Fall 1

Bas Jan Ader's first fall film shows him seated on a chair, tumbling from the roof of his two-storey house in the Inland Empire.

1970-02-01 | en

Fall 2

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.

1970-03-10 | en

I'm Too Sad to Tell You

This short film is part of a mixed media artwork of the same name, which also included postcards of Ader crying, sent to friends of his, with the title of the work as a caption. The film was initially ten minutes long, and included Ader rubbing his eyes to produce the tears, but was cut down to three and a half minutes. This shorter version captures Ader at his most anguished. His face is framed closely. There is no introduction or conclusion, no reason given and no relief from the anguish that is presented.

1971-03-17 | en

Broken Fall (Geometric)

One of a series of ‘falls’ by Bas Jan Ader that he recorded on film, this work was filmed in West Kapelle, Holland in 1970.

1971-02-02 | en

Broken Fall (Organic)

Bas Jan Ader hangs from the branch of a tall tree, until he loses his grip and falls into a river below.

1971-02-23 | en

Nightfall

Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his shoulder. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He drops the brick, crushing one strand of lights. He again lifts the brick, allowing tension to accrue. The climax inevitable—the brick falls and crushes the second set of lights. Here the film abruptly ends, all illumination extinguished.

1971-03-24 | en

Meat Joy

"Meat Joy is an erotic rite — excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chicken, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, ropes, brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is towards the ecstatic — shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent. Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience. The original performances became notorious and introduced a vision of the 'sacred erotic.' This video was converted from original film footage of three 1964 performances of Meat Joy at its first staged performance at the Festival de la Libre Expression, Paris, Dennison Hall, London, and Judson Church, New York City."

1964-05-29 | en

Omniprésence

A documentary edited from ORLAN's seventh surgery in the The Reincarnation of Sainte-ORLAN series which aired live, vis satellite from New York in 1993.

1994-01-01 | en

Mrs. Peanut Visits New York

A video portrait of the legendary late performance artist, fashion designer and nightlife icon Leigh Bowery. Atlas's camera follows Bowery as he flamboyantly strolls through Manhattan's Meatpacking District, outrageously costumed in a self-made reinterpretation of "Mr. Peanut," the Planter's Peanut mascot. Bowery's molded full-bodysuit, accessorized with a floral print dress, top hat and transparent-heeled platform shoes, draws stares from onlookers. Peanut-related pop songs accompany him on the soundtrack.

1999-09-07 | en

Plena Rondo

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Salvador Dalí at Work

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows the surrealist artist around the streets of New York documenting staged public art events.

2006-11-11 | en

This Is Not a Dream

The video revolution of the 1970s offered unprecedented access to the moving image for artists and performers. This Is Not a Dream explores the legacies of this revolution and its continued impact on contemporary art and performance. Charting a path across four decades of avant-garde experiment and radical escapism, This Is Not a Dream traces the influences of Andy Warhol, John Waters and Jack Smith to the perverted frontiers of YouTube and Chatroulette, taking in subverted talk shows and soap operas, streetwalker fashions and glittery magic penises along the way.

2012-10-20 | en

Pussy Versus Putin

In 2012 two members of anarchistic female band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Mordovian labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Russian film collective Gogol’s Wives follow each step of the feminist punk band’s battle against Putin including their first disruptive performances on a trolley bus, shooting a video about transparent elections, a controversial performance in a Red Square cathedral, and footage shot in a jail cell. Support comes from many corners including Madonna who painted the words "Pussy Riot" on her back and wore a balaclava during her Moscow show. The documentary portrays the grim state of present-day Russia, a country starkly divided between conservatism and anarchy. Pussy Riot believes that art has to be free and they're willing to take it to extremes. "Pussycat made a mess in the house," they say, and the house is Russia. The filmmakers do not seek to moralize, they simply edit events and leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.

2013-08-30 | en

Paul McCarthy: Destruction of the Body

Drawing on the idiom and imagery of the consumer culture he grew up in, video artist Paul McCarthy distorts and mutates the familiar into the disturbing and grotesque as fairy tale narratives and foods are transformed into tableaus of abuse and violation.

2001-02-28 | en

Blue Man Group: The Complex Rock Tour Live

Offbeat performance artists The Blue Man Group have finally been captured live on this disc that features concert footage, three full-length music videos and three songs from Blue Man Group's album, "The Complex." The live footage was filmed during Blue Man Group's successful and widely acclaimed August 2003 rock tour, where they wowed 9,000 fans in two sold-out concerts.

2003-11-25 | en

Glittering Misfits

Dirty Martini and Tigger!, stars of the New York underground scene, reveal some of the secrets of their provocative and remonstrative forms of artistic expression in New York’s Off-Off-Broadway. Meanwhile, they will help us to understand from their everyday intimacy the reasons, the struggles and the keys that keep them in their place as the figures and references of the burlesque revival, more than 20 years after the phenomenon exploded in the New York of the 90s.

2019-09-22 | en

Discovering Hamlet

IN 1988, rising star Kenneth Branagh tackled the role of Shakespeare’s prince of Denmark for the first time in his professional career under the guidance of celebrated actor Derek Jacobi. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, this hour-long film documents how Kenneth Branagh and Derek Jacobi, two intelligent and passionate men, found new depths in Shakespeare’s classic drama, Hamlet. Filmmakers Mark Olshaker and Larry Klein follow the company through four weeks of rehearsals, from the first read-throughs to opening night.

1990-01-07 | en

The Lure and the Lore

A collaboration between filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira and performance artist Thomas Pinnock, who performs his "immigrant folktales" using traditional lore of his native Jamaica to dramatize his migration to New York in the 60's.

1988-01-01 | en

Seedbed

“In this legendary sculpture/performance Acconci lay beneath a ramp built in the Sonnabend Gallery. Over the course of three weeks, he masturbated eight hours a day while murmuring things like, "You're pushing your cunt down on my mouth" or "You're ramming your cock down into my ass." Not only does the architectural intervention presage much of his subsequent work, but all of Acconci's fixations converge in this, the spiritual sphincter of his art. In Seedbed Acconci is the producer and the receiver of the work's pleasure. He is simultaneously public and private, making marks yet leaving little behind, and demonstrating ultra-awareness of his viewer while being in a semi-trance state.” – Jerry Saltz (via: http://www.ubu.com/film/acconci_seedbed.html)

1972-01-01 | en

Sandra Bernhard: Confessions of a Pretty Lady

Bernhard, an actress-comedienne whose brassy humor attracts a cult-like following, here offers a semiconfessional view of her life's landscape. Childhood memories of her father, a doctor, and her mother, an artist, are warmly rendered in scenes of the Jewish family amiably accommodating itself to the Christmas season, and of the obligatory communal vacations joined by colorful relatives. The abrupt transition to a flamboyant denizen of "downtowns," Los Angeles or New York, to an existence as a character in the lives of marginal people, is evoked in sharply satirical terms, in a melange of humorous fact and fiction, monologues akin to those that make Bernhard an icon of pop culture.

1994-04-24 | en