Monday, December 7, 2020

Upcoming Screenings Online/Week of December 6th

Upcoming Screenings Online/Week of December 6th


David Humphrey Book Launch/Panel Discussion
December 8, 2020 / 5pm EST / free w/registration




So, two years ago I saw these two images online. One, a glassy-eyed poodle staring with a concerning deadness against a frenzy of color and two, a tiger who either has a rear jutting out onto a separate canvas, looking over its shoulder with the audaciousness of a hungry model...or an image of a tiger with a canvas of abstract orange forms abutting it. I know nothing about the artist but, the two images haunted me so when this event popped up on instagram the recognition was exciting! I learned that the artist is David Humphrey, an American neo surrealist and art critic who came of artistic age in the 70s postmodernist movement. This event is a launch of the first collection of monographs of the artist's work spanning his 40-year career. There is something uncanny yet funny in his paintings that speaks deeply to me, like a serious question-- asked with a smirk-- about what one believes and what one believes to be real. 


A Discussion of Milford Graves Full Mantis With Director Jake Meginsky
Kingsessing Library + Ars Nova Workshop / zoom discussion
December 10, 2020 / 6pm ET / free/registration recommended

Mondays With Milford
Institute of Contemporary At, University of Pennsylvania + Ars Nova Worskshop / online screenings
Sept. 28- January 18, 2020, biweekly / 6pm ET / free




Milford Graves is a drummer, visual artist, herbalist, acupuncturist, martial artist, professor and many, many other things all poured into the form of a man. The poetic documentary portrait Full Mantis captures the intense aura of Graves and his body of work, a fully focused film that bursts through to some other cosmic plane of understanding/being. Unlike many nonfiction films about artists that tend to falter through either lack of vision or inability to translate their subjects, this film is a stellar embodiment of the man-- really wonder how the director got to this place of expression? This discussion will be with director Jake Maginsky through the Kingsessing Library of Philadelphia. Full Mantis should be available through Kanopy, a streaming service that many libraries provide to patrons free of charge-- ask your local library! 

 A Mind Body Deal (an art exhibit by Graves) is currently on display at the ICA in Philly and, in conjunction with the exhibit, there has been an ongoing virtual screening series. Every other Monday a selection of films from the Milford Graves archives, or some other contextualizing media, are screened online remaining available each week until the next showing. This week, December 7, features Encounters in Japan, a series of films centering on Graves' collaborations with performance artist Min Tanaka



Feminist International: How to Change Everything 
International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs + Verso Books/ zoom lecture
December 11, 2020 / 12pm PST / free w/registration

This discussion brings together Judith Butler (UC Berkeley), Susana Draper (Princeton), Verónica Gago (UNSAM; Ni Una Menos; UBA), Ruth Wilson Gilmore (CUNY Graduate Center), and moderator Natalia Brizuela (UC Berkeley) to discuss Gago's book, Feminist International. The book "draws on the author’s rich experience with radical movements to enter into ongoing debates in feminist and Marxist theory: from social reproduction and domestic work to the intertwining of financial and gender violence, as well as controversies surrounding the neo-extractivist model of development, the possibilities and limits of left populism, and the ever-vexed nexus of gender-race-class." Basically, Gago wants to, as the subtitle suggests, change everything and this group of thinkers is the perfect ensemble to rethink and upend the very notions of power & gender. 


Please send recs for upcoming weeks to: donnak3[at]gmail[dot]com