THe risky visions of Press kit BARBARA HAMMER american experimental filmaker 12/06 01/07/2012 / CINema Tender Fictions, de Barbara Hammer, 1995 1, PLACE DE LA CONCORDE PARIS 8 E M CONCORDE WWW.JEUDEPAUME.ORG
Curators Barbara Hammer and Danièle Hibon PartnErS Produced with the assistance of Simone de Beauvoir Audiovisual Center. Jeu de Paume receives a subsidy from the ministry of Culture and Communication. It gratefully acknowledges support from Neuflize Vie, its global partner. MEDIA PARTNERS OUÏ FM, TÊTU. Information Rate: 3 euros / Free with entry ticket to the exhibitions and for subscribers. 01 47 03 13 31 / infoauditorium@jeudepaume.org contacts Press relations: Carole Brianchon +33 (0)1 47 03 13 22 / carolebrianchon@jeudepaume.org Communication: Anne Racine +33 (0)1 47 03 13 29 / anneracine@jeudepaume.org
THe risky visions of BARBARA HAMMER american experimental filmaker 12/06 01/07/2012 / CINema Since the early 1970s, Barbara Hammer has claimed the double identity of feminist and lesbian activist. Pioneer of queer cinema, she has gained an international reputation in the field of American experimental cinema. From her earliest films (X, Dyketactics, Superdyke), her boldness is evident in the enthusiastic and lyrical exploration of sexuality and women s pleasure, previously terra incognita in the geography of cinema. For this, it invents new formal representations of flower and plant outbursts (Women I Love) to a symbolic vocabulary close to Surrealism, revealing its proximity with Maya Deren, and Claude Cahun (I Was / Am I, Psychosynthesis) and two recent works (Maya Deren s Sink and Lover Other: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore). The creative energy of Barbara Hammer fires up all of the rich technical syntax of the avantgarde: superimposed layering of images, visual collage, coloring or alteration of the film, de-framing, use of solarized and negative film, and editing in post production to transform the movie into poetic form by manipulating the film before our eyes (Endangered). All these effects contribute to the technical deployment of a work rich in radiant colors and sounds more and more skillfully worked (Generations). Even in her many films shot in black and white, Barbara Hammer is a filmmaker of light and perceptual experiments. She is also highly attentive to the accompanying sound of her films: music and sound effects that give a color, a tone, sometimes lyrical and sometimes humorous, to films that accompany the memory they hold. 3
From the first shooting in super 8mm, she films alone or with her friends, making public the most private chapters of her life. Parallel to the personal films are works of memory archives and hidden lesbian and gay histories, forming a trilogy: Nitrate Kisses (1992), Tender Fiction (1995) and History Lessons (2000). Her work evolves over time: in 2000, she filmed Devotion in Japan about a kind of community of filmmakers centered around a charismatic producer, and Resisting Paradise in 2003, which questions how to be an artist in during war? In 2007, she made a documentary about women divers from the Korean island of Jeju-Do, South Korea. In 2011, her latest film is a tribute to the filmmaker Maya Deren which she made after finishing in 2008, a painful movie A Horse Is Not A Metaphor where her fight against cancer is assisted by her of love of energy and life both intimately connected to the beauty of nature. 4
Lover Other, Barbara Hammer, 2006 5
BARBARA HAMMER Barbara Hammer was born on May 15, 1939 in Hollywood, California. She is a visual artist working primarily in film and video and has made over 80 works in a career that spans 30 years. She is considered a pioneer of queer cinema. She recently had a Tribute Retrospective at the Chinese Cultural University in Taiwan where she also led a workshop Strategic Planning for Film/Video Artists. Her experimental films of the 1970 s often dealt with taboo subjects such as menstruation, female orgasm and lesbian sexuality. In the 80 s she used optical printing to explore perception and the fragility of 16mm film life itself. Optic Nerve (1985) and Endangered (1988) were selected for the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennials ( 85, 89). Her documentaries tell the stories of marginalized peoples who have been hidden from history and are often essay films that are multi-leveled and engage audiences viscerally and intellectually with the goal of activating them to make social change. Nitrate Kisses (1992) was chosen for the 1993 Whitney Biennial.Hammer was a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Fall 2005 at the Bratislava Academy of Art and Design, Slovakia; she received the first Shirley Clarke Avant-Garde Filmmaker Award in October 2006 and the Women In Film Award 2006 from the St. Louis International Film Festival. In February 2007, she was awarded a tribute and retrospective at the Chinese Cultural University Digital Imaging Center in Taipei, Taiwan sponsored by Women Make Waves Film Festival. In April, 2008, Diving Women of Jeju-do premiered at the Seoul International Women s Film Festival where Hammer presented followed by a trip to Beijing where she showed her 1970 lesbian films to a Feminist Seminar and a new LGTQI Center. Her most recent work is an experimental film on cancer and hope, A Horse Is Not A Metaphor, which she premiered in June, 2008 at the 32nd Frameline International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in San Francisco. It is selected for the Berlin International Film Festival in February, 2009 and Doc Fortnight at the Museum of Modern Art, February, 2009. It is in the short film competition at Punta de Vista Film Festival in Pamplona, Spain and Festival des Films des Femmes, Creteil, France. She has had retrospectives at The Berlin Film Festival and Centre Pompidou, Paris in 1985, the Digital University Taiwan in 2005, Universitad Complutense in Madrid in 2008. Hammer received an IASPIS artist residency for 2009 in Sweden. Her memoir, HAMMER, Making It in Sex and Movies is forthcoming from the Feminist Press at CUNY in spring 2010 and will coincide with a retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She teaches each summer at The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. She lives and works in New York City. 6
Nitrate Kisses, Barbara Hammer, 1992 7
SCHEDULE of projections Tuesday June 12, 7pm Opening night, in presence of the filmmaker and Danièle Hibon Reservation required: infoauditorium@jeudepaume.rog > Two bad Daughters (directed with Paula Levine), 12 > Sanctus, 19 > Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren, 14 > Maya Deren s Sink, 29 Wednesday, June 13, 7pm In presence of the filmmaker > I Was /I Am, 6 > X, US, 1973, 8 > Psychosynthesis, 1975, 8 > History Lessons, 2000, 66 Friday, June 15 juin, 7pm In presence of the filmmaker > Tender Fictions, 58 > A Horse Is Not A Metaphor, 30 Saturday, June 16, 4pm Special session: «Voyages from Lesbos», meeting with Barbara Hammer and Elisabeth Lebovici, art critic and art historian. > Superdyke, 25 > Women I Love, 25 > Nitrate Kisses, 77 Sunday, June 17, 4pm In presence of the filmmaker > Lover Other, 55, subtitled in French > Resisting Paradise, 80, subtitled in French 8
Sunday, June 17, 7pm Performance of Rosa Barba and Barbara Hammer. Reservation required: infoauditorium@jeudepaume.rog A performatic dialogue between two artists of different contexts who use film as an experimental tool to create radical new art languages. Tuesday, June 19, 7pm > Generations, 30 (directed with Gina Carducci) > The Female Closet, 58 Saturday, June 23, 5pm «Terre et Eau» > Pools, 9 (directed with Barbara Klutinis) > Pond and Waterfall, 15 > Stone Circles, 12 > Bent Time, 22 > Diving Women of Jeju-Do, 25 Sunday, June 24, 5pm «Lumière fragile» > Machu Piccu, 16 > Tourists, 4 > Parisian Blinds, 8 > Doll House, 4 > Place Mattes, 9 > No No Nooky T.V., 12 > Endangered, 19 > Sanctus, 19 Tuesday, June 26, 7pm > I Was /I Am, 6 > My Babushka: Searching Ukrainian Indentities, 53 Saturday, June 30, 5pm > Devotion, A Film about Ogawa Productions, 84 Sunday, July 1, 5pm > Resisting Paradise, 80, subtitled in French 9
PRESS Images The images are available for press uses solely in connection with the cinema program The riskyvisions of Barbara Hammer Barba at Jeu de Paume, from 12/06 until 01/07/2012. BH 00 Barbara Hammer, 2012 Photo Adrien Chevrot Jeu de Paume 2012 BH 01 A Horse Is Not A Metaphor, Barbara Hammer, 2008 BH 02 Barbara Hammer and Florrie Burke in Tender Fictions, Barbara Hammer, 1995 Photo Joyce Culver 10
BH 03 Barbara Hammer, 2003 Photo Suzanne Kuhn BH 04 Devotion, A Film about Ogawa Productions, Barbara Hammer, 2000 BH 05 Diving Women of Jeju-Do, Barbara Hammer, 2007 BH 06 Endangered, Barbara Hammer, 1988 11
BH 07 Endangered, Barbara Hammer, 1998 BH 08 History Lessons, Barbara Hammer, 2000 BH 09 Lover Other, Barbara Hammer, 2006 BH 10 Maya Deren s Sink, Barbara Hammer, 2011 12
BH 11 My Babushka: Searching Ukrainian Indentities, Barbara Hammer, 2001 BH 12 Nitrate Kisses, Barbara Hammer, 1992 BH 13 No No Nooky T.V., Barbara Hammer, 1987 BH 14 Pond and Waterfall, Barbara Hammer, 1982 13
BH 15 Resisting Paradise, Barbara Hammer, 2003 BH 16 Sanctus, Barbara Hammer, 1990 BH 17 Tender Fictions, Barbara Hammer, 1995 BH 18 The Female Closet, Barbara Hammer, 1997 14
BH 19 Women I Love, Barbara Hammer, 1976 BH 20 X, Barbara Hammer, 1975 15