Category: News

Lis Rhodes: Telling Invents Told

The Visible Press is pleased to announce our new book Telling Invents Told by British artist and filmmaker Lis Rhodes.

Telling Invents Told

Telling Invents Told is the first collection of writings by Lis Rhodes. It includes the influential essay Whose History? alongside texts from works such as Light Reading, Pictures on Pink Paper and A Cold Draft, together with new and previously unpublished materials. Since the 1970s, Rhodes has been making radical and experimental work that challenges hegemonic narratives and the power structures of language. Her writing addresses urgent political issues – from the refugee crisis to workers’ rights, police brutality, racial discrimination and homelessness – as well as film history and theory, from a feminist perspective. An important figure at the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, Rhodes was also a founding member of Circles, the first British distributor of film, video and performance by women artists.

Lis Rhodes’ early films and expanded cinema works include Dresden Dynamo (1971), Light Music (1975-77), and Light Reading (1978). These, and more recent works in video and digital, have featured in solo exhibitions at Tate Modern, the ICA, and are currently on display in the solo exhibition Dissident Lines at Nottingham Contemporary (25 May – 1 September 2019).

Telling Invents Told is edited by MarĂ­a Palacios Cruz, co-founder of The Visible Press and deputy director of LUX. Details of events that will celebrate its publication will be announced soon.

For more information, and to pre-order the book please see the product page in The Visible Press online shop.

 

Markopoulos in London

Two of Gregory J. Markopoulos’ most celebrated films, Twice a Man (1963) and The Illiac Passion (1964-67), will screen in London at Close-Up Film Centre in early December, as part of the National Film & Television School programme “The Pursuit of Wholeness”.

The Illiac Passion (1964-67)

The Pursuit of Wholeness pays tribute to seminal avant-garde filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos, with rare 16mm screenings of two of Markopoulos’ most acclaimed films and an exclusive preview of film critic Georgia Korossi’s documentary Devotion, a film that gives precious testimony of the 2016 edition of Temenos, the quadrennial event of screenings of Markopoulos’ monumental Eniaios.

Curated by Eleonora Pesci, this programme especially focuses on the ongoing, profound bond between the filmmaker’s works and his Greek heritage. It is part of a larger film season, The Pursuit of Wholeness, a National Film & Television School film programme exploring the influences of ancient Greek mythology and archetypes on cinematic quests for sexual and gender identity.

Friday 7 December 2018
Twice a Man + Devotion by Georgia Korossi

Saturday 9 December 2018
The Illiac Passion, introduced by Mark Webber

Copies of “Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos,” which gathers almost 100 texts dating from 1950 to 1992, will be available at the screenings.

 

 

Markopoulos and The Cantrills

A new article posted by Ivan Čerečina on the independent film magazine 4:3 surveys a recent screening series that explored the relationship between Gregory J. Markopoulos and the Australian filmmakers and publishers Arthur and Corinne Cantrill.

“The Language of the Image” was curated by Audrey Lam and Keegan O’Connor as part of MEL&NYC, and the programmes were shown at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.

Twice a Man (1963)

The review appears here :-
The Language of the Image: Gregory J. Markopoulos and the Cantrills

There is also an interview with the curators :-
Gregory J. Markopoulos and the Cantrills: The Language of the Image – An Interview with Curators Audrey Lam and Keegan O’Connor

From 1972-75, Markopoulos published several essays in the Cantrill’s long-running journal Cantrill’s Filmnotes, including “A Supreme Art in a Dark Age”, “Art is Not Knowledge” and “Towards a Complete Order.” Numerous prints of films by Markopoulos and Robert Beavers were available for many years through the Australian library system and are now deposited in the National Film and Sound Archive. In the case of Robert Beavers, these represent the early versions of his films and the prints may be unique edits.

Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos is still available from The Visible Press in both the original hardback and the more recent paperback editions.

All back issues of Cantrill’s Filmnotes can be purchased by contacting the Cantrills direct.

Laida Lertxundi on Thom Andersen

Words, Images

“Thom Andersen was my teacher ten years ago. He had a way to introduce films that infused them, and the moment, with conviction. That is what stands out the most about him – his ability to make films feel so necessary. His contagious love for the city of Los Angeles has left a permanent mark on me. I am so thankful for his teachings and his friendship.”
—– Laida Lertxundi, filmmaker & former CalArts student

Laida Lertxundi’s solo exhibition WORDS, PLANETS is at LUX, London, from 3 June to 7 July 2018.

“The exhibition features the European premiere of a new film installation, WORDS, PLANETS. The work forms part of the larger project ‘Landscape Plus,’ an 11-part series of films and installations, which each deal with a particular geography and subject of study. Each section of ‘Landscape Plus’ is conceived as a structural exercise, lived experience or memoir, which together form an embodied series of experiments that link a formalist film practice to intricate literary forms from Spain and Latin America. Raul Ruiz’s On Top of the Whale (Het dak van de walvis, 1982) is shown on a monitor in the LUX library, where a copy of Ruiz’s Poetics of Cinema can also be consulted.”

Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema is on sale in the LUX shop, and can be ordered direct from The Visible Press.

Andersen & Burch Season in Barcelona

Els teĂČrics fan cinema: Thom Andersen i NoĂ«l Burch
17–29 April 2018 at Filmoteca de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

For the complete schedule see the Filmoteca de Catalunya website. Noël Burch will be present to introduce Red Hollywood and his documentary series The Silent Revolution: What Do Those Old Films Mean?

Red Hollywood

Thom Andersen i NoĂ«l Burch tenen en comĂș el fet d’haver impartit classes a la universitat (a CalifĂČrnia l’un, a Lilla l’altre), de ser nord-americans, d’interessar-se pel cinema primitiu, de formar-se en el marxisme i d’haver fet un film plegats (Red Hollywood), que tambĂ© Ă©s un llibre comĂș sobre la caça de bruixes.

Andersen va focalitzar el seu interĂšs en Muybridge i els lligams entre cinema i ciĂšncia per revisar tambĂ© la histĂČria de l’anomenat “cinema mut” o la manera com als EUA havien estat desacreditats els blacklisted. MĂ©s tard ha indagat sobre la imatge de Los Angeles al cinema. Recentment, el volum Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema (The Visible Press, setembre 2017) recull diversos articles d’Andersen sobre les avantguardes, els llargmetratges de Hollywood i el cinema contemporani publicats al llarg de cinc dĂšcades.

NoĂ«l Burch va començar a ser conegut a casa nostra per la seva Praxis del cine quan la utilitzaciĂł del terme praxis era suficient per identificar a quin corrent pertanyia el teĂČric. DesprĂ©s, amb El tragaluz del infinito (Ediciones CĂĄtedra, 2006) va posar fi a la divisiĂł de la histĂČria del cinema entre “mut” — i primitiu — i “sonor” — i modern. 

Burch situa el naixement de la modernitat abans, quan el cinema crea les seves tĂšcniques novel·lesques del llenguatge per convertir-nos en espectadors omnipresents. DesprĂ©s, Burch ha proposat mirades noves sobre el cinema japonĂšs i les maneres de tractar la sexualitat al llarg de mĂ©s de 100 anys de fabricaciĂł de pel·lĂ­cules. De tot aixĂČ ens en parlarĂ  en directe i a travĂ©s del seus films i dels realitzats per Andersen. Teoria i prĂ ctica.