Press
for
DIRGES
AND STURGEONS
THE VILLAGE VOICE:
"Peripatetic curator Astria Suparak has an eye for the strange and ineffable."
- Amy Taubin
THE
SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN:
"Video art starlet Astria Suparak
is on a mission to bring the freshest experimental works to the theaters nearest
you. The 23-year-old New York curator makes a stop on her national and European
tour at Artists' Television Access tonight with "Dirges and Sturgeons,"
a program of shorts by young and emerging artists. Playful laments indeed, these
new works use lo-fi aesthetics to critique high technology and mass-produced
culture.
Using outdated analog
video modes, Jacqueline Goss muses on the fate of the individual in "The
100th Undone," a personal history of cloning and biotechnological reproduction.
Hilariously grotesque, Lawrence Elbert's "Whitney: Mama's Little Baby"
is a baby's-eye view of the pop diva. Also featured is new work from performance
artist and videomaker-distributor Miranda July of Big Miss Moviola, now
Joanie 4 Jackie, fame (whose touring program "Some
Kind of Loving" was also curated by Suparak). In "Getting Stronger Every
Day," July addresses mythmaking and media fables in the retelling of two
TV-movie stories of little boys lost and found." - Alissa Chadburn,
8 Days A Week
THE
CHICAGO READER:
Curator Astria Suparak describes these videos as presenting futuristic
or high-tech ideas "in a lo-fi way," and the best entries are both simple and
conceptually subtle in their approaches to gender. Pierre Yves Clouin
continues to explore the male body in The Little Big (1999), a single
take in which a crack that appears to be buttocks in shadow is revealed to be
something more erotic. In Lawrence Elbert's Whitney: Mama's Little
Baby (2000) a drag queen drinks from a bottle in a paper bag and delivers
a solipsistic and rather pathetic monologue to the camera. The theme of self-entrapment
is echoed in The Magic Glass (1991), as video maker Bjorn Melhus speaks
to his feminized image on a monitor while shaving himself.
On the same program, which runs about 58 minutes: work by Jacqueline Goss,
Miranda July, Seth Price, and Animal Charm. - Fred Camper
CONTINUITY
ERROR:
Dirges And Sturgeons: Artists Vs. Technology
Curator Astria Suparak has come to my hometown, Milwaukee, once already
— with Sexuality Malfunctioned, an itchy, extremely disturbing program
of films and videos whose images seemed to scab over our entrenched self-regard.
Now she's back on tour with Dirges and Sturgeons (check out astriasuparak.com
for dates) and the results are much more user-friendly, although itchiness is
certainly on the plate.
The organizing principle this time is YACHT: Young Artists Challenge High Technology.
I'm not sure I'd be able to thread every film in the program through this acronym,
nor if it's even necessary. But certainly Seth Price's "Industrial
Synth" (2001) has a lot invested in low technology. Most of this 15-minute
video is taken up by an ancient computer adventure game where the player examines
the dot-matrix environment and tries to elude death (and Death). For Price,
discarded or outmoded technology offers an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves
with the personal in history, a perpetual accessing of memories in an effort
to stave off mortality. And so the player's final examination never goes through,
and the effect is devastating.
For itchiness, we have Lawrence Elbert's "Whitney: Mama's Little Baby"
(2000). Whitney Houston, played here by a drag queen, mounts a drugged, terrifying
monologue in her parked car. With the camera shooting from the wide-angle distorted
perspective of Houston's child in the back seat, the audience receives all the
abuse, paranoia and cracked-out affection. The cinema chair becomes a restraining
child seat as we become helpless witness to La Whitney telling us we're ugly
and spitting up rotten Lunchables. There's not much compassion for the diva
at the wheel, which only adds another level of discomfort for us to sort through.
A genuinely unpleasant experience, and all the better for it.
A few videos from "media cannibals" Animal Charm will be shown. My favorite
is "Lightfoot Fever," which mixes together footage from what looks like
a scopitone (early music video form) for a cover of "Fever" and a nature film
for children starring the lovable fawn Lightfoot. The nature images attack the
scopitone via flying boxes, and the song itself is re-edited for a stuttering
effect that reminded me of Martin Arnold's deconstruction of Andy Hardy films.
Bjorn Melhus stars in his own video "Das Zauberglas" ("The Magic
Glass," 1991) as a man shaving his hair off and also a woman he communicates
with via a television screen. Their dialogue is lifted from the German-dubbed
version of the 1950 James Stewart Western vehicle "Broken Arrow." The mirror
in the original has now become the television screen as the increasingly mediated
sense of identity gets lost forever in the static.
Also on the bill:
Pierre Yves Clouin's "The Little Big," which transforms [this
should be a surprise. but if you really want to know, then read the full article].
Jacqueline Goss' meditation on genetic engineering, "The 100th Undone"
— silent so our own stomach growls and rumblings won't go unnoticed.
Miranda July's "Getting Stronger Every Day," starring Sleater-Kinney's
Carrie Brownstein (!) and the idea of film as mythical hovercraft. -Kevin
John
INTERMEDIA ARTS:
This off-the-wall collection of shorts curated by Astria Suparak is enmeshed
in American pop culture, almost to the point of obscurity. Suparak curates widely
ranging film and video programs, from the easily accessible to the extremely
vague, from historical avant-garde to works by contemporary and virtually unknown
young artists.
DAS
KURTZFILMMAGAZIN:
Curatorial hit - "Dirges and Sturgeons" tours USA
Following the resounding success of her programme at the Anthology Film Archives
(NYC), curator Astria Suparak is now taking "Dirges and Sturgeons" on a tour
of five American cities. In New York the programme of short films and videos-
by Miranda July, Seth Price, Bjørn Melhus and others - interspersed with
audio pieces, received accolades from both filmmakers and the press. According
to Bjørn Melhus: "The room was packed like I've hardly ever seen in a cinema,
the audience loved it and we all had a wonderful, stimulating evening. I was
so happy to finally be able to watch videos in a cinema instead of an exhibition
room". Amy Taubin commented in the Village Voice: "Peripatetic curator Astria
Suparak has an eye for the strange and ineffable". The young curator (23) is
currently at work preparing further programmes.
AUDIENCE RESPONSE:
"It was all my... pleasure. I was really eager to see something 'off-the-wall',
something goofy and at the same time fun and I wasn't disappointed. Suparak
always brings on the goods, keeps up the splendidness. I was impressed with
each work and the curatoral satisfied. It was kind of like medicine, good medicine.
I came out dizzy with fervor. It was amazing." - Carlmelo Boor, Pratt Institute
See the Program Notes:
Designed booklet form (Outside,
Inside),
or Text-only.
For more information or stills contact:
a@astriasuparak.com
or see http://www.astriasuparak.com
PO Box 1813
New York, NY 10009