‘Living in Studio Kuchar’ exhibit to open at SFAI
Posted February 21st, 2012 in Announcements, Events and Screenings, News / Events
Hold Me While I’m Naked (George Kuchar, 1966)
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Living in Studio Kuchar
Curated by Hou Hanru, Julio Cesar Morales, and Mary Ellyn Johnson
March 9 – April 21, 2012
Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11:00 am–6:00 pm
Opening reception: Thursday, March 8, 5:30–7:30 pm
Walter and McBean Galleries
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
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SFAI honors influential artist and faculty member George Kuchar with new exhibition, Living in Studio Kuchar, opening March 8 at the Walter and McBean Gallerie
Living in Studio Kuchar situates Kuchar’s work in the specific locale and community of SFAI, which for four decades served as a site of experimentation and collaboration; a network of students, filmmakers, and friends; and his emotional home. The exhibition will transform the galleries into an active experience for audiences: Installations will reproduce Kuchar’s homestudio, and there will be a self-serve VHS tape viewing area, a listening station of soundtrack records from Kuchar’s collection, and an interactive filmmaking space where visitors are invited to use costumes and props to make their own Kuchar-esque films.
Other works on view will include seminal films such as Hold Me While I’m Naked (1966), ranked as one of the 100 Best Films of the 20th Century by the Village Voice; class films made with SFAI students; selections from the long-running project “Weather Diaries” (including Hot Spell, the last video Kuchar completed before his death in September 2011); and drawings and comics. The exhibition will also feature videos by both local and international artists—John Waters, Todd Solondz, Lisa Blatt, Miguel Calderon, Tim Sullivan, and Nao Bustamante, among others—that focus on Kuchar’s influence and mentorship.
Born in New York in 1942, Kuchar began making 8mm movies in the 1950s with his twin brother, Mike. They soon became central to the underground, avant-garde film scene, screening work alongside Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, and Stan Brakhage. Called “legends in the world of experimental film” by Roger Ebert, the Kuchars have influenced filmmakers including Waters, Solondz, Gus Van Sant, David Lynch, and Brian De Palma, and theorist Gene Youngblood named George one of the great artists in the history of the moving image. Kuchar’s film and video work has screened around the globe in cinemas, festivals, and major museums. Recent honors include the exhibition George Kuchar: Pagan Rhapsodies at MoMA PS1 in New York; the addition of his 1977 short film I, An Actress to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry; and his selection for the 2012 Whitney Biennial, to be held March 1 though May 27, 2012 at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
More information about the event can be found at:
http://www.sfai.edu/event/living-studio-kuchar
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For more information about George Kuchar and to rent his films from Canyon…
