The Pictures Generation: The Short Films

The Pictures Generation: From Hallwalls to the Kitchen, and Beyond.

Our three-part series begins as a gallery show at SARA’S at Dunkunsthalle at 64 Fulton Street, and then as a film series at the Roxy Cinema, featuring works of the Pictures Generation who worked across mediums, and across boundaries of high art and popular culture.

Robert Longo, Charlie Clough, Cindy Sherman, Nancy Dwyer and Michael Zwack, members of the famed Pictures Generation, began their careers at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo, New York. They met the West Coast artist Jack Goldstein, first at Hallwalls, and then again in New York City. In the summer of 1977, Robert Longo and Cindy Sherman moved to 85 South Street in New York. Here is where Cindy Sherman created many of her early Untitled Film Stills, and where Robert Longo’s Men in the Cities series were photographed on the roof, and subsequently drawn. Sherman soon moved to 64 Fulton Street with Nancy Dwyer. In 1981 Gretchen Bender arrived in New York City and settled into the South Street loft.

Curated by Vera Dika.

EAST AND WEST COAST MEET IN DOWNTOWN NEW YORK

THE SHORT FILMS

A central passion of the Pictures Generation artists was the “Movies” (and the Media), that is, they wanted to make art about movies, to critique popular culture, and even to make their own movies. Their passion initially took them to short films and video works, and then even into mainstream narrative filmmaking.

The shorts program features early film and video productions by Jack Goldstein, Cindy Sherman, Glenda Hydler, Robert Longo, Gretchen Bender and Sandy Tait. These works engage popular culture, and gender issues, but always with a keen eye to the material and history of their medium, be it 16mm film, analog video, MTV video, or experimental narrative film.

Film Lineup:

Jack Goldstein, Shane (1975) 2.28m

Jack Goldstien, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1975) 2.10m

Jack Goldstein,  A White Dove (1975) 50s

Jack Goldstein, A Ballet Shoe (1975) 44s

Cindy Sherman, I Hate You (1975) 3m

Cindy Sherman, Unhappy Hooker (1976) 3m

Cindy Sherman and Glenda Hydler, Performance (1978) 48m

INTERMISSION

Robert Longo, dir., Gretchen Bender, ed. ,New Order, Bizarre Love Triangle (1986) 4m

Robert Longo, dir., Gretchen Bender, ed., REM, The One I Love (1987) 3m

Robert Longo, Arena Brains (1987) 35m (36m)

Gretchen Bender and Sandy Tait, Volatile Memory (1988) 13m