Collective for Living Cinema
Encyclopedia
The Collective for Living Cinema was an outpost of avant-garde
cinema located on White Street in Lower Manhattan
in the United States of America. It regularly presented work by filmmakers such as Ken Jacobs
, Johan van der Keuken
, Yvonne Rainer
, Christine Vachon
, Dziga Vertov
and many others who created films that were outside of the commercial mainstream in the United States. It also published a number of scholarly journals on film. Many of the founders studied film at SUNY Binghamton
together, where they developed a particular interest in the avant-garde.
In the late 1980s, the Collective was forced to move from its 52 White Street location (due to legal and financial issues related to the building's certificate of occupancy and the NYC building codes for motion picture theaters) to a new space across the street. With rising costs, the gentrification of TriBeCa, and the debt incurred in creating a new theater, the Collective closed its doors in the early 1990s. The last home of the Collective, at 41 White Street, is now The Flea Theater.
Many people affiliated with the Collective for Living Cinema were or have gone on to be quite influential in media, such the late Alf Bold, the former programmer of the Arsenal Kino in Berlin, Judith Shulevitz
, the columnist for the New York Times and Slate
, and John Sloss, the attorney and film producer who has produced more than 40 films, including Far From Heaven, Before Sunset, Personal Velocity, and The Fog of War
.
Others are noted artists such as the filmmaker Lizzie Borden, who very appropriately taught film editing at the Collective.
A recent retrospective show on the Collective's program organized by ORCHARD (orchard47.org) included the following note in its press release:
In 1973 a group of film students from the Harpur College Cinema Department looking to create a contemporary and fertile context for their work found The Collective for Living Cinema, an artist-run cooperative that would serve both as an exhibition venue and a center for production and discourse. Above the first program note was a miniature manifesto stating their intention to “overcome the economic, social and political burdens of an art in chains.” Lasting for 19 years, The Collective came to embody the under-defined moment between the canonized generation of “the essential cinema” and the transfiguration of film as “new media” embraced by the institutional hierarchy of the art world and subject to the theoretical, critical and economic tidal forces therein. Run as a multi-disciplinary venue, The Collective continuously engaged in a recovery of the recent past, championing the marginal and positing alternative film histories. The screening room was seen as a workshop in which this culture became immersed in its own brand of cinematic delirium. Annette Michelson pointed out that The Collective "attempted to break down distinctions between industrial film and avant guard film, between films that form part of a classical canon and those which are on the margins or periphery of canonical taste." By "maintaining and constantly questioning an exploratory attitude rather than by embalming predigested classical canon", Michelson stated, The Collective emerged in the 1980s as the "liveliest" New York film venue of its time.
This exhibition will re-examine the Collective’s history and parallel its mission within the current set of “economic, social and political chains.” It has been organized as a series of individually programmed screening events at ORCHARD (April 6–8 to be held at Anthology Film Archive), a timeline of documentation and an installation specific to the ambivalent capacity of cinema to enter the gallery through production / distribution on video.
Original founders included Kenneth Ross, Philip Wiseman, Mark Graff, Renee Shafransky
http://orchard47.org/testshow.php?name=The%20Collective
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
cinema located on White Street in Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
in the United States of America. It regularly presented work by filmmakers such as Ken Jacobs
Ken Jacobs
Ken Jacobs is an American experimental filmmaker. He is the director of Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son , which was admitted to the National Film Registry in 2007, and Star Spangled to Death , a nearly seven hour film consisting largely of found footage.He coined the term paracinema in the early 1970s,...
, Johan van der Keuken
Johan van der Keuken
Johan van der Keuken was a Dutch documentary filmmaker, author, and photographer. In a career that spanned 42 years, Keuken produced 55 documentary films, six of which won eight awards. He also wrote nine books on photography and films, his field of interest...
, Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental. Her work is classified as minimalist art.- Early life :...
, Christine Vachon
Christine Vachon
Christine Vachon is an American film producer active in the American independent film sector and daughter of noted photographer John Vachon....
, Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov
David Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
and many others who created films that were outside of the commercial mainstream in the United States. It also published a number of scholarly journals on film. Many of the founders studied film at SUNY Binghamton
Binghamton University
Binghamton University, also formally called State University of New York at Binghamton, , is a public research university in the State of New York. The University is one of the four university centers in the State University of New York system...
together, where they developed a particular interest in the avant-garde.
In the late 1980s, the Collective was forced to move from its 52 White Street location (due to legal and financial issues related to the building's certificate of occupancy and the NYC building codes for motion picture theaters) to a new space across the street. With rising costs, the gentrification of TriBeCa, and the debt incurred in creating a new theater, the Collective closed its doors in the early 1990s. The last home of the Collective, at 41 White Street, is now The Flea Theater.
Many people affiliated with the Collective for Living Cinema were or have gone on to be quite influential in media, such the late Alf Bold, the former programmer of the Arsenal Kino in Berlin, Judith Shulevitz
Judith Shulevitz
Judith Shulevitz is an American journalist, editor and culture critic. She graduated from Yale College in 1986.From 1991 to 1994, Shulevitz was the co-editor of Lingua Franca with Margaret Talbot...
, the columnist for the New York Times and Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, and John Sloss, the attorney and film producer who has produced more than 40 films, including Far From Heaven, Before Sunset, Personal Velocity, and The Fog of War
The Fog of War
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a 2003 American documentary film about the life and times of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara as well as illustrating his observations of the nature of modern warfare...
.
Others are noted artists such as the filmmaker Lizzie Borden, who very appropriately taught film editing at the Collective.
A recent retrospective show on the Collective's program organized by ORCHARD (orchard47.org) included the following note in its press release:
In 1973 a group of film students from the Harpur College Cinema Department looking to create a contemporary and fertile context for their work found The Collective for Living Cinema, an artist-run cooperative that would serve both as an exhibition venue and a center for production and discourse. Above the first program note was a miniature manifesto stating their intention to “overcome the economic, social and political burdens of an art in chains.” Lasting for 19 years, The Collective came to embody the under-defined moment between the canonized generation of “the essential cinema” and the transfiguration of film as “new media” embraced by the institutional hierarchy of the art world and subject to the theoretical, critical and economic tidal forces therein. Run as a multi-disciplinary venue, The Collective continuously engaged in a recovery of the recent past, championing the marginal and positing alternative film histories. The screening room was seen as a workshop in which this culture became immersed in its own brand of cinematic delirium. Annette Michelson pointed out that The Collective "attempted to break down distinctions between industrial film and avant guard film, between films that form part of a classical canon and those which are on the margins or periphery of canonical taste." By "maintaining and constantly questioning an exploratory attitude rather than by embalming predigested classical canon", Michelson stated, The Collective emerged in the 1980s as the "liveliest" New York film venue of its time.
This exhibition will re-examine the Collective’s history and parallel its mission within the current set of “economic, social and political chains.” It has been organized as a series of individually programmed screening events at ORCHARD (April 6–8 to be held at Anthology Film Archive), a timeline of documentation and an installation specific to the ambivalent capacity of cinema to enter the gallery through production / distribution on video.
Original founders included Kenneth Ross, Philip Wiseman, Mark Graff, Renee Shafransky
http://orchard47.org/testshow.php?name=The%20Collective