COLEEN FITZGIBBON

MASSART FILM SOCIETY
presents:
COLEEN FITZGIBBON: DIARY FILMS

Wednesday November 16, 2011 8pm
FILM Dept Screening Rm 1

Artist In Person!
An evening of recently preserved short experimental film works the by New York based artist Coleen Fitzgibbon. For the past few years, Fitzgibbon has been actively preserving and screening her early Super-8 and 16mm films, many of them not screened since the mid-70’s. This program will include a selection of intimate cinematic sketches, portraits, travelogues and home movies.

PROGRAM:

Trip to Carolee, [1974/2011, Super 8mm xfr’d to digital, color, sound, 5:08 min.]

L.E.S., [1976/2011, digital, color, sound, 16:22 min.]

FM/TRCS, [1974, 16mm transferred to digital, color, sound, 11:48 min.]

Restoring Appearances to Order in 12 minutes, [1975, 16mm xfr’d to digital, b/w, sound, 10:28 min.]

Make a Movie, [1975/2011, Super 8mm xfr’d to digital, color, sound, 9:16 min.]

X Magazine Benefit, with Alan W. Moore [1978/2011, Super 8mm xfr’d to digital, b&w, sound, 11:40 min.]

Coleen Fitzgibbon is an active experimental film artist who previously worked under the pseudonym “Colen Fitzgibbon” between the years 1973-1980. A student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Independent Study Program, she studied with Owen Land (aka “George Landow”), Stan Brakhage, Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci, and worked on film and sound projects for Dennis Oppenheim, Gordon Matta-Clark and Les Levine. She formed the collaborative X&Y with Robin Winters in 1976, The Offices of Fend, Fitzgibbon, Holzer, Nadin, Prince and Winters in 1979, and is best known for co-founding the New York based Collaborative Projects, Inc. (Colab) in 1977 through 1981, along with forty plus artists.

Fitzgibbon has screened her work at numerous international film festivals, museums and galleries, including The Toronto International Film Festival; Museum of Modern Art, NYC; Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago; Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Anthology Film Archives, NYC; Light Industry, NYC; De Appel, Amsterdam; Exit Art, NYC; Subliminal Projects Gallery, LA. Fitzgibbon currently resides in New York City and Montana.

Entrance to MassART Film Society is through Public Safety on TETLOW ST.
http://massartfilmsociety.blogspot.com/

Screening Venue
Chashama Flagship Space
217 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017

“L.E.S (Lower East Side)” by Coleen Fitzgibbon. (Super-8mm transferred to digital video).

“The story of the collapse of the problematic island of Manhattan, whose inhabitants worshiped the god of mamon, John Doe. Shot in the lower eastside of Manhattan, NYC circa 1976. Filmed on Super-8mm with sound, summer 1976, shown on videotape in 1978 on Manhattan Cable Channel D, Collaborative Projects, Inc.’s Red Curtain show.”

Screening: Sunday, November 13, 12:00PM at 217 East 42nd Street

Colab X Magazine Benefit still with James Chance

Colab Artist Collective Show At Printed Matter
Opening Saturday, October 15,
Showing through Nov 30, 2011

Printed Matter, Inc.
195 Tenth Avenue New York, NY 10011
T: 212 925 0325, F: 212 925 0464

Store Hours:
Tuesday to Wednesday: 11am – 6pm
Thursday to Saturday: 11am – 7pm
Closed Sundays & Mondays

A Show about Colab (and Related Activities)
October 15 – November 30, 2011
Opening Reception Saturday, October 15, 6 – 8pm

Printed Matter, Inc. is pleased to announce the exhibition, A Show about Colab (and Related Activities), which runs from October 15 through November 30, 2011. This overarching survey will presents a wide range of materials and artworks from various Colab activities from the late 1970’s through the mid 1980’s, including screenings of film and video works, and cable broadcasts. The exhibition also features works and material from other related groups, collectives and projects. An opening reception is scheduled at Printed Matter on Saturday, October 15th, from 6 – 8 pm. Printed Matter is located at 195 Tenth Avenue between 21st and 22nd Streets in Chelsea, New York City.

Formed in 1978, Collaborative Projects, Inc. – aka Colab – was initially created as a means to seek new venues for the creation and exhibition of work made through collaborative artists’ efforts. With a membership drawn mainly from New York City’s downtown artist community, Colab was able to harness recently established funding for the arts from federal and state agencies to support a myriad of artists’ projects from and for that extended community. Part collective, part platform and part agency, Colab did not have a fixed identity or function. Indeed what set it apart from most of the other art nonprofits of the time was that instead of duplicating the bureaucratic structure of corporations, Colab’s inclusiveness (meetings and memberships were open, and officers rotated annually) and nomadism (they were not tied to a specific space) engendered a decidedly anti-bureaucratic mode of operation and experience. Propelled by creative brilliance – and strong convictions and personalities alike – Collaborative Projects reflected the energy, the creativity, and the chaos of that iconic period of NYC in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

A Show About Colab (and Related Activities) is designed to serve as an homage to that experiment and experience in artistic collaborations, but one which is instructive to the current state of art and politics. Presenting a huge array of material including ephemera, posters, flyers, handbills, meeting announcements and agendas, prints, multiples, artworks, film, video and more, this exhibition will follow the various exploits of Colab as well as related artists groups and projects that either preceded or branched out from Colab.

Featured Colab projects will be X-Magazine; the Real Estate Show; The Times Square Show; the cable TV shows, All Color News, Potato Wolf and Red Curtain; and the A. More Store and Christmas Stores. And there will also be artworks, ephemera and artifacts from related and overlapping communities and projects: Send/Receive and Qwips from the Center for New Art Activities; the pre and early Colab exhibitions including the Batman Show, the Income & Wealth Show and the Manifesto Show; Fashion Moda; The Offices of Fend, Fitzgibbon, Holzer, Nadin, Prince and Winters; Just Another Asshole; Ocean Earth; the New Cinema; ABC No Rio; the Cave Girls; the Cardboard Band; Spanner; M-W-F Video, and much more. In addition there will be an array of artists’ books and publications by members of Colab.

Printed Matter also has historical ties to Colab, not only as part of the same interwoven community, but also as host to one of the A. More stores and as co-producer of Art Direct, a mail-order art initiative the two organizations collaborated on. “Printed Matter and Colab were both deeply invested in the creation of a grass roots, artist driven, alternative economy for artistic production and distribution”, notes the exhibition’s curator, Max Schumann.

Colab was incubated out of the debris of New York City’s financial collapse. This was soon followed by the election of Ronald Reagan and the beginnings of a social policy of austerity coupled with an economic policy of unfettered capitalism – all sold under the guise of a rose-hued American mythology. The artistic fervor which characterized Colab ran concurrent with the cultural shift which produced the punk, no-wave and hip-hop subcultures (Colab had a foot in all those doors). While there is a sense of political desperation and nihilism in much of the work – along with healthy doses of sarcasm and irony ­– the Colab generation (most of the artists were in their twenties) were acutely aware that the dream was a lie, and sensed that the Empire was beginning to unravel. As the historical connections of our present predicaments to that period become ever more clear, the directness and urgency of Colab’s many voices, the DIY ethic of necessity, and the carnival-like spirit of resistance and play stand as a model (or maybe better, an anti-model) for the political and cultural struggles of today.

For more information, please contact Max Schumann at (212) 925-0325 or [email protected]

Here is what Cinema Project has to say about Coleen Fitzgibbon’s upcoming shows.

Cinema Project is excited to bring New York-based artist Coleen Fitzgibbon for two evenings of her recently preserved short experimental film works. For the past few years, Fitzgibbon has been actively preserving and screening her Super-8 and 16mm films, many of them not screened since the mid 1970s. Night one looks at Diary Films, intimate cinematic sketches, portraits, travelogues and home movies while night two features Micro Films, hyper-kinetic works made with a special “microfilm” camera used to photograph and preserve paper documents on a roll of 16mm film. Coleen Fitzgibbon is an active experimental film and video artist who previously worked under the pseudonym “Colen Fitzgibbon” between the years 1973-1980. Fitzgibbon has studied with Owen Land (aka “george Landow”), Stan Brakhage, Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci, and worked on film and sound projects for Dennis Oppenheim, gordon Matta-Clark and Les Levine. She is best known as a co-founder of the New York based Collaborative Projects, Inc. (Colab).

Click here to read PROGRAM NOTES

Cinema Project Fall Calendar 2011

OCTOBER 25: DIARY FILMS

Gym by Coleen Fitzgibbon with Christa Maiwald [1974, video, color, sound, 4 min.]
L.E.S. by Coleen Fitzgibbon [1976/2011, video, color, sound, 17 min.]
X Magazine Benefit by Coleen Fitzgibbon with Alan W. Moore [1978/2011, video, b&w, sound, 11 min.]
Trip to Carolee by Coleen Fitzgibbon [1974/2011, video, color, sound, 6 min.]
Make a Movie by Coleen Fitzgibbon [1975/2011, video, color, sound, 9 min.]
Restoring Appearances to Order in 12 minutes by Coleen Fitzgibbon [1975, 16mm, b&w, sound, 12 min]
Found Film Flashes by Coleen Fitzgibbon [1973, 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.]
FM/TRCS [1974, 16mm, color, sound, 11 min.]

OCTOBER 26: MICRO FILMS

Daily News by Coleen Fitzgibbon [1976/2011, video, color, sound, 11 min.]
Der Spiegel by Coleen Fitzgibbon [1975/2011, video, color, sound, 10 min.]
I.S. Migration by Coleen Fitzgibbon [2010, video, color, sound, 17 min.]
Document by Coleen Fitzgibbon [1974-75, video, b&w, sound, 8 min.]
Dictionary by Coleen Fitzgibbon [1975/2011, video, color, sound, 4 min.]
Time by Coleen Fitzgibbon [1975, 16mm, b&w, sound, 12 min.]

Restoring Appearances to Order: Coleen Fitzgibbon, Oct. 24 & 25, 2011 at Cinema Project

Coleen Fitzgibbon’s L.E.S. will be showing here.

September 9th – Amsterdam
http://www.filmhuiscavia.nl/

10 September – Worm, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
http://www.worm.org/

11 September – BUTFF, Breda, The Netherlands
http://www.butff.nl/

18 September – Nova Cinema, Brussels, Belgium
http://www.nova-cinema.org/

HEBBEL AM UFER
HALLESCHES UFER 32
10963 BERLIN

YOU GOTTA LOSE – FILMPROGRAMM MIT WERKEN VON JAMES NARES, MAGGI CARSON/ JULIUSZ KOSSAKOWSKI/RIC SHORE, MICHAEL MCCLARD, VIVIENNE DICK, COLEEN FITZGIBBON/ALAN MOORE

4. Juni / 20.00 / HAU 1

James Nares: „Ramp“ (1976), Farbe, 3 min.
Maggi Carson, Juliusz Kossakowski, Ric Shore: „Punking Out“ (1978), S/W, 25 min.
Michael McClard „Alien Portrait“ (1979), S/W, 11 min.
Vivienne Dick: „Guerillere Talks“ (1978), Farbe, 25 min.
Coleen Fitzgibbon & Alan Moore: „X Magazine Benefit“ (1978), S/W, 12 min.

THROW ME AWAY – FILMPROGRAMM MIT WERKEN VON COLEEN FITZGIBBON, TINA L’HOTSKY, ANDREA CALLARD, JOHN LURIE, JAMES NARES

4. Juni / 22.30 Uhr / HAU 1

Coleen Fitzgibbon: »L.E.S.« (1976), Farbe, 24 min.
Tina L’Hotsky: »Barbie« (1977) Schwarzweiß, 10 min.
Andrea Callard: »11 Through 12« (1977), Farbe, 11 min.
John Lurie: »Men In Orbit« (1978), Farbe, 45 min.
James Nares: »Waiting For The Wind« (1982), Farbe, 8 min.

MAY 7 (Sat.) – 7pm and 9pm
MAY 8 (Sun.) – 2pm, 7pm and 9pm

FESTIVAL OF IDEAS FOR THE NEW CITY
New American Cinema Group, Inc. and The Film-Makers’ Cooperative in collaboration with the Millennium Film Workshop

“The Urban Landscape in Cinematic Transformation”
STORYTELLING & LOCAL HISTORY: An avant-garde film series interweaves three threads pertinent to the East Village, Chinatown, and Lower East Side: the urban landscape, subcultures that inhabit them, and changes over time.

The Urban Landscape in Cinematic Transformation will feature films that show the changing urban landscape and the people who inhabit it, from the late 1950s to today. The FMC will be collaborating with The Millennium Workshop on this special focus showcase. The four programs will take place over two days, with one program of shorts and one feature on each day. SHORTS will be shown Saturday, May 7th, at 7 PM and Sunday, May 8th, at 2 PM , and the FEATURES will screen Saturday, May 7th, at 9 PM and Sunday, May 8th, at 5 PM .

Highlights of shorts program Saturday, May 7th, 7PM: Ken Jacobs’ Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days, using innovative digital techniques to transform Mekas into 3D motion;Coleen Fitzgibbons’s L.E.S. (Lower East Side), a fable about a parallel Manhattan and its mammon-worshiping inhabitants; and Peter Cramer’s Coney Island, a haunting study of a once-famous amusement park.

Feature program Saturday, May 7th, 9 PM: filmgoers can view Rachel Amodeo’s What About Me, the story of a young homeless woman who is slowly deteriorating on the streets of the Lower East Side, including footage of the homeless shanty-town that existed in Tompkins Square Park from 1989 to 1990.

Highlights of shorts program Sunday, May 8th, 2PM: Shirley Clarke’s Bridges-Go-Round, a classic masterpiece of undulating man-made urban constructions; Henry Hills’s Money, a meditation on the economic problems facing New York avant-garde artists; and Donna Cameron’s Broken Bridge, a collage of deconstructed hand-drawn images of the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, using Cameron’s own patented invention, paper emulsion.

Feature program Sunday, May 8th, 5 PM: Phillip Hartman and Doris Kornish’s filmic love letter to the Lower East Side’s pre-gentrification days, No Picnic, features the diverse, off-beat, and often insane characters representing the various subcultures that once defined the neighborhood. Look for an early performance by Steve Buscemi as a dead pimp.

These programs are produced in collaboration with the New Museum as part of the Festival of Ideas for the New City, a major new collaborative initiative in New York involving scores of Downtown organizations working together to harness the power of the creative community to imagine the future city and explore ideas that will shape it. The Festival will include a three-day slate of symposia; an innovative StreetFest along the Bowery; and over eighty independent projects and public events.

ART,ACCESS&DECAY:NY1975-1985
Opening Reception:
Saturday, April 2nd, 2011 / 8-11PM

Exhibition Dates
April 2nd – April 30th, 2011

Curated by Peter Frank & Lisa Kahane

Participating artists include John Ahearn, Liza Bear, Andrea Callard, Thom Corn, CRASH, Jody Culkin, DAZE, Jane Dickson (with Charlie Ahearn), Stefan Eins, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Mike Glier, Robert Goldman, Ilona Granet, Keith Haring, Julie Harrison (with Robert Kleyn), Jenny Holzer, GH Hovagimyan, Becky Howland, Lisa Kahane, Christof Kohlhofer, KOOR, Joe Lewis, Michael McClard, Ann Messner, Richard Miller, Joseph Nechvatal, Tom Otterness, Cara Perlman, Virge Piersol, Walter Robinson, Judy Ross, Christy Rupp, Teri Slotkin, David Wojnarowicz, Martin Wong

Subliminal Projects Gallery is pleased to present Art, Access & Decay: New York 1975-1985, a group exhibition on view April 2 through April 30, 2011. A reception for the artists will be held Saturday, April 2, from 8 -11 p.m.

Art, Access & Decay: New York 1975-1985, examines a new art movement that emerged in New York at this time, uninfluenced by commercial or academic input. This new movement wanted to avoid the elite confines set by the art market, and made little compromise. These artists wanted to produce artwork nobody had seen before but everybody could understand. They presented this artwork on the streets, in makeshift storefronts, and on public access television to ensure that it was widely available, as broadly cast and as affordable as possible.

Art, Access & Decay draws mostly from three overlapping phenomena: an artists’ collective called Collaborative Projects, or CoLab; Fashion Moda, a cultural center situated in the South Bronx, (then one of the most devastated neighborhoods in the country); and a corner of Manhattan, the East Village, that emerged as an alternative to SoHo’s increasingly upscale art scene. These phenomena emerged around 1980, but the spirit that engendered them was rampant by the mid-1970s. Do-it-yourself and guerrilla approaches to exhibitions and performances proliferated. The streets, whether in the financial district, Chinatown, Harlem or Times Square, were as legitimate an arena for art making and exhibiting as anywhere else. This mindset stuck well into the 1980s, as high art and commercial music began appropriating the look and energy of graffiti and hand-drawn posters, Xeroxed flyers and eccentric installations. The appropriation, however, merely skimmed the surface of the look and verve of this new artistic expression.

By the early 1980s, uptown and downtown audiences, the art market and art theorists alike, all began embracing street art. The embrace was mutual, but not automatic. The artists of New York’s new vernacular craved the acceptance of the art world and the public at large, but not at the expense of their street sensibility.