptural process) into the work. Video and performative actions were the  best way to do this. Using myself was the easiest thing to do since I always had access to that "material". The physical actions that I created for my self became a way to show a transformative process-- both in character and in an actual sculpture construction/deconstruction.

2. You ‘ve been doing a lot more performance work lately…I recently read about a piece at Pace where you disassembled a huge hunk of oozing wet clay with a team of women and another piece at a fundraiser where you smashed through plaster casts with axes alongside pink satin clad ladies. What has made you move from video to more public performance? And also move from acting alone to acting within a group?

I am actually not in these performances. I don't perform live... these live performances are done by other performers. I have started to move into these live performances as a way to experiment with moving out of the work and being more of a director of sorts (even though the performers are reacting in their own ways to the circumstances in the performances). It has given me a different aspect to my work and allowed me to watch something for the first time without being so entwined in every aspect of the piece-- from making to performing. 

I didn't realize you weren't in the performances! What spurred you to want to take on a more director-ly approach? What has the bearing witness to the situations you've created added to your understanding of them? 

Kate Gilmore – Sudden as a Massacre from David Castillo Gallery on Vimeo.

Studio News! And a Cat!

Had an interview all set for this week but the artist rescinded her answers at the last minute...? O well! Interviews in the works for a bunch more Renaissance ladies in the upcoming weeks so please, stay tuned!

O, and in Gravity news...we'll be doing a live screening of Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then in Buffalo New York March 4th (featuring Brent Green, Mike McGinley, Brendan Canty, Drew Henkels and me on foley!) in addition to a mini-stay at HallWalls Contemporary Arts Center where me, Mike and Brent will be recording some new demos for the next feature film (how excited am I? VERY!)! And screenings of Gravity abroad abound too with recent projections in a museum in Geneva and an upcoming one in Madrid (more info on the date soon)!

Unrelated: Here is a picture of our farmland neighborhood and of the weirdest local cat I have ever seen. Hope his parasites don't eat my brain (this article is sooo interesting, did you know there is a wasp that mind controls spiders through parasites to make them build wasp nests? and cat parasites can alter human personality indefinitely?!)...! Who is gonna make the documentary on this? It must be done! Have I found my calling?

Folk Art

Continued cleaning out the barn today...to the point that my mouth is black with actual dirt- ewwww! It's a good thing I was out of the house though since Brent just got some sort of music recording software and the living quarters have become a makeshift (loud ass) studio overnight! In between these activities, we did find time to head over to Reading, PA for a quick lunch and visit to the Outsider Folk Art Gallery in Goggleworks arts complex. I wasn't really familiar with the different levels of outsider-y folk art until I started being involved in Brent's work. You see Brent, being that he didn't study or pursue art in an academic way, is considered to be among this weird group of artists and there are many, many categories within... We have art brut. The self taught. The visionary/intuitive. Tramp art. The outsider. Regardless of what label you want to choose, a lot of the work is really amazing; visceral, emotional outpourings of genuine creative, and sometimes genuinely psychotic, ideas.

The show currently up in Reading was called Raw Edges: Jim Bloom and Purvis Young, two very different painters whose work does seem to compliment eachother, mainly through similar comments on the grim human condition. I have never liked Purvis Young, even despite the fact I have met many of his fans/collectors whose opinions I trust but, this time around, I think I finally got a glimpse of what they see: unapologetic, symbolic, raw expressions of whatever the altered state the artist's mind is in. Each painting seemed like some kind of experience of Young's (religious tilted) ego; halos on the good, copulating figurative couples on the edges, the repetitive imagery becoming meditative, holy in shape & texture, everyday images exalted in crude beatific form (photo middle at right). It kind of felt good to finally get inside this type of work...it makes me wonder about myself too, my own psyche and experiences that are expanding my understanding of this type of art- an introspection that I think really good art can ignite. Then, there was Jim Bloom.

Bloom's lines (pictured at top and bottom) seem familiar (deKooning? Guston? Bacon?) but aren't, his layered paintings and drawings (usually with superimposed textural collaged elements) were so freaking complex I can't even begin to think how they are crafted? Layer after layer of work molded into grotesque figures, feeling more like the way somebody molds a sculpture out of clay or something....the dark, near cartoon quality of the pieces really makes me wonder why this dude isn't more popular? It seems like the contemporary art crowd would revel in his brightly colored renderings of the disgusting human race?! Really wonderful, you can almost touch the despair, heartbreak and vulgarity this artist sees- a more bleak thematic outlook than Young maybe but along the same lines of human urges and suffering. Bloom's strong imagery, and the HUGE amounts of work in the show, make me hope he becomes some sort of legend in his own way..maybe he has though.

And that's the problem with the outsider-y labels folks! Outsider art is still a sort of ghetto for the talented, keeping a label on something, hampering the bounds of success. There are few ready to bridge the gap between what is inside and what is outside the art world and I really don't get the hesitation? Is it because supporting the "untrained" is a threat to entire industries of art schooling? Or is it some kind sneaky exploitation of those living outside of the "art world?" I don't know. But I do know that real artist's work can surpass labels and that I hope more people are willing to applaud anything wonderful or beautiful regardless of the credentials behind the person who made it.

The Backyard Is Now Somehow A Part of Art History!

Everyone! EVERYONE! I started this here blog back in 2009 to document my strange transition from Brooklynite to barn dweller and the project that made this transition happen, Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then. From the first moment I laid eyes on Brent Green's screen tests to my quick mastering of all power tools to my pixelated acting in a freezing outdoor set to sharing the film around the globe, this project has been such an enormous part of my life!

So, when Gravity became a part of the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection this week it just didn't seem real! And still doesn't seem real! Thanks to everyone who has been supportive along the way and who helped make this project go from this crazy thing we made in our backyard to a thing that now has some sort of cultural legacy!

So many exclamation points!!! And hugs!!!!! Here are a few relics of Gravity in it's infancy a few years back, all of the work and love we put into it still coming back to us today....!!!! More exclamation points!!!!

1. Nancy Gerstman, Zeitgeist Films

As I promised...this year on the Gravity blog I am looking to profile the interesting women of the current cultural landscape! This (hopefully) weekly feature begins....now! With one of the most amazing people I know working in the film industry! (*note: links embedded in interview added my me!) 

The story of how the distribution company Zeitgeist Films came into being is nearly unbelievable: 1988, a tiny rented room in the West Village (sharing space with a friend who was starting a gift basket company?!), a shoestring budget ($1,000 & a credit card) and a serious passion for film. These humble beginnings that co-founders and co-presidents Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo began with have since led to a strong business and an ongoing devotion to non-mainstream films & filmmakers. When I first met Nancy Gerstman, apart from looking downright stunning even in the bleakest of winters, it was immediately apparent that her love of what she does could not be stronger. Her desire to share her love of cinema so strong I even walked away with a bag full of Greenaway (swoooOOoon)! 

1.  Nancy! Hello! Ok: Zeitgeist has been the jumping off point for countless careers (Todd Haynes, Christopher Nolan, Atom Egoyan) I can’t imagine what it feels like to be the starting point/artistic support for fledgling filmmakers…what does it feel like? Especially to see them fly away given your role in that growth?

It's only in retrospect that you can feel like a 'jumping off point' and from that perspective it feels pretty good. We were excited to give filmmakers a chance to show their work in theatrical settings.   My business partner and I had both been in the distribution world for a while and we were good marketers and had formed excellent relationships with theatre owners around the U.S. So when we encountered Bruce Weber [trailer below] and Todd Haynes (two of our three first 'fledgling' filmmakers and brilliant artists) we loved using our expertise to get their work 'out there'. 

As far as flying away, we were probably a bit naive at first, thinking that filmmakers who had spent their last dime making films would stay with us once their careers took off ("You're kidding!  A filmmaker wants more money up front and wants to go with a higher profile distributor??).  But there were more than a few that did stay with us, because they knew that they might never get the sort of attention paid to their films from others that we would give them; that they might get a higher m.g. (minimum guarantee or money up front) from someone else but might never see another dime; or they wanted a distributor who was going to be in it for the long haul (virtually hundreds of distribution companies have gone out of business since 1988). But we also grew up and realized that bigger distributors lose films to even bigger distributors, and that is just what our business is about. For us, the worst thing was when a film we loved and felt we could do great business with went to a 'flavor of the year'-type distributor who did a lousy job and was gone within 12 months. Then the film goes into limbo (not a place you want to be).

2. The first time I met you,you said something about your subtle shift of focus away from American fiction (while keeping your strong foreign fiction and non-fiction acquisitions) but moving more into the American documentary realm, leading to Zeitgeist’s recent amazing runs with this genre (Bill Cunningham [trailer at bottom], Trouble The Water, The Horse Boy). What was it that brought about this change? It seems docs have been so embraced lately, why do you think this is?

The success of Poison [trailer at top] and other challenging fiction films made the more mainstream distributors take notice so, starting in the early 1990s the price of American independent features went beyond our means. Our model at the time was to go in the direction the marketplace was NOT going, so we started distributing foreign language films and docs.    

We've always distributed documentaries because we love them but it does seem as if there are many more in the marketplace. We've been very lucky to have the opportunity to distribute great ones and it seems as if our documentaries never become irrelevant.  The Corporation [trailer below], a good example, couldn't be more important as an in depth exploration of the dangerous organizational model that affects all of our lives. It's a film that improves our minds and our world and so it keeps being booked and bought. These sorts of films are needed and so we're inspired to keep acquiring them.  And it's also why people may be so fascinated by documentaries lately.   
        

3. Film has so many different areas of existence and I feel like distro is on the less glamorous more progressive scale: deciding what films to push into the theaters but literally pushing them there by hand. Why did you choose distribution? (Also, now that I think of it, you are one glamorous woman so maybe you are bringing some glamor to the less glitzy arena of the industry!)

Well, if you don't think it's glamorous now you should have seen it when we started. There were very few companies which combined taste and business (like DanTalbot at New Yorker Films and Don Krim at Kino International).  But I'm so thrilled you think I'm glamorous (she says with cigar in mouth).  First, neither my business partner Emily nor I are artists but we do have taste and we want to bring beauty (as well as enlightened dialogue) into the world. We love film. Independence is important to us so we wanted to work for ourselves. We're not purely businesswomen but we are a hybrid and in our business you can be a manager and go to the Cannes Film Festival.  It's an interesting 'best of both worlds' scenario for us.

(more on the importance of going to the movies, progressive book publishing and the everchanging New York film landscape after the jump!)

Cleveland. And Rocks.

Mostly due to my mangled, barn beam inflicted face....I have decided to stay home while Brent traveled on to Cleveland, Ohio this week where he is acting as a judge at The Cleveland Art Institute's Student Independent Exhibition! I am actually pretty bummed to miss out on this one, the last time we went through Cleveland (with a truck load of art, a theatrical screening of Gravity and a stay at a vintage jazz hotel!) I was also under the weather so I feel like I haven't given this place the exploration it deserves...especially since I was not too long ago gifted some awesome coffee (I think from here?) that hails from this mysterious region!

Also, some of Brent's fellow jurors (who were listed on an e-mail sent to me and who I couldn't help but take a peek at!) make some pretty amazing work! One fulfilling the weird loves I have for both industrial ceramic manipulation & also specimen collection and the other oddly fulfilling the obsession I have with the floating away of architecture...I mean it! I seem to always like these themes in art! I wonder why? Maybe because they are affronts to the odd little realities of capitalist normality (vinyl siding and tchotchkes) that we accept without a question nowadays? Who knows! O well! Sad I am missing this one! Hope I get to see some images of the finished exhibition, maybe even head out there for the opening..? Anyway, me and Cleveland will have our day I guess...(ices face) Here are a few more pics of interesting rocks from our road trip home from Utah! (continues to ice face)

True/False, Columbia Missouri, and Soup

On the drive back from Sundance, besides stopping off at many natural wonders and roadside attractions, we also stopped in on one of my favorite places in the world: Columbia Missouri! I know, I know, I can't stop raving about this place but, once again, it delivered it's wonderfulness in full form complete with the heartiest of lentil soups at the local indie movie theater cafe (!Ragtag! Yay!), a chocolate & sea salt ice cream at that place that was banned from selling cicada ice cream the last time I was in town, and the most lovable of film folks: the True/False Film Festival programming team!


True/False Film Fest 2012 Commercial from Jonny Pez on Vimeo.

I will say I was let in on some of the secrets of this year's upcoming documentary film festival and, as promised, I won't divulge any information but I will say: GO TO THE FESTIVAL THIS YEAR! It is going to be UNBELIEVABLE! Well it is always unbelievable of course but this year might just be the BEST YEAR according to my sources! True/False 2012 passes are already on sale and going fast! Get one! And no, Paul Sturtz (co-founder/co-director of the fest) did not pay me to say this...even though he did insist on giving me a bribe a gift of some sort, a candelabra in the shape of a trumpet (? which we conveniently left behind?) and some T/F stickers which are already on the car! If we weren't going to be in Buffalo, NY this March for a live-performance of Gravity, and also for the first recording session of our new feature film (!!!!), we would so be spending even more time in Columbia Missouri to soak up the culture, film and just general awesomeness this event- and town- are fueled by! So, please send Columbia well wishes from me when you are there (picture of me in my T/F hoodie at Arches National Park after a serious hike, another stop on the long way home from Sundance!).

There Are 1,000 Places Like Home

I've been joking over here that we should send along a list of each National Park Brent's art has traveled to being that we constantly transport work ourselves by truck for his various installations...the Gravity set definitely went to the Petrified Forest, the Site Santa Fe show took a (disappointing) wild ride to the birthplace of one of the Wright Brothers, Perpetual and Furious Refrain saw Yosemite, and To Many Men... is probably the winner right now with the Great Salt Lake, Antelope Island (pictured above & immediately below),  the Bonneville Salt Flats  (pictured at bottom), and Arches National Park- not to mention the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave and The Wizard of Oz Museum of Wamego, Kansas!

Speaking of which, did you know Buffalo Bill Cody's father died from a knife wound he got after he gave an anti-slavery speech long before it was even a movement? And Cody also aligned with the suffragettes? And, despite his image of Indian killer, he worked hard to provide equal pay and respect to the Native American communities, even protesting American's adversity to new Native American cultural traditions & gatherings? So many more reasons to love William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody! O, and as for The Wizard of Oz...as a devote film junkie, seeing the original clay figures used in the evil flying monkey flock sequences from this Hollywood classic was one of the best moments of my life!!! There's no place like Kansas! And there is no place like home...except when you come home to a burst pipe and a pond in your house...hmm....and then, in barn cleaning attempts, a hand truck with the weight of a barn beam successfully pushes your teeth into your face! I look like I have collagen in my lips, stunning I know, but incredibly purple and bloody! Blogging will resume as regularly scheduled soon...!