David Bernabo's insightful documentary Site-Specific traces the history of seminal art venue The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, PA. Combining interviews with artists—Sarah Oppenheimer, Dennis Maher, Ann Hamilton, et al—as well as MF directors Barbara Luderowski and Michael Olijnyk, Site Specific shares history, anecdotes, and considerable archival footage to reveal a fulsome and illuminating breadth of artist-run culture through the past four decades. The film traces the venue's history from its origins as an artist studio space and food co-op into its decades-long history of site-specific artists' installations, affirming the Mattress Factory's place as one of the nation's most significant artistic venues. In doing so, Site Specific is not merely the story of one place, but all similar venues born in 1970s that came to define alternative and underground culture in the United States.

 

Catcher in the Rye with Diamonds (2018, written by Greg Sterlace & Paula Wachowiak, directed by Greg Sterlace)

Catcher in the Rye with Diamonds is a film that explores the connection between the assassination of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman and the book that he called his defense, The Catcher in the Rye. This idea was so compelling that Greg Sterlace and Paula Wachowiak decided to make it as a self-funded underground film with no thought of making money on the project. They saw the cinematic potential of taking a fresh look at The Catcher in the Rye through the eyes of Mark David Chapman, something that had not been done in Chapter 27, the first movie made about the event. Chapman used the book as his reason for killing John Lennon. In his own words, "…I was literally living in the book," as he walked the streets of New York City in early December 1980, imagining himself as Holden Caulfield while he read through the pages of this iconic novel.

Sterlace picked apart the chapters and pieced together what he and Wachowiak felt was an insightful analysis of what Chapman may have read that made him believe his murder of Lennon would complete the 26-chapter book and finalize the text with chapter 27. They didn't stop there. The media of the 1950s-1980s was explored and amalgamated into a collage-like dream that comprised the hypothetical thought processes of the murderer. The result is a wild ride through the mind of a murderer.

Collage cinema is not new, but it is used here as a vehicle to explore a twisted mind. Everyone is a product of what they take in through their senses; we all have bits and pieces of movies and books and music swimming around in our gray matter influencing how we think and what we do ... continue reading >>

 

Introduction by artist / poet Annette Daniels Taylor

Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust (1991) returns to Hallwalls' screen after more than 26 years since its Buffalo premiere at Hallwalls on March 7, 1992.

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Free and open to the public.

RSVP required: squeaky.org/punctures (Deadline: November 5, 2018)

How have textiles influenced the development of technology? How do weaving, sewing, and knitting inform how we make camera and phone images? What can the history of textile arts, which spans the length of human history, teach emerging media practices?

For two days, Squeaky Wheel will host artists and scholars from across the country for a convening exploring the secret and not-so-secret history connecting textile arts and media arts. This convening will function as research that will inform an ambitious, multi-site exhibition that will open in late 2019. Speakers for the symposium include Terri Francis, Kite, Beryl Korot, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Stephen Monteiro, and Betty Yu.

Seating is limited and RSVP is required. Please go to squeaky.org/punctures to confirm your attendance.

 

directed by Sasha Waters Freyer

Described as a "poet," an "athlete," or a "philosopher" of photography, Garry Winogrand harnessed the serendipity of the streets to capture the American 1960s and '70s. His Leica M4 snapped spontaneous images of everyday people, from the Mad Men era of New York to the early years of the Women's Movement to post-Golden Age Hollywood, all while observing themes of cultural upheaval, political disillusionment, intimacy and alienation. Once derided by the critics, Winogrand's "snapshot aesthetic" is now the universal language of contemporary image making. Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable is the first cinematic treatment of Winogrand's work, including selections from the thousands of rolls of film still undeveloped upon his unexpected death in 1984. Interviews with Tod Papageorge, Matthew Weiner and more attest to Winogrand's indisputable influence, both as artist and chronicler of culture, while archived conversations with Jay Maisel highlight the gruff, streetwise perspective of "a city hick from the Bronx." In the tradition of Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Winogrand's candid, psychological style transports us to a bygone world, one where image lacked the editing and control possible today.

"This is a film primarily about photography, one that explores Garry Winogrand's tremendous contributions to the art form and his lasting influence on how we think of the medium today. But it is also a film that, I hope, explores and explodes the cliché of the undomesticated, self-destructive genius—one who is fundamentally unsuited to family life ... continue reading >>