The complete schedule for Artists’ Film International 2015 is now available. The full series of films – including work from Serbia, Afghanistan,Argentina, Italy, Vietnam, Turkey, Poland, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Norway, and the United Kingdom – will be screenings on Saturday, November 14 at the Crowley Theater here in Marfa.

 

The drop-in screenings run from 10a-6p,with new cycles beginning at: 10:10am,12:30pm,and 2:50pm.

 

The featured screening of short films by Brigid McCaffrey takes place later that night, with doors at 7pm and screenings commencing at 7:30pm.

Morning screenings will feature free coffee from Do Your Thing and pastries by Ginger Hillery. In the afternoon we’ll have gratis popcorn and beer from Big Bend Brewing Co.

And then please join us on Sunday, November 15 from 1-3pm for a geology walk and conversation at the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute in Fort Davis, Texas.

The walk will be led by Ren Lallatin,
the subject of McCaffrey’s film 2013 film Paradise Springs, along with Sul Ross geology lecturer Jesse Kelsch.

More information on the AFI 2015 event page!

Brigid McCaffrey
Paradise Springs, 2013
Digital video still
33 minutes

Cine Internacional de Artistas – Brigid McCaffrey
Comisariado por Laura Copelin

sábado, 14 de noviembre
10:00 – 18:00 Proyecciones de selecciones internacionales de AFI
19:00 Proyección destacada de cortometrajes por Brigid McCaffrey
Crowley Theater
Marfa, Texas

domingo, 15 de noviembre
13:00 – 15:00 Camino y conversación de geología
Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute
Fort Davis, Texas

Organizado conjuntamente con Whitechapel Gallery, Londres, a Ballroom Marfa le complace presentar la temporada 2015 de Artists’ Film International, un programa que muestra artistas internacionales que trabajan en cine y animación. Este año Ballroom Marfa destacará las obras de la cineasta Brigid McCaffrey, basada en la ciudad de Los Angeles.

Las películas recientes se establecen en paisajes que transmiten precariedad y flujo. Su forma de realizar documentales se enfoca en ambientes y gente en transición, y ella mantiene en mente a estos sujetos por largos periodos de tiempo. Estas obras meditan en la tension entre individualismo y comunidad en el medio de realidades instables económicamente y ecológicamente. Formado por el proceso de retrato, las películas responden a los cambios fiscales y emocionales de sus personajes, creando documentos que fusionan representaciones del mismo y del lugar.

Ballroom Marfa tendrá una proyección gratuita de una selección de la obra de McCaffrey, que incluye su película de 2013 Paradise Springs, la cual se sigue a Ren Lallatin, un geólogo que estudia el Desierto de Mojave. Lallatin traza sus actualidades volcánicas y sísmicas; localiza fuentes de agua y reliquias de habitantes anteriores; y identifica características de paisajes que ocultará su refugio a vista del publico. La película consiste en una sucesión de soliloquios errantes y cruces de terreno. El geólogo deambula mientras describe sus interacciones con el mundo natural, y declara su rechazo de regulación de tierra y privatización.

Las películas de McCaffrey serán proyectadas al lado de selecciones de otras instituciones internacionales del 2015 AFI en el Crowley Theater en Marfa. Las proyecciones serán presentadas de formato loop todo el día. La cita es el sábado, 14 de noviembre, 2015. Una conversación con McCaffrey y Lallatin seguirá en la tarde.

Entre las actividades también incluirá una conversación y caminata de geología al aire libre dirigida por Lallatin y Jesse Kelsche, una conferencista de geología de la Universidad de Sul Ross. La caminata/lectura tomará lugar en el instituto sin fines de lucro, The Cihuanhuhan Desert Research Institute. La cita es el domingo, 15 de noviembre, 2015. Todos los eventos son gratuitos y abiertos al publico.

Las proyecciones de películas como parte del evento del sábado de AFI incluye las selecciones de las siguientes instituciones:

Belgrade Cultural Centre, Serbia
Centre for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan (CCAA), Kabul
Cinematheque de Tanger, Tángier
City Gallery, Kfar Saba
Fundación PRÓA, Buenos Aires
GAMeC, Bergamo Italia
Hanoi DOCLAB, Hanoi
Istanbul Modern, Estanbul
Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Varsovia
National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA), Moscú
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlín
Para/Site, Hong Kong
Project 88, Mumbai
Tromsø Kunstforening, Tromsø
Whitechapel Gallery, Londres

Brigid McCaffrey (n. 1978) es una cineasta experimental y documental quien recide en la ciudad de Los Angeles. Ella trabaja en cine y video. Sus películas han estado en varios cines incluyendo BAFICI, Bradford Internacional Film Festival, Cinema de Reel, DocLisboa, L’Alternativa, el Rotterdam International Film Festival, Torino International Film Festival, Other Cinema in San Francisco, y el Los Angeles Filmforum. Su película Castaic Lake estuvo galardonada como la mejor cinematografia en el Ann Arbor Film Festival en el 2011. Paradise Springs recibió el Marian McMahon Award en Images Festival en el 2014. Ella recibió una maestría en Cine y Video de CalArts y una licenciatura en Fotografia y Cine de Bard College.

Rhyannon (Ren) Lallatin es un lama budista de ascendencia celta y indigna norteamericano. Como profesor, Ren ofreció cursos de pregraduado y postgraduado en geología/geofísica, ecopsicología y los estudios indignas norteamericanos, y todo ello entretejido en su conjunto educativo. Un jardinero ávido del Desierto de Mojave, diseñador de los ecosistemas y herbolario, Ren prospera de la relación recíproca inteligente con el consciente, la tierra viva, y el universo. Ser transgénero, Ren utiliza esa palabra en el sentido de ser trascendente de género. Esto indica la plenitud original no limitada por los dictados de la cultura o la personificación actual.

Jesse Kelsch ha estudiado y trabajado como geóloga en su lugar favorito, al suroeste de los Estados Unidos, desde 1993. Ella tiene una licenciatura en Geociencias de la Universidad de Arizona y una maestría en la Tierra y Ciencias Planetarias de la Universidad de Nuevo México. Ella trabajó como hidrogeólogo en Nuevo México y el oeste de Texas hasta que se mudó a Alpine, Texas en 2006. Ella ahora enseña geología en la Universidad de Sul Ross. Su objetivo en la enseñanza es conseguir que sus estudiantes dejen el salón de clases y salgan al campo tanto como sea posible, para fomentar la investigación entre los estudiantes universitarios, y fomentar la investigación científica a todos aquellos que lo deseen.

This video presented by London’s Whitechapel Gallery highlights the 2014 season of works for Artists’ Film International, a collection of artists’ film, video and animation from around the world. Among the artists highlighted is Nicole Miller, who will be featured in Ballroom’s sixth installment of Artist’s Film International. Artist’s Film International is on view November 22-January 11, 2015 at Ballroom Marfa, with an opening reception on November 22 from 6-8pm. Click here for all the details.

The video also includes work from artists Jorge Macchi (Argentina), Angela Su (China), Oded Hirsch (Israel) and Provmyza Group (Russia).

A description of Nicole Miller’s piece from Whitechapel:

Untitled (David) (2012) by Nicole Miller observes a man the artist encountered by chance on the street.
He recounts the events leading to the amputation of his left arm whilst his right limb is reflected in a mirror,

Artists’ Film International: Nicole Miller
Curated by Erin Kimmel

November 22, 2014 – January 11, 2015
Opening: November 22, 6-8pm

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Organized in conjunction with Whitechapel Gallery, London, Ballroom Marfa is pleased to present the sixth season of Artists’ Film International, a program that showcases international artists working in film and animation. This year in the north and south galleries Ballroom Marfa will feature two video works, David (2012) and Death of a School (2014), by Los Angeles-based artist Nicole Miller.

Miller’s videos explore self-representation and self-presentation in narrative form as a tool for the reconstitution of both physical and psychic manifestations of loss. In David, a man re-tells the story of loosing his arm in a brutal act of random violence while concurrently re-generating his phantom limb through exercises performed in front of a mirror. Interspersed throughout the two galleries, the four-channel work Death of a School is a predominantly silent and languid meditation on a soon to be shut-down school in Miller’s hometown of Tuscon, Arizona where the artist’s mother taught for the majority of her life. Presented together, the videos embrace malleable identity as a function of the story we construct about ourselves as subject or artist—one in which representation not only mediates knowledge through fragmentation and negation but constructs it as well.

Additionally, each of the 12 participating institutions has selected one artist from their region whose works will be screened as part of the international AFI program. Ballroom Marfa’s center gallery has been transformed into an interactive screening room for the viewing of the entire selection of works for the duration of the exhibition.

Nicole Miller (b. 1982; Tucson, Arizona) lives and works in Los Angeles. Solo shows include Believing is Seeing (LACMA), Death of a School (Centre d’Art Contemporain Geneve); The Conductor (LAXART) and Daggering (HMAAC).

Image courtesy of the artist and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum

Ballroom’s 2013 pick for Artists’ Film International, Alix Pearlstein, recently unveiled her newest major work at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts as part of their PLATFORM series.

The work, entitled The Park, is:

a three-channel video conceived for and filmed at deCordova as a composite “portrait-in-flux” of the Sculpture Park. Projected in deCordova’s Dewey Family Gallery, The Park brings the outdoor experience inside to create an uncanny reflection of the visitor’s encounter with art and nature.

The video installation portrays a single area of the Sculpture Park from three distinct viewpoints. In each scene the camera moves forward at a careful but unrelenting pace, absorbing and rearranging the ‘cast’–the institution’s ground, actors, and sculpture. Installed in the round, the videos will emanate outward, giving the viewer in the center of the gallery the illusion of ever-expanding space.

Heavily influenced by Minimalism, dance, and cinematic history, Pearlstein’s videos explore performance within everyday spaces and environments. She choreographs actors and her camera in equal measure to create distilled moments of familiar strangeness; common actions are made anew through performed and repeated gestures. The Park presents the Sculpture Park as a site of contemplation, scrutiny, and mystery.

The Park will be on display until October 13,

Some background reading on Alix Pearlstein for those of you still cramming for Ballroom’s Friday opening of our installment in the Artists’ Film International series. Click here for all the details.

From the December 2012 issue of Artforum:

From “The Nothing Act”, a profile of Alex Pearlstein’s recent work in the April 2013 issue of Art in America:

The circling camera of The Drawing Lesson was a device Pearlstein also used for her 2008 show at the Kitchen. Having created the four-channel video After the Fall in the venue’s black box theater downstairs, she then showed the piece in the white box gallery upstairs, alluding to the differing modes of performance in theater and art. Filmed using a set of four cameras, the video first shows a couple on the verge of having sex, and then the interplay between two groupings of actors, one in pink-and-red costumes and the other in gold-and-black. A couple of the actors feign injury from altercations. The way the actors are divided by costume and actions harkens back to Pearlstein’s earlier, more allegorical work. But the constant observation of the actors by the camera, as well as the greater immediacy of their connection with the viewer, makes the work feel more elemental. Building on such effects, Pearlstein went on to adapt the premise of the musical A Chorus Line (the 1975 play and 1985 film) for her video Talent (2009). A Chorus Line, which ran for over 6,000 performances, setting a Broadway record, is about actors auditioning for parts in a new musical. They laugh, cry, sing, dance and tell heartbreaking stories about themselves and their careers. Pearlstein stripped the musical of its songs and dialogue, leaving only the wondrous, spontaneous ephemera of actors at an audition: waiting, hopeful, bored or yearning for attention. At one point they share a loaf of bread. They turn their acting personas on and off and mingle occasionally, though they mostly stay in line as the camera moves in a parallel track back and forth across them.

Continue reading …

And finally, an excerpt from a Q&A between Pearlstein and John Pilson in the Winter 2013 issue of BOMB:

JP You’re an artist who has not become all consumed by video, but who sees the opportunity of it containing everything. I remember asking you for advice about how to edition things. I was feeling a little insecure about DVDs, thinking that I had to make nice boxes for them or something. You set me straight, “You have absolutely nothing to make up for. Everything you have to say has been put into that video. Nothing is required to make it more of an object.”

AP I’m glad I said that.

JP Those anxieties never exactly go away, but what you said really helped. It also seems completely in line with your work because it never points outside of itself. You rarely seem to be imitating anything: your videos don’t look like movies or TV shows, and they’re not cinematic, necessarily. Everything in them is active: the camera, ideas about performance, acting, figures, and space. Everything is competing for our attention. Anybody using the moving image has to contend with genre. With TV, you could measure in milliseconds how long it takes to know what you’re looking at: the news, porn, a documentary, or a reality show. Video artists have to contend with that, but they also have a great opportunity to question the assumed passivity of the viewer.

AP I consciously evade genre. Although, there are moments that may suggest a genre, say sci-fi in Light (2012) or suspense in Distance (2006)—but the suggestion is misleading, impure, and it doesn’t hold.

JP One does get the sense in your work that you’re scrutinizing something, or many things at once. I’m curious about what those things are?

AP The center point of what I’m thinking about right now is the affective space and the fundamental relationship between the camera, the viewer, and the subject—and what activates it. Camera movement, positing the camera as a viewer, and the gaze from the subject to camera can activate this. Light and sound can activate that space too. In both works up now at On Stellar Rays—The Drawing Lesson (2012) and Moves in the Field (2012)—a powerful light and a shotgun mic are mounted on the camera. As the camera nears, the subjects become very brightly lit, almost blown out, spotlighted, and you can hear their breath. These elements act to implicate the viewer.

Keep reading in BOMB.

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The opening reception for Artists Film International — Alix Pearlstein takes place Friday, 19 July 2013 from 6–8pm. There will be an exhibition walk-through with Alix Pearlstein on Saturday, 20 July 2013 at 10am. All events are free and open to the public at Ballroom Marfa.