—Walt! Gorecki

video by Amy Darling

On a crowded Saturday night at the opening of MOCA’s Art in the Streets exhibit I made my way in by the only appropriate means for a show grounded in subterfuge and counterculture—by crashing the party with a ragtag collection of artists and musicians. We were greeted by the sounds of the Cold Crush Brothers performing onstage, known for their appearance in the classic hip-hop film Wild Style. I have to admit that upon entering I was concerned by the staid museum display of the forefathers of street art, but the show was impressive when it broke from the historical displays into full scale installations—the strongest of which was a miniature cityscape that came from the “Beautiful Losers” crew including Barry McGee and Stephen Powers—a recreation of an urban landscape complete with McGee’s signature animatronic taggers and a series of decrepit tableaus. Brazilian brothers Os Gemeos had a similarly impressive display that included small houses mounted sideways to the walls near the ceiling, and instruments painted by the duo that were available for crowd interaction, with mixed results. Portions of the show had strong religious overtones, between Banksy’s giant stained glass display patterned with colorful hand styles, chuch pews littered with Tecates (which I only hope were emptied individually by the artists) and a stunning glowing teepee structure from Swoon. The sheer density of the show will keep any fan of street art coming back for multiple visits to this astoundingly comprehensive exhibit.

—Walt Gorecki

MOCA’s Art in the Streets runs from 04.17.11 – 08.08.11 at The Geffen Contemporary. 152 N. Central Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90013. Visit www.moca.org for more information.

M.M. Serra is the Executive Director of the Film-Makers Cooperative whose latest work, Chop Off, is a literal exploration of amputation as art. She co-curated the Counter Culture, Counter Cinema Avant-Garde Film Festival at the Pacific Design Center with films featuring headless naked bodies, silent bloody births and psychedelic be-ins. This interview by Lainna Fader.

The concept of identity is clearly central to a festival about counterculture. How does the structure of film—and more specifically avant-garde film—affect the exploration of identity? And how is film a particularly useful medium for women to explore these issues?
The concept of identity is key to an exploration of the counterculture—one of the traits that characterizes these films as avant-garde is their creation of new forms of personal vision. The term avant-garde originates from a French military term for the advanced guard that ventures first into unexplored territory. Avant-garde artists, like these soldiers, are the ones on the forefront of cultural and aesthetic innovation, often putting themselves in the line of fire, both on the screen and off, in order to explore the boundaries of transgression and break cultural taboos with the unorthodox, daring and radical. This position on the forefront is often a singular one, influencing the artist to impart on a journey of individual exploration and a study of identity. For example—Jack Waters’ film The Male Gayze questions issues of race, white privilege, homosexuality, and the commodity fetishism of the black male within media representation. It does not address just one issue of identity, but presents a multiple layering of race, class, gender and creating politics within the avant-garde tradition. By turning the camera on himself, by being both subject and object of the spectacle, operating the camera, and being the voice of the narrator, Jack Waters creates a unique reminiscence of himself as a 23-year-old African-American dancer in Europe. After a photo of Waters’ partially undressed body—with the head removed—was circulated around Europe as a commercial postcard without his permission, Waters felt his body was appropriated and objectified in similar fashion to the commodification of female sexuality. The fetishization of the body as spectacle is prevalent in mainstream cinema, television and advertising, so an avant-garde artist is able to engage in the process of critiquing and taking back control of the gaze.
What are some of the questions that film can articulate? In what ways do other specific mediums fall short?
Early in film history, cinema had to separate itself from the carnival, vaudeville, theater and literature, therefore critics like Germaine Dulac (‘Visual and Anti-Visual Films,’ 1928) and later Hans Richter (‘The Film as an Original Art Form,’ 1955) championed cinema’s unique visual capabilities (the close-up, temporality, rhythm, texture) to distinguish itself as ‘the seventh art form.’ When sound was introduced in the late 1920s, theorists were concerned that the addition of sound would destroy the visual art and turn film into the illustrated novel or recorded theater. As we have seen, particularly with avant-garde and experimental cinema, artists have used sound to enhance mood or even subvert the entertainment value. For example, Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures intersperses sound with silence as a counterpoint to the visuals instead of as illustration or enhancement. Personally, I feel that film is another tool to express individuality and personal vision alongside painting, poetry, performance, literature and so forth and there is room to blur these once rigid categories.
Is this a case of form following function or function following form? Does avant-garde film exist because radical concepts demand such a medium? Or does the existence of a medium such as film draw avant-garde ideas into expression?
One of the reasons that radical concepts and transgressive ideas can be explored in avant-garde cinema is because it is not a commodity like the commercial mainstream cinema that are dependent on attendance, marketing, press and the rating system. Also, avant-garde form isn’t tied to a feature-length product, so the message can dictate the length of the film. Film is one of the many forms where avant-garde concepts can be explored, but film is unique in that it can raise questions or explore its subjects through language, graphics and sound. For example, Stan Brakhage’s 1959 film Window Water Baby Moving — showing his wife Jane giving birth — is lyrical, romantic and graphic, but still disturbs viewers of both genders today. It is a silent film so Jane’s birth agonies are not heard, but the visuals carry the weight of the bloody and agonizing—but beautiful—process that is common to us all. The film and its subject were censored by the hospital refusing to let Stan in with a camera to film the birth of their first child and the subject was considered inappropriate for a theatrical audience in the late 1950s.
I read an interview with Jose Rodriguez-Soltero about the remastering of Lupe by Anthology, and he said that removing all the scratches and blemishes—its ‘ugliness’—took away some of its character and muddled its message. Do these experimental films have to be ugly in order to capture the experience of being a part of underground or counterculture?
In my opinion the film is very avant-garde and different than a mainstream Hollywood film in many aspects of its aesthetics that supersede the question of whether it’s clean or dirty. The strength of Lupe is in its tactile, visceral and sensuous quality, particularly in regards to its expressiveness created with a vivid color palette saturated with warm tones such as reds. The aesthetics of the avant-garde are not about beauty or ugliness, but about exploring possibilities through textural, rhythmic and even tonal ranges that expand on our traditional sense of reality.
What is the ‘traditional sense of reality’ and through what traditions is it reinforced?
The traditional sense of ‘reality’ found in commercial film and television is the illusion where you become so engaged in the story that there is a seamless, unchallenged spectatorship. The camera, actors and narrative all become part of an invisible artifice, so that you—the spectator—become fully engaged and the overall cinematic apparatus totally dissolves. Avant-garde cinema challenges and disrupts the spectator by foregrounding screen surface, layering of visual imagery, speaking directly to the spectator, distorting spatial perspective, and through its transgressive subjects—for example the explicit graphic body which is repressed in mainstream entertainment. Creating a more visceral palette creates a more engaged spectatorship where one is more aware of the cinematic apparatus, the surface of the screen.
Through what ways can artists connect with the ‘visceral’? Why is this of value?
For example, in an early avant-garde masterpiece like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the impact of the film is not told simply through the story, but through the powerful visuals and the sculpted painted space, the expressions painted on the actors’ faces, the tilted camera to express the disturbed mind, and the unnatural jagged landscape. These stylistic aspects not only advance the narrative plot but also draw the spectator into the twisted mind of the storyteller. Here the visceral quality is the visual texture, or grainy surface, that gives an enhanced viewing experience and aims to create an intellectually and sensually stimulated spectator.
Avant garde music and film have a lot of the same rhythms, which is something you clearly picked up on with selections like Jerry Abrams’ Be-In, set to music by Blue Cheer. How important is the interaction between sound and image to the impact and durability of experimental film? How do you feel about the trend of doing new live scores over pre-existing films?
Sound in Jerry Abrams’ Be-In is important in capturing the immediate feeling of being in the summer of love. The music works with the psychedelic visuals to create the dynamic mood of the culture at that time in San Francisco. The importance of the sound/image interaction depends on the filmmaker—for example Stan Brakhage felt that a soundtrack destroys the visual rhythm and mood of the film, while other filmmakers liked to work with avant-garde musicians and were interested in experimenting with sound and music for their films. Jack Smith would play records and create live sounds to accompany his films, so I think it’s okay in the cases where the filmmakers’ are open to experimentation or in cases where original soundtracks may have existed but have been lost.
Do you feel that today’s technology is deployed in a way that can expand identity and perspective? Is it used in a way consistent with the aims and ideologies of filmmakers like Jerry Abrams?
I wouldn’t say that one technology is better than the other, but that they are different tools that create different visual and audio experiences. An example of an innovative use of new technology is Ken Jacobs’ work Capitalism: Child Labor (2006), which shows a two-dimensional stereograph of a factory child at work and uses his three-dimensional patented technology to show the dehumanization of the child by visually merging the child with the machinery and as part of the industrial system. Jacobs describes his new technology as ‘Eternalism, a method for creating an appearance of sustained three-dimensional motion-direction of unlimited duration, using a finite number of pictures.’ This is an example of the avant-garde exploring new frontiers of technology.
I read that Sonata For Pen, Brush & Ruler was made for three dollars worth of clear movie film and five bottles of ink, for a total production cost of nine dollars, but took seven months of the director’s life to produce ten minutes of film. Do you think knowing the difficulties of a film’s production impacts one’s enjoyment of the film, or the value placed on it?
I think knowing the technique affects the viewing experience and that the process is part of the journey. Jasmine Hirst’s Trailers contains Super 8 footage shot of Aileen Wuornos, the female serial killer executed in Florida whose life was appropriated for the film Monster. Hirst writes, ‘I met and filmed Aileen Wuornos on death row in Florida in 1997. We had been corresponding for 5 years and Aileen had asked me to film her talking about the truth of her life and crimes as part of her preparation to die.’ Hirst’s conversations with Wuornos in the short film reveals stories of Wuornos’ horribly abusive childhood that challenges and disturbs the entertainment factor of her story. Knowing the filmmaker’s ten-year correspondence with Wuornos in addition to and in contrast to dehumanizing and trivialized coverage of Wuornos in popular culture, creates a deeper understanding of the subject of the film.
Curator David E. James described Jonas Mekas’ work as a heroic cultural activity in the context of the NYC film community, and all of Program 4 is devoted to his work. Who in L.A. is making the most significant cultural contributions, and what form do these contributions come in? Is it possible for arts organizations in L.A. to thrive financially and avoid corporate cultural investment?
I would say Charles S. Cohen and Jeffrey Deitch are performing a heroic cultural act in L.A. by recognizing the importance of these films and filmmakers and bringing this groundbreaking program of Counter Culture, Counter Cinema with 60 titles and seven programs to L.A.. Culture is not cannibalized by corporate America as long as pockets exist where individual expression and personal vision are allowed to thrive and while galleries, cooperatives, museums, collectives and performance spaces are funded and available to a diverse range of artists.  I think there will be a new evaluation of the economy, food structures, the ecology, and more global concerns addressing these political issues. It’s not an East Coast-West Coast thing; counterculture cinema is spread across the wider culture of this generation of artists, activists, and members of the counter culture. Though communities of artists continue to exist in specific pockets, with mass digital/media access for all individuals, the movement becomes more global and less restricted by physical space.

COUNTER CULTURE, COUNTER CINEMA FROM THUR., OCT. 14 TO SAT., OCT. 16., AT THE SILVERSCREEN THEATER AT THE PACIFIC DESIGN CENTER, 8687 MELROSE AVE., WEST HOLLYWOOD. VISIT MOCA.ORG FOR COMPLETE PROGRAM AND SCHEDULE. $10-$45. MOCA.ORG.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles & Pacific Design Center & Charles S. Cohen present Counter Culture, Counter Cinema: An Avant-Garde Film Festival

Co-Curated by David E. James and MM Serra

SilverScreen Theater
Pacific Design Center
8687 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood, CA 90069

This cinema extravaganza, programmed from the collection of The New American Cinema Group/New York’s Film-Makers’ Cooperative, showcases the long-term alliance between experimental cinema and counter-cultural activity. Covering 50 years, these films and videos explore sexuality, politics, communal experiments, and transgressive film appropriations.

BUY PROGRAM 5 TICKETS HERE.

BUY PROGRAM 6 TICKETS HERE.

BUY PROGRAM 7 TICKETS HERE.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles & Pacific Design Center & Charles S. Cohen present Counter Culture, Counter Cinema: An Avant-Garde Film Festival

Co-Curated by David E. James and MM Serra

SilverScreen Theater
Pacific Design Center
8687 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood, CA 90069

This cinema extravaganza, programmed from the collection of The New American Cinema Group/New York’s Film-Makers’ Cooperative, showcases the long-term alliance between experimental cinema and counter-cultural activity. Covering 50 years, these films and videos explore sexuality, politics, communal experiments, and transgressive film appropriations.

BUY PROGRAM 2 TICKETS HERE.

BUY PROGRAM 3 TICKETS HERE

BUY PROGRAM 4 TICKETS HERE.

Somewhere down in Chinatown, the ‘70s are coming back. The East L.A. Art scene of late has mined these years—with varying degrees of success and, perhaps, to the brink of exhaustion—but Elana Mann’s Performing Economies demonstrates just how dynamic and even necessary participatory art can be. For almost three months now, Mann and artists and collectives from across the city have presented panels, performative works and visual artwork exploring the ideas of alternative economies. This interview by Drew Denny.

Tell me the story of Performing Economies—when did you get the idea for the show? How did you choose a space and participants?
Elana Mann (organizer/curator): This past February I was invited to submit a proposal for a curatorial project at the Fellows of Contemporary Art. I had just finished a year-long project called ‘Exchange Rate: 2008,’ which was an international performance exchange created in response to the 2008 US presidential election. With Performing Economies I was interested in deepening certain ideas and questions that emerged during the Exchange Rate project around politics and participation. I also wanted to highlight a community of Los Angeles artists who are interested in exploring alternative economies of activism and intimacy in this time of global political and economic crises. The Fellows of Contemporary Art was an ideal space to hold this type of exhibit, as it is a model of alternative giving and patronage. The organization, founded in 1975, is made up of 140 art patrons who pay dues and use this money for multiple philanthropic programs, all of which relate to the development of art in California.
I didn’t expect to see the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest sharing a bill with artSpa—what’s the uniting factor among the participants?
Performing Economies crystallizes a growing movement of Los Angeles based artists who are addressing current political calamities through methodologies of participation, collaboration and community involvement. The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, for example, has an editorial collective that ‘facilitate[s] the meeting of artists, political activists, theorists, and media makers’ who contribute to their publications and events. artSpa, organized by Adam Overton, works with artists and healers, creating such events as ‘open-mic meditations,’ ‘free aura readings’ and ‘experimental music and massage.’ Both of these projects are deeply invested in social change, whether through political writing and activism or healing workshops.
Could you describe the Free Free Market? What kind of goods and services were gifted at that event?
The Free Free Market (FFM) had nine participants, who are all part of the Artists for Social Justice collective, which was founded by the artist Evelyn Serrano. The gifting at the FFM was really varied—from a woman typing love letters for people passing by, to folks with a table of homemade ‘seed bombs,’ to a singer offering free voice lessons. One of the artists had a table of goods she was giving away, from cans of soup to jig saws that were all ‘acquired’—or stolen. All of the artists were spread out in the courtyard and surrounding the building where the gallery is located. The artists interacted with people coming especially to see them, but also folks passing by who were heading to dinner or to a shop elsewhere in the building. One of the artists gave the janitor of the building a bunch of vegetable plants left over from the day and he planted them in spots all around the outside courtyard. All the participants in the day were really pleased with how it went and are planning to expand the Free Free Market to farmer’s markets, the beach, and other social spaces in and around Los Angeles.
I know the Johns pretty well—from CalArts—but I must ask, what’s this ‘we’ business all about?
John Burtle and John Barlog are two artists who often work collaboratively. They both have rectangle tattoos on their forearms, which they use as gallery spaces. The Johns invite people to do projects on/with this particular demarcated spot on their arms. Since working together they have noticed that their language has changed, from ‘my project’ to ‘our project,’ from ‘I am doing this’ to ‘We are doing this.’ This change in the Johns’ language has been a powerful one, shifting their ideas of individual versus collective identity and they wanted to further explore this shift for the Performing Economies exhibit. For their piece, the Johns proposed that a new form of the English language be used in the gallery space. This new form would eliminate all pronouns except ‘we’ and ‘us,’ abolish command forms, and eradicate possessives. Instead of ‘Get me a beer,’ one would say, ‘Would we like a beer?’ And so on. Tom McKenzie, the executive director of the Fellows of Contemporary Art, is a writer himself and was excited to help facilitate the use of the language in the space. Tom said that this new form has actually helped him think of the Fellows of Contemporary Art as a ‘we’ instead of individual members. The Johns also placed a wall didactic on the wall of the gallery explaining to viewers the ‘rules’ of the new language and inviting people to participate.
This show runs from May through July and involves so many people—did you experience any hiccups in the curatorial process? What have you learned?
The curatorial process was remarkably smooth and maybe this has to do with the fact that the participants in the show are all used to working with others through collaboration or collective art making. Many of the artists have even curated their own projects within the show. In all, over sixty-two artists/collaborations have created artwork through the Performing Economies project, which is pretty remarkable given the size of the gallery space and budget. Of course I have learned so much through this process of working with all the incredible artists participating in the show and with the Fellows of Contemporary Art. One of my curatorial lessons has to do with assuming a type of artistic output for each participant. When I started the exhibit I had the participants divided in my head as to who would make an object for the gallery space and who would produce an event or performance. This was a particularly bad idea, as some of the artists who I thought would want to create a performance expressed a desire to make an object and vice versa. As an artist myself I should have known not to make any conjectures about what an artist would want to create for a specific project. Luckily, this did not create any major problems, but only enriched the exhibition.
So no catastrophes? What about miracles? Surprises?
The show has been a really inspiring experience all around and I can’t wait for the rest of the events that are coming up. Last weekend the gallery was visited by various garment district workers who participated in an artwork by Ashley Hunt and Taisha Paggett called ‘On Movement, Thought and Politics: Garment Worker’s Center, Los Angeles/En el movimiento, el pensamiento y la política: El Centro de Trabajadores de Costura, Los Angeles’ (2009). It was wonderful to share the exhibit with them and talk about how some of the ideas of the artworks could be incorporated into their everyday lives. We hope to host more outside groups to the space through the run of the exhibit.
How did the garment workers participate in the piece?
Ashley Hunt and Taisha Paggett began working with the Los Angeles Garment Worker’s Center this spring. They conducted various movement workshops, which focused on the way the garment workers’ political situation was affecting how they used their bodies at their jobs. Many of them have injuries related to unhealthy ways that they work. Hunt and Paggett also investigated how the garment workers carried or expressed themselves through their bodies in different interactions with each other or with their bosses. For their piece in the exhibit Hunt and Paggett had the workers direct each other to physically recreate some educational posters. These posters indicate—through endearing hand drawings—different ways to position oneself in negotiations, confrontations with bosses, and discussions with each other. Hunt and Paggett filmed the workers as they were acting out the positions of the characters displayed in three posters and added subtitles in English and Spanish.
How do you critically evaluate the role of activism and/or education in your own work and the work of your participants? Could you give me some examples of works you believe to be inspirational or successful in activism and education? What about works that you believe to be unsuccessful?
Yes, this is a good, but difficult question… Over the past few years there has been a renewed interest in ‘participatory’ artwork that involves artists and art audiences in new and recycled ways. This type of artwork is often positioned as activating a political space. From the recent historical surveys such as Allan Kaprow: Art as Life at L.A.’s MOCA and The Art of Participation 1950-today at SFMOMA to exhibitions highlighting new artwork, such as Perific 8: Art As Gift Biennial for Contemporary Art in Iasi, Romania, artists worldwide are creating salons, swap meets, gardens, walking tours, and schools. Art institutions are focusing on interaction, collectivity and collaboration like never before. These projects are created for different reasons—to activate the viewer, so that she or he will be more active in the world, to counteract the disappearance of social bonds in our communities, to be more inclusive rather than exclusive and question authorship of the singular ‘I,’ etc. However, many of these projects are utilizing participatory methodologies as a style rather than a pointed political stance. Some of these projects ask people to do things and participate, but have no critical substance behind their actions, or else create an experience that ultimately a community doesn’t really want or need. The artwork that I chose to highlight in Performing Economies emphasizes artists who are investigating the ways in which participatory and collaborative approaches can challenge the socio-political context in which they are produced. These projects function as social critique rather than style and have direct political content rather than empty symbolic gestures.
How can we—the Los Angeles community—access these people and these types of events outside of Performing Economies?
There are some great alternative art spaces in Los Angeles where people can find the types of events that are part of Performing Economies. There is Machine Project in Echo Park, Outpost for Contemporary Art and Sea and Space Explorations in Highland Park, Beta Level and the Public School in Chinatown and g727 and Farmlab in downtown Los Angeles. These are just a few examples of a growing movement in the Los Angeles art community. LACMA recently hosted a day of ephemeral projects with Machine Project and MOCA has started a series of events called ‘Engagement Parties.’ I think museums are currently trying out different methods of hosting this sort of project.
What advice would you give to people looking for ways to create and interact with alternative economies in their own communities?
What I have learned through researching and creating artwork for this exhibit is that there are currently thousands of alternative economic structures in the world and these movements are currently gaining momentum. I merely had to scratch the surface and was amazed at the plethora of complementary economies that are in existence all over the globe. Here in the city of Los Angeles you have the Echo Park Time Bank and a Co-Op starting in Highland Park. Some great examples of alternative economic structures can be found on the websites of the E.F. Schumacher Society and the Local Exchange Trading Systems—LETS. However, in many ways these alternative economic structures are only making up for the enormous problems of our national and international economic systems. Along with creating our own local systems, people need to pressure our government to initiate necessary reforms and changes to our current economic system.

PERFORMING ECONOMIES THROUGH SAT., JULY 25, AT FELLOWS OF CONTEMPORARY ART, 970 N. BROADWAY, STE. 208, CHINATOWN. CLOSING RECEPTION 2 PM / FREE / ALL AGES. MORE INFORMATION AND GALLERY HOURS AT FOCALA.ORG. VISIT ELANA MANN AT ELANAMANN.COM.

The public demands and Cinefamily provides! A second showing of Joe Rees’ Target Video presentation (co-presented by L.A. RECORD and featuring never-before-seen-except-at-the-7:30-pm-showing clips of first-wave punk bands like the Plugz, the Suburban Lawns and many more!) has been added and will begin at 11 PM tonight! Tickets are available ONLY at the Cinefamily box office. Cinefamily is located at 611 N. Fairfax Ave. (just south of Melrose and just north of Canter’s) and you can visit online at cinefamily.org or call at (323) 655-2510. Read our interview here to find out what wild things you’re in for!

What are we going to see at this screening that no one has ever seen before?
I have some things I’ve never shown before—for example, Suburban Lawns. They were from the Western Front festival. You have to understand that some of these don’t have the best audio quality because in those days we were working with a paper cup and a string for audio. But I tried to select the performances which were the most effective and gave a good representation of the bands. I mean, I love them all but there’s some that I care much more about. The situation was better for a band called Female Hands—they have a song called ‘Get A Job’and it’s a real pounding beautiful performance and you’ll see it in the show. Many of these bands, they may have had one or two songs that were outstanding—I usually got at least three songs from everybody but Female Hands, I got a half hour of their stuff. And then you had some nights that were better than others. When I’m working in a place like Club Foot or the Deaf Club, they had a real problem with AC power and they had a real problem with lights. But you know how it isyou get a good combination of energy and an outstanding performance, like the Flesheaters when they came on—it didn’t make any difference, it communicates. So that’s the kind of thing that goes down. You’re going to see stuff like Geza X. Geza X was the audio person for so many groups for many groups like the Screamers—he was the genius behind the Screamers. But he never really got a lot of his own recognition. Now I know Geza as friends and I admire him but I don’t think he got the breaks that he deserved. I do have a couple of Geza’s records. It was a battle between him working on audio things for the Screamers and various other groups and doing his own work. It was tough. I’ve got the Bags where you have Alice Bag in that band and you’ve got her in another group called Castration Squad. You can see the thread that goes through a lot of these things and that’s what’s really nice—that’s what I really enjoy. Now I didn’t know the L.A. scene all that well—I met these people and I wish I could have spent more time down there but I was living in San Francisco and of course I was dealing with the Dead Kennedys and the Dils and that was my main focus. Negative Trend was one of my favorites. But I always loved going to L.A. and I loved shooting it and of course I was a Screamers fan from the very first day.
Do you think they’re L.A.’s greatest ‘lost’ band?
I think so. This is the honest to God truth because I’ve looked at hundreds of punk bands from all over the world—I went to Europe and spent three years over there shooting punk bands—but the Screamers had a unique style. Tomata, Tommy Gear and K.K. and Paul really had their own unique approach and let’s face it—Tomata did plenty! He was an incredible person and he really projected a performance style—I love it. Sometimes I think it was better that they didn’t get a lot of breaks but on the other hand I’m just so grateful that I have a lot of video tape of them and a lot of audio recording of them because I’m still not through with that. Every time I go back to it, I get excited—I get goose bumps all over my arms. It’s that exciting and that’s why I opened my show at the Museum of Contemporary Art with the Screamers because I really think they had that savage, wild Los Angeles scream.
How many bands are there who were documented only by Target Video? What do you have that exists nowhere else at all?
It’s hard for me to keep up with that part of it because I work with so many different groups. I don’t compare myself to other things that are out there. I do know my experience and the people that were working with Target—you know we had a three-story brick building in the Mission District in San Francisco and people would actually live there for a while, so it was a family thing. We all had business to deal with and that’s the number one issue. We weren’t just screwing around all the time. We wanted to get serious. Especially when I think of bands like Black Flag who would come around. Whenever they would come into town, for me that was like, ‘OK, clear the decks!’ I’ve got from when they had Chavo. Black Flag was an exceptional band just because of their commitment and their dedication, you know—all the miles they put into hauling around in that van. They were great to work with. Chuck—thank God we’re still close friends and Henry, Henry is off doing his own things, but we formed a bond, and Dez, I love him—he’s another person that is so easy to get close to. When I look at—for example, today I transferred over some old material again of Black Flag and Dez is the lead singer, not Henry. But my God, they could stand against any band any day with that intensity. Dez singing—it was just kick ass. It just rips me out. I get energized—it gets me excited, it gets me really pumping. And I can watch Henry, he’s got a different style. I always tried to shoot Henry like King Kong—I tried to get a real low profile on him because he had that real muscular build and he does that song ‘Rise Above’ and I wanted to just drive that thing right through the screen. I wanted Henry coming out like King Kong belting it out.
Is that kind of energy what made you decide to start shooting punk bands?
My background is that when I was a little kid I was totally crazy about rock ‘n roll. I wanted to be a performer myself. I played a guitar and was in a band for a while. A band that was never heard of—just a local band in a little town in Iowa. We went on the local television broadcast and did a pantomime kind of thing but I was only about 11 years old then. I had this determination but I kind of lost that—lost my way for a while because I was also really into being a visual artist. I grew up in a place where it was pretty rough to be an artist period. In the middle of Iowa they always rejected those kinds of people but when I got a chance to go to art school because of my visual art abilities—my talents—I got into that right away. I got into art school as a painter and then I found my way to sculpture but I always had a total fascination with music. I had to have it in my life. When Lou Reed came out with Rock n’ Roll Animal, I thought that was the greatest breakthrough. When I heard punk rock in the ‘70s, oh my God—it just hit a button with me. That was the message. I’m a social-political animal—I’ve always had an anger about life and the way it treats people and to combine that kind of assault with music, I mean—my God, right away I was totally blown away! Obviously the Clash and the Sex Pistols came out, but even other bands like early Killing Joke and then the California bands when they rolled in one after another—the Weirdos’ ‘Life of Crime,’ it just got my blood pumping. So when I got to art school I met the Mutants—they were all friends of mine and they were forming a band and Penelope at the Art Institute was organizing the Avengers at the time and then I met David Byrne from the Rhode Island School of Design and he was doing that band Talking Heads. When he came to town, he came to the studio and it was great. He was enthusiastic about what I was doing and gave me so much support. I shot early stuff of the Talking Heads doing a free concert at Berkeley which was mind blowing. All of this kind of stuff stirred up in a big mixer and I became totally addicted to performance art and noise. We were also going through this problem the whole time. I was into performance artwork myself and the thing of it was we were going through this problem with art galleries and museums—they didn’t want to cooperate. They only wanted stuff that was saleable—that was marketable. So there was this great thing going on about alternative spaces in the ‘70s—an alternative space, an abandoned building. Some place where you could do your thing and invite your friends over to watch and it usually involved song and dance and movement and poetry. So that’s what the deal was. I worked with a lot of those people. Some of them made the change and started to deal with night clubs, some of them stayed the other way and that was what was going on in the ‘70s. And I got really excited about it and one thing led to another.
Why do you think it was necessary for Target to exist? What made this such a part of your life for years?
Back then I was a so-called established sculptor—in other words doing sculpture in galleries and art museums. That was a real disappointment because I was on a roll and had a lot of support. The so-called art critic in San Francisco was spreading the news that I was hot shit but the thing of it was that I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t getting the feedback that I wanted to get—obviously the people who would come to those kinds of events were real saps. I just didn’t like it. I found a need to communicate to my own peer group—my crowd, the people that I respected. And so that’s why I started an alternative art space myself in Oakland in the early ‘70s to present performances and artists that were what I called fringe—front-line people, people taking chances, real edgy stuff. Because it got me excited—that’s where I saw this whole thing going. So I started that and before Target Video it was called Targeted Open Support System. It was a completely different kind of idea but I was experimenting. I was trying things and so that started working. But then I realized that Oakland wasn’t the place to be—there was too much heavy crap going down. Black Panther Party was going down and there was a lot of trouble in the city so San Francisco was the place to be. So I hitched up my horses and moved to San Francisco. I get over there and as luck would have it, I found this three-story brick building in the Mission District. I met the owner and he told me that there was nothing going on here except some pretty heavy crap on the top floor and ‘I want those people out’ because it was too weird. He wanted to get rid of them so he rented me the place. It couldn’t have been better—they had a loading dock, three stories and an elevator and it was only a couple grand a month. Now I didn’t have that kind of money but I did have skills in those days—and a lot of friends—and we went in there and cleaned it and painted it and turned it into a shiny type of jewel. And I rented out the top floor at the time to a company for storage. They paid the rent.
How were you able to sustain an operation like that for so long?
Well, at the time I was on a roll with my sculpture and the art critic in San Francisco at the time got me a job as chairman of the sculpture department at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. As a young snot-nosed guy I got this big buck job. I knew that I liked the fine arts scene but at the same time it was only just a step—it was servicing my desire. I took the job of course.
What was the Target Video TV show like? What would someone have seen if they were just flipping around the channels?
After I graduated with a master’s degree in fine art I wanted to learn more about television production because I was already stirring up the thing with Target and I realized that there was a lot of things that I didn’t know. You’ve got to be in the right place to get any information out of these people because they’re so secretive and I was always beg, borrowing and stealing. I was making one deal on one side and one deal on another to get my hands on a good camera in order to do these shoots. When I first started back in the ‘70s, the only equipment available at that time was Super 8 and if you could afford it, 16mm. So I started with that but it was really difficult because you’d always rely on the whole thing of processing the film and waiting for it to come back to see what you got. It was a real challenge. But back in the ‘70s when I was in graduate school, the Sony Corporation donated a new device called the Portapak and it was one of the first single tube black-and-white cameras. And I did some stuff to alter the camera. Once I found out the limitations of shooting at night—a tech geek guy at my campus, he was always trying to give me advice and he was like, ‘Look, put in one of these security camera tubes because they are more sensitive to light.’ and you could shoot in night clubs which sometimes had only a little light. You’ll see, for example, the Dickies—when they first hit the stage, the lights from the stage would kind of blow their faces out so you get this black background with white silhouettes but as I adjust the aperture to try to deal with it—because it is such a radical change—it comes into zone and it looks pretty damn good. But at least we could shoot those! Otherwise we couldn’t shoot them at all—the early video cameras required so much light and so much intensity, it was a nightmare. So of course I signed up at Merritt College and started to take their video class and their TV production so I could have that access. Through that access I found out about a free cable channel that would service the Bay Area through San Francisco called Cable 25. Most of the shows on there were cooking shows or how to breast feed your children—the Maharishi had a show on Wednesday nights. Well lo and behold, I got my little piece—it was an hour-long section right after the Maharishi. When I first started—you have to understand this was the beginning of video, the beginning of editing, the beginning of cameras, but I had this determination. I said, ‘I want to get this stuff out there.’ The first shows were a lot of poetry and art performance combined with punk music but it was a mixture and then I’d follow Maharishi. The problem with the Maharishi was that by the time he finished with his show, it was always kind of sleepy time and I would go in there with my friends wearing our leather jackets and our defiant look and there was the Maharishi who was just his sweet person but it really irritated the hell out of me. I had to come up with an opening to my show that really was different than the Maharishi because he was doing the lotus position. So I came up with the idea of using a machine gun from an old movie and I would edit this montage of all the faces and issues of social political things that I wanted to talk about during the show—I would open the show with about a 3 minute blast of machine gun fire and it was so irritating. It was so completely the opposite of the Maharishi that at first people were totally distraught at the TV station—they thought, ‘What the hell is he doing? We got everyone all relaxed into a coma and up comes Target Video!’ And it was this punk thing. But listen—the Maharishi being the all-knowing all-wonderful guy thought I had a great idea.
So you got the spiritual support of the Maharishi?
Yes, I did! Goddammit, I swear!
Did he ever mention how much he liked Crime or anything?
No, no, it didn’t go that far. He knows how to handle anything—the point of it was that it served my purpose because we did have to shock the hell out of people to get some attention.
How were you ever able to get Crime into San Quentin? Or the Cramps into the Napa State Mental Hospital?
Because times were different then. We’ve got such an anal-retentive society these days you cant hardly do a thing. We’re destroying creativity—we are really destroying creativity with all the laws and restrictions. It’s a nightmare. Even my own kids—I am so sad about what is going on. It is so difficult to be creative. In the ‘70s people were begging. California was an open place, they poured tons of money into colleges, into art programs. I don’t even know if you were born yet, but believe me I would go to universities as a guest lecturer and they would have these incredible foundries for casting metal and making art. And they would have these incredible studios for graduate artists and they’d pay you a bunch of money—you could actually make a good living being an art teacher. The only problem was that it was still really conservative and they weren’t taking the big chances but that’s cool because when you have a situation like that it allows young snot-nosed people to come and say, ‘I want to try and do something different.’ So that is why we had a whole organization of people who were trying to think of ways to break out of the mold and that’s why when we contacted different places like San Quentin prison. I know all about those prison programs because I worked there for a number of years putting these things together—they were so happy to see you, you couldn’t believe it. That was an organization called Bread and Roses that used to exist in the Bay Area—they put together a lot of shows. Some of them real high-end commercial, some of them art-performance type of things but they were just into the arts and like I said, no one got sued in those days. People were willing to take chances—people were open-minded and that was what was so wonderful about the times. If you could come up with an idea like that, they were happy to hear it. The same with the Napa State Mental Hospital. You think that could go on today? No way! There would be like fifteen lawyers standing outside the gate licking their chops. One of the greatest things about that event—even to this day I am so moved when I watch that video over and over. But the thing of it is—those people who were going through such a heavy experience in life and were confined to that mental institution, the freedom and the happiness that they had that day during that event was almost like a miracle! It was almost like watching something biblical—something from a Cecil B. DeMille film but in a real sense, a true sense. Nobody was acting and I have never seen anything in my life so moving and I’ve been told that a thousand times. We were at the right place at the right time but we had the right thing in our hearts. We wanted to have an experience and it all came together with magic.
Are those the twin pinnacles of the Target videography?
There is one that you left out that was extremely important and that was the Mutants at the School For the Deaf. That was mind-blowing and you had to be there because the happiness and the joy on the kids’ faces and everybody. See, when you get this reciprocal thing going down—nobody made any money! It was the magic of putting these elements together. The Mutants doing a free show for deaf kids. The kids responding because it was exciting and nobody ever pays attention to them plus the energy that the Mutants generated because of their music and the kids responding to it—it was just a phenomenal experience. If you could bottle that experience it would be worth millions of dollars an ounce! If mankind could be like that, wouldn’t we be in a better place right now?
Why do you feel that punk was such a positive humanistic thing? And what do you think of its casual reputation for destruction and nihilism?
That’s because there are so many people trying to cash in on it and trying to find a way to market it and in reality the only good thing—and I got kind of bitter about the way things were going because I could see that there wasn’t enough of that true punk spirit that existed back in the ‘70s—but you know what I think? There are new kids who are innocent and idealistic enough to be able to generate the same kind of feeling. And I’m thinking of my own two boys who have a punk band that doesn’t have a name yet.
Have you filmed them yet?
Not really but they’re 14 and they’re getting close because they’ve been playing their guitars now for about three years. And then I’m thinking of Chip Dil and Tony Dil of the Dils and his son Dewey who has a band called the Plimptons and I heard them—they’re incredible because they’ve got that raw excitement and that energy. And I think if we encourage that, if we really support that—if you think of something that is really clean, idealistic and fresh, that’s where it’s at. That is gold! And the problem with the world we live in is we have a tendency to tarnish everything right away and exploit it to the point that it becomes dirty. It’s not good for us to think of anything like that because if we don’t have these fresh things in our life, then we don’t have this wonderful excitement of creativity. We need something fresh like that.
Why is the time right now for this Target Video resurgence? It seems like there was nothing for years and then suddenly the vaults crack open.
Because I’m not happy with the way things are going. That’s why. I’m not happy at all—I just explained to you what I do believe in. I believe in the young people—I believe in really trying to leave these kids alone and it’s just horrible how we trash the youth. They can see this world and they can see we have a lot of problems. We need a way out and we can’t seem to do it because we’re too prejudiced and I’m saying the only thing I can see as an artist is to open up these doors and let these kids talk and leave them alone.
Does that connect to what Target was doing in the ‘70s?
Well, it does. I was in the ‘60s and the ‘60s was a very exciting time—we had a purpose. We had an army of people going in the same direction and I really think it accomplished a lot of good things but then things got real convoluted. Then in the ‘70s you had another rebirth of excitement—and personally I have to say that the ‘70s were one of the freshest and most creative times. Because not only music but visual art, the poetry and all the posters and John Denney designing clothes for the Weirdos. There were so many levels and it was a profound movement of time that never got the recognition because it was saleable enough right away. We might even see a revisit to that in a phony way.
What kind of practical things do you want to communicate to people now who are still working on these same kinds of things?
To be honest I don’t think this show is going to communicate all of it—I think this show is more like a primitive MTV. I talked to the people at the Cinefamily Theater and they want to give a good example of a lot of bands they’ve never seen before—but for me to try to cram 50 bands into two hours, for God’s sakes that’s not Target Video show! That’s cramming 50 bands into two hours and that’s more like a primitive MTV. So I’m saying this is not really the Target Video show. What I’m trying to do is make people happy because a lot of people are curious to this band or that band they’ve never heard of. But give me a chance—if I get more support, and I’m going to do it anyways, but if I get more support I’m trying to break into a new audience. I think there are a lot of young artists out there and I’m trying to pump up a bit more excitement. I might be moving to L.A. before all this is over—that’s the master plan. I don’t know where else to go. I have got this humongous library of material and to be honest, for the last 30 years I’ve lived in Paris, I’ve been in New York, all over the place, and to be quite honest L.A. is where it’s at. That’s the only place that I could see where this stuff could be put to good use and inspire more creativity.
Why do you say that?
Because there ain’t a goddamn thing going on anywhere else really. There’s all that bullshit going on in London, the French are sucking each other breasts, San Francisco is all involved with who’s got the most money—I mean, that’s not gonna work. Artists can’t survive in an environment where you can’t even rent a studio. But at least L.A., for some reason will hire people and put them to work and they can continue as a creative person and besides that, what can I say? Most of the people that I know in the punk rock scene—the older crowd—are living down there.
What do you want to happen to your archive? What’s the ideal future for everything you filmed?
Without sounding commercial or crass, the big dream at this point is to put together a downloadable website and an underground library of visual images of music that people can download and view when they want to in their home—a digital Internet library. I have a rough estimate of my library—I have over 300 tapes that are in ¾ format and I have another 75 or 80 of ½ inch reel-to-reel tape. Not all of those have been transferred over because of the format jump. A format jump to ¾ and a format jump to DV which I’m doing these days—basically what I’ve been doing over the past few years is transferring this stuff over to digital. By hook or by crook! Either I try to talk a museum curator into using their facility or the college where I work—whatever it takes. The thing about it is that no matter what, it does inspire fun and activity—it just does. The beauty about L.A. people to me is that you can put on some music and a video or whatever—get some people together and things happen. They talk and make things happen—they want to make things happen. It’s an enjoyable thing. It’s a part of life, business or whatever you want to call it—it’s just a good thing. You don’t have to be judgmental. We’re not anal-retentive like the New York scene, oh my God! L.A. people take care of themselves and it’s not a perfect world, but the point of it is that I still have fun there. I’ve been to enough events and I’m like a hound dog—if I smell something good, I go for it and this is where it’s at. Thank God I have Jackie Sharp down there. Look, I’m never going to be a perfect politician—not everyone is going to like my point of view, but at the same time I do love art and I do love music and I do love L.A. bands. There are so many bands that mean so much to me with what they’ve done. I want to stimulate—I want to be a part of it! I want to stimulate the arts scene and I can because I might be a bit of an old soldier but I’m still a pain in the ass.

JOE REES AND TARGET VIDEO PRESENT ‘RAW POWER’ ON THU., APR. 30, AT CINEFAMILY, 611 N. FAIRFAX AVE., LOS ANGELES. 7:30 PM / $12 / ALL AGES. CINEFAMILY.ORG. TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE. VISIT TARGET VIDEO AT TARGETVIDEO.BLOGSPOT.COM.

SUNDAY, JAN. 6

Say what you will about Takashi Murakami, but the father of superflat certainly is provocative. Unfortunately, it’s in the boner-provoking rather than thought-provoking way, as evidenced by the pre-teen standing in front of a giant statue of an anime super hero lactating a lasso surrounded by canvases splattered with cartoon jizm and discretely rubbing its crotch. Elsewhere in the exhibit, an older ‘art mom’ was explaining the difference between boys and girls to her 4-year-old daughter in front of two anatomically correct statues of man-children. However lost in translation the sexual aspect of his work may be, Murakami (as always succeeds) at achieving vulgarity without being offensive, as well as being low-brow without becoming irrelevant. Unfortunately, Murakami’s lexicon—populated by maniacally happy daisies, large-mouthed anime children and psychedelic mushroom clouds taking the airborne form of skulls—is shown in a museum space that makes looking at art feel like a sample sale in an airplane hanger. Portions of the exhibition (partitioned into separate rooms) were wall-papered with Murakami’s signature flourescent daisies, creating a carsick sensation but at the same time evoking smiles because regardless of how shallow the image is, he does it all so damn well. Much controversy surrounds this show, primarily for the placement of a temporary Louis Vuitton (the luxury brand to which Murakami lent his design prowess) boutique meant to be part of the exhibit—albeit an interactive one that accepts American Express and Visa. Perhaps its place in the show is meant to be an indictment of consumer culture in Los Angeles, although I don’t know that I would give Murakami or the museum that much credit. I wanted to love this show. I like cute things. I like bright colors. I like ‘art.’ Unfortunately in this instance—and regardless of his excellent craftsmanship and attention to detail—I did not like them all together at the same time. Murakami’s work winks at you a little too obviously and much like the luxury brand he designs for, when the message becomes too easily attainable, it loses its value. When I asked an art historian friend for his thoughts on the exhibition, I was hoping for a critical and professional perspective. Instead, he said, ‘I ran through it. It made me want candy and death, but at the same time.’ Indeed. (KCH-R)