Recent Acquisitions: Avant-garde Films from the Sixties

In the late sixties, Mary (Myers) Lucas and her husband Lee Myers were among the first media art dealers. They collected video and avant-garde films, including works by Bay Area artists. PFA recently purchased a selection from their original film collection. Many of these prints are on film stocks that are no longer made, and although they were used as distribution prints, their quality is still excellent-in fact, the quality cannot be duplicated today. Tonight's selection includes well-known works by Bruce Conner and Bruce Baillie that deserve to be revisited again and again: Castro Street is an impressionistic, layered portrait of a street in Richmond; Report, taking off from news footage shot after President Kennedy's assassination, is ultimately a critique of our fascination with the spectacle of violence. Scott Bartlett's Metanomen explores a woman and man's relationship; this creative film extended the possibilities of the technology of the time. In Billabong, Will Hindle creates a beautiful poetic documentary shot on location at an Oregon boy's camp. Standish Lawder's Necrology is a mesmerizing comment on the costs of a nine-to-five job. Lawrence Jordan's exquisite collage work is showcased in Our Lady of the Sphere; and in the lyrical and sexually explicit Chronicles, Mike Kuchar details everyday life, from drawing and painting to making love.-Kathy Geritz

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