Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 8pm
We Melt Away (A Walking Picture Palace of Ice)
Curated by Mark McElhatten
Thirty years ago as part of a series of film projection pieces called Trespass I projected uninvited images through windows of selected houses and onto rooftops covered with freshly fallen snow. In the case of the interiors the images ran away before they could be apprehended, the duration of the piece lasting until someone walked into the room. The snow images endured for longer periods of time on sparkling feathery screens. Uneven accumulation creating illusions of depth and variable focus. My first cinematic vision was a hallucination that came after three days on a houseboat on the Hudson without food reading Brothers Karamazov when I was barely in my teens. A vision like a Jan Toorop symbolist painting of virgin deities encased in ice, a young boy skating on the frozen surface inches from their linked naked bodies. All of this revealed with a soaring crane shot.
This program takes us into the glacial territory of The Snow Queen where love is mocked and infinity triumphs over eternity while Cyndi Lauper gives us useless hope. A child of snow shivers and smiles as time moves in reverse and snow ascends skyward. Houses collapse haunted and infirm echoing Poe and Gorey. A hypnotized subject half-woman half-cat suspends in memory spirals, one claw stuck in the scratching post of repressed sexuality. Seances and hymns telepathic communications between the species.
Richard Pryor does stand up from beyond the grave. Transparent images lie down and give up the ghost. We see through a glass darkly. Finally we shed our body and move across the surface of the known world, revisiting the scenes of a life brought to an early stillness splashing down in oceanic oblivion... - MM
Lunatic Princess, Mark LaPore, video, 2005, 4 mins
House, Ben Rivers, 16mm, 2007, 6 mins
Singing Biscotts, Luther Price, 2007, 16mm, 6 mins
A Hallow Kiss for Mark LaPore, Luther Price, 16mm, 2008, 4 mins
The Mongrel Sister, Luther Price, 16mm, 2007, 7 mins
Black and White Trypps Number Four, Ben Russell, video, 2008, 12 mins
All Through the Night, Michael Robinson, video, 2007, 4 mins
Zelienople, Darcy Shreve, video, 2007, 4 mins
Phantom, Luke Sieczek, video, 2007, 7 mins
Rehearsals for Retirement: In Memoriam Mark LaPore, Phil Solomon, video, 2007, 11 mins
Tickets - $6, available at door.