Serpentine Cinema: Henry Flynt & Owen Land
London Gate Cinema
Sunday 2 August 2009, at 3:30pm
American conceptual artist, filmmaker, philosopher and avantgarde musician Henry Flynt shows two short videos SHRINE OF THE INSECT and MY PAISLEY EYES (both 2008), alongside DIALOGUES (2009) the new epic by American artist and filmmaker Owen Land (formerly known as George Landow).
Dialogues
Owen Land, USA, 2009, 115 mins
An episodic series of short films informed by the artist's study of folklore, myth, history and the theology of all major religions, including Gnosticism and cabala. With a healthy dose of irony and a proudly irreverent attitude toward all kind of orthodoxies Land readily applies the structure of the Platonic dialogue to explore themes of reincarnation, art criticism, and Tantra. In the filmmaker's own words DIALOGUES "concentrates on the events of Owen Land's life in 1985, when he returned to Los Angeles after spending a year in Tokyo, Fukuoka, and Okinawa, Japan. It was a time for much soul-searching about his relationships with women (and with strippers). There are flashbacks to that very formative period, the 1960s when 'we won the sexual revolution' as one character says. Some of the episodes contain events which are more speculative, or imaginative, than literally real." The film also includes musings about Land's artistic forebears and pastiches of other films, including THE GRADUATE, RED EYE, most of Kenneth Anger's films, and complex allusions to the films of Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage.
Please note that DIALOGUES is "Rated R: Restricted to audiences with a knowledge of Art History."
Serpentine Cinema is a series of monthly screenings and events at The Gate in Notting Hill, presented in association with Sketch.
at
The Gate
87 Notting Hill Gate, London, W11 3JZ
Nearest Tube: Notting Hill Gate
Tickets: £6 / £5 members & concessions