Underground American filmmaker Jack Smith surfaces in the Mall
The iconic Filmmaker, artist and actor Jack Smith (1932-1989), Who was once described by Andy Warhol as “the only person he would ever copy” and by the director John Waters as “the only true underground filmmaker”, is part of the autumn season at the ICA with a retrospective of his work which runs from 7 to 18 September.
Smith worked in New York from the 1950s until his death in 1989. His work unequivocally resisted and upturned accepted conventions, whether artistic, moral or legal. Irreverent in tone and delirious in effect, Smith’s films, such as the notorious Flaming Creatures (1963), are both wildly camp and subtly polemical. Smith is best known for his contributions to underground cinema but his influence extends across performance art, photography and experimental theatre.
A Feast for Open Eyes: Jack Smith maps out the breadth of Smith’s practice, from his collaborative film productions to his individual writings, and looks at his legacy in the UK drawing upon a generation of New York artists with whom Smith was closely involved, including Jonas Mekas and Penny Arcade, and younger artists and filmmakers whom he influenced. John Zorn, a long-term Smith collaborator selects records to accompany an installation of slides documenting Smith’s work, as he used to in collaboration with Smith in the 1970s and 80s.
The retrospective opens with a screening of Flaming Creatures introduced by Chris Dercon, Director of Tate Modern, who was a close friend of Smith’s. The film is followed by the screening of an interview, recorded exclusively for the ICA this summer, with Jonas Mekas, a founder member of Anthology Film Archives who faced obscenity charges for defending Flaming Creatures in the 1960s. The presentation is introduced by Dominic Johnson, author of the forthcoming monograph Glorious Catastrophe: Jack Smith, Performance and Visual Culture (Manchester University Press) and co-curator of A Feast for Open Eyes.
A Feast for Open Eyes: Jack Smith, supported by The Edwin Fox Foundation, is a collaboration between the ICA; Dominic Johnson; and LUX, London with special thanks to Gladstone Gallery, New York.
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ICA Program
Flaming Creatures + Chris Dercon Introduction and Q&A with Jonas Mekas and Dominic Johnson
7 September 2011
A screening of Jack Smith’s best-known film Flaming Creatures, which was banned at the time of its release, is introduced by Chris Dercon and followed by Jonas Mekas in conversation with Dominic Johnson.
Normal Love + Live Soundtrack
8 September 2011
Jack Smith’s Normal Love is screened with a live soundtrack composed and performed by the band Ectopia – filmmaker and performance artist Adam Christensen with Jack Brennan and Vicky Steiri – commissioned by the ICA.
Jack Smith Symposium
9 September 2011
A symposium exploring various strands of the work and legacy of Jack Smith, including presentations by British filmmaker Anna Thew on the influence of Smith on filmmaking in the UK.
Penny Arcade: Denial of Death
9 September 2011
A performance by Penny Arcade, a New York-based performance artist and close friend of Jack Smith.
Anna La Thew: Whilst Mario Spins
9 September 2011
British artist filmmaker Anna La Thew presents films inspired by and in the spirit of Jack Smith.
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
10 September 2011 – 15 September 2011
Fimmaker and former music video director Mary Jordan’s fascinating portrait features Smith’s rare and unseen films and photographs along with audio recordings, acting appearances, and other relics squeezed from Smith’s vaulted archive.
Everything
10 September 2011
Everything returns to celebrate its first birthday in conjunction with Jack Smith: A Feast For Open Eyes.
Flaming Creatures
10 September 2011
Nothing short of notorious, Flaming Creatures (1963, 45 min) marked a significant moment in the history of postwar American film and culture.
Jack Smith Installation and Readings
10 September 2011 – 11 September 2011
Jack Smith’s slides of performance documentation are accompanied by music selected by long-term collaborator, John Zorn.
Jack Smith: Uncle David + intro and Q&A by David Hoyle
10 September 2011
This dark and menacing low-budget feature film explores the more sinister side of sexuality, where the banalities of conversation between an uncle and his nephew are thrown into the realms of the unconventional.
Roy Cohn / Jack Smith
11 September 2011
From one of the seminal theatrical events of the 90’s – Ron Vawter’s stunning performance piece Roy Cohn / Jack Smith – Jill Godmilow has crafted a dramatically deft, comic and terrifying film diptych of queer-on-queer.
Normal Love
14 September 2011 – 18 September 2011
Smith’s second feature length film derives from his adoration of Maria Montez, the B- movie star best know for her performance in Cobra Woman.
No President
14 September 2011 – 17 September 2011
Smith’s third feature film was originally titled The Kidnapping of Wendell Willkie by the Love Bandit in reaction to the 1968 Presidential Campaign.
Jack Smith Short Films
15 September 2011 – 18 September 2011
A selection of recently restored rare short films by Jack Smith screened on 16mm.
Flaming Days in a Rented World: Recent commissions inspired by Jack Smith
17 September 2011
A selection of recent commissioned films from the recent Jack Smith exhibition at Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York and the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art and Hebbel-am-Ufer (HAU) Theatre series Live Film! Jack Smith! in Berlin.