Film UbuWebThe Kitchen Presents Two Moon July (1986)
Warm Up (July 1985)
Philip Glass "Mad Rush"
Laurie Anderson "Difficult Listening Hour"
David Byrne "Report From L.A."
Dara Birnbaum "Damnation of Faust" (1983)
John & Evan Lurie "Boating"
George Lewis & Gregory Miller (with Molissa Fenley) "Atlantic"
Bruce Conner "America Is Waiting"
Michel Auder "Stories, Myths, Ironies and Songs"
Arto Lindsay w/Tony Nogueira
Kit Fitzgerald & David Sanborn "Olympic Fragments" (1980)
Director: Tom Bowes. Producer: Carlota Schoolman. Camera: Ed Bowes. Lighting Director: Stan Pressner. Sound: Bob Bielecki, Connie Kieltyka. Editing: Tom Bowes, Steve Giuliano. Associate Producers: Robin O'Hara, Mary Perillo. Assistant Director: Matthew Geller. Post Production Facilities: Broadway Video through the Media Alliance. Produced for The Kitchen by Carlota Schoolman. On-Line Program and Sync Sound, Inc.
The television production Two Moon July was a multidisciplinary event that featured experimental video, film, visual art, performance and music in a theatrical framework. More than thirty artists participated in the program, which was produced for the Kitchen by Carlota Schoolman and directed by Tom Bowes. This production reflects a moment when art centers were experimenting with new modes of presenting the arts for television. The participating artists read like a "who's who" of 1980's downtown art icons. Short excerpts from video and film works (by artists including Vito Acconci, Dara Birnbaum, Bruce Connor and Bill Viola) are intercut with performances and art installations in the Kitchen's gallery spaces. Laurie Anderson performs Difficult Listening Hour, speaking through the male voice of hher "Soul Doctor" character; Talking Heads' front man David Byrne is featured in the performance piece Report from L.A.; choreographer and dancer Bill T. Jones performs Inspiration to the accompaniment of John and Evan Lurie's music. Art works by '80s art stars Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo and Jonathan Borofsky are integral to the mise en scene, while music by downtown legends Brian Eno, Philip Glass and Arto Lindsay, among others, provides a running soundtrack.
This video is an ensemble piece that contains a collection of experimental performance art pieces by various artists including: LAURIE ANDERSON; DAVID BYRNE (of Talking Heads); PHILIP GLASS; ARTO LINDSAY (founder of legendary New York No Wave band DNA) w/TONY NOGUEIRA; EVAN LURIE; JOHN LURIE; BILL T. JONES; GEORGE LEWIS; and MOLISSA FENLEY (Piece has music by ANTHONY DAVIS). The entire video takes place in The Kitchen, a legendary artist's loft in New York City. All the performance pieces are what would be considered Experimental/Avant-Garde. The highlights of the Two Moon July video are performances by Laurie Anderson, a fantastic running commentary on newspapers, media and film by Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, and a rare performance of an incredible piece by Phillip Glass entitled 'Mad Rush'.
'Two Moon July,' a Special On Experimentalists
New York Times
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: September 11, 1987
No New York City cultural institution has been more hospitable toward the development of experimental interarts performance over the last decade and a half than the Kitchen. Since it was established in 1971 in SoHo, the Kitchen has helped nourish a roster of talent in the visual arts, dance, music, and performance art that reads like a who's who of the avant-garde.
No New York City cultural institution has been more hospitable toward the development of experimental interarts performance over the last decade and a half than the Kitchen. Since it was established in 1971 in SoHo, the Kitchen has helped nourish a roster of talent in the visual arts, dance, music, and performance art that reads like a who's who of the avant-garde. And this evening at 10 on Channel 31, many of those artists and their work can be glimpsed fleetingly in the one-hour special ''Two Moon July.''
The program, produced for the Kitchen by Carlota Schoolman and directed by Tom Bowes, is really a glossy video brochure that presents tempting little tidbits of work, much of it filmed in the Kitchen's gleaming new headquarters on West 19th Street. Laurie Anderson, who has lately been acting as a sort of official greeter for the avant-garde, leads off the program with one of her surefire bits, ''Difficult Listening Hour,'' in which she introduces an imaginary radio show, intoning her words through a harmonizer that lowers her voice to a sinister robotic baritone. In David Byrne's ''Report From L.A.,'' the leader of Talking Heads dashes around in increasingly frantic circles while reciting the names of movies, some fanciful, others real, that he can hardly wait to see. The piece is an amusing sendup of a certain kind of media-mad New York jitters. Molissa Fenley (accompanied by Anthony Davis's composition, ''Clonetics'') and Bill T. Jones each performs a short, expressive dance piece.
Naturally enough, the work that leaves the strongest impression is that created directly for video. ''And Now This,'' a haunting work of video art created by Kit Fitzgerald and John Sanborn, with music by David Van Tieghem and Peter Gordon, presents a beautiful evocation of the American heartland with eerie views of empty farm buildings seen through windows from striking perspectives. Michel Auder's ''Stories, Myths, Ironies and Songs,'' in which Ned Sublette sings about surviving the cold against scenes of New York City experiencing a full-scale blizzard, makes a moody urban counterpart.
To those looking for deep artistic statements, ''Two Moon July'' will be frustrating because in many instances, only excerpts of works are shown. Nothing lasts longer than three or four minutes. The show is the avant-garde equivalent of a Whitman's Sampler.
RESOURCES:
This title is available for exhibitions, screenings, and institutional use through Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), NY. Please visit the EAI Online Catalogue for further information about this artist and work.
The EAI site offers extensive resources for curators, students, artists and educators, including: an in-depth guide to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving media art; A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online, a collection of essays, primary documents, and media charting EAI's 40-year history and the early years of the emergent video art scene; and expanded contextual and educational materials.
Laurie Anderson in UbuWeb Sound
Philip Glass in UbuWeb Sound
Philip Glass in UbuWeb Historical
This UbuWeb resource is presented in partnership with Chris Yewell