Microscope Gallery is very pleased to welcome curator Enrico Camporesi back to the gallery to kick-off the 2016-17 Season of its Event Series with a program of rarely seen historical 16mm films made between 1960 and 1980 by artists Noël Burch, Jakobois, Etienne O’Leary, and David Wharry.
With this program Camporesi, an Italian researcher based in Paris, continues to focus on the French “experimental” or “artist” films of the period from the viewpoint of their special relationship to artists and works from the US and Canada. Camporesi will be in attendance to introduce the 55-minute screening.
Programme: - Noviciat (Noël Burch, 1960, 16mm, b&w, sound, 19 minutes) With Annette Michelson, André S. Labarthe A rare copy of the disorienting experimental work by the filmmaker and film theorist who was born in San Francisco and has been living in Paris since the early 1950s. The film, partly reminiscent of Anger’s “Fireworks”, takes as subject the story of a masochist voyeur caught in the act by the director of a Karate school. She then turns him into her slave and pushes him to accomplish degrading tasks such as cleaning her high heels, to eventually trade him for a lesbian woman.
- Lougarou de Nouillorque (Jakobois, 1978, 16mm, color, sound, 18 minutes) Film in three parts: (1) Paranorama 3 and 4: a handmade “Région Centrale”. At once observation and description of the realm of vision, of what is possible to see (sound recorded at the time of shooting). (2) Paranorama 5: simple observation of the realm of vision (sound added at a later time: illustration). (3) Pierre Rivière and I: attempt at reading the first lines from Pierre Rivière’s testimony, as an “embodiment” rather than a stage direction.
- European Crisis (General Picture – Episode 9) (David Wharry, 1980, 16mm, b&w, silent, 9 minutes) with André Huck, Jacques Sautes, Dorothy Polley, Katerina Thomadaki Professor Anatole Lacoste is having a meeting with one of the agents of doctor Brain at a Jackson Pollock exhibition at Centre Pompidou. Meanwhile, Deborah is about to take a bath when burglar Torlim Novak breaks into her house. Everything seems to be normal when the computer at the control station spots an anomaly in the way history functions. But how does one stop the film?
- Day Tripper (Etienne O’Leary, 1966, 16mm, b&w, 9 minutes) A woman walks, loves, eats and washes herself, dances. It all takes place in a bedroom. At times flashbacks, or visualizations of previous or following scenes. Unless her life in the bedroom becomes an obsession, she lives through the other scenes.
(Program notes from Light Cone, Paris)
Enrico Camporesi is an Italian writer and curator based in Paris. He is a research fellow at Centre Pompidou and he is currently writing a Ph. D dissertation on matters of restoration and museology of experimental and artist’s film. He recently curated (with Jonathan Pouthier) the program ‘Duchamp du film’ at Centre Pompidou, and edited a book with writings by Jean-Michel Bouhours on Paolo Gioli (Paris: Light Cone Editions, 2014).