Shoot Shoot Shoot: The First Decade of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative and British Avant-Garde Film 1966-1976 (2002)

Broadsheet for the film exhibition curated by Mark Webber and organised by LUX London. Includes film descriptions, chronology of events and developments 1966-76, and the article by A.L. Rees.

“The London Film-Makers’ Co-operative was founded in 1966 and based upon the artist-led distribution centre created by Jonas Mekas and the New American Cinema Group. Both had a policy of open membership, accepting all submissions without judgement, but the LFMC was unique in incorporating the three key aspects of artist filmmaking: production, distribution and exhibition within a single facility.

Early pioneers like Len Lye, Antony Balch, Margaret Tait and John Latham had already made remarkable personal films in England, but by the mid-60s interest in “underground” film was growing. On his arrival from New York, Stephen Dwoskin demonstrated and encouraged the possibilities of experimental filmmaking and the Coop soon became a dynamic centre for the discussion, production and presentation of avant-garde film. Several key figures such as Peter Gidal, Malcolm Le Grice, John Smith and Chris Welsby went onto become internationally celebrated. Many others, like Annabel Nicolson and the fiercely autonomous and prolific Jeff Keen, worked across the boundaries between film and performance and remain relatively unknown, or at least unseen.

The Co-op asserted the significance of the British films in line with international developments, whilst surviving hand-to-mouth in a series of run down buildings. The physical hardship of the organisation’s struggle contributed to the rigorous, formal nature of films produced during this period. While the Structural approach dominated, informing both the interior and landscape tendencies, the British filmmakers also made significant innovations with multi-screen films and expanded cinema events, producing works whose essence was defined by their ephemerality. Many of the works fell into the netherworld between film and fine art, never really seeming at home in either cinema or gallery spaces.

Shoot Shoot Shoot, a major retrospective programme and research project, will bring these extraordinary works back to life.

Curated by Mark Webber with assistance from Gregory Kurcewicz and Ben Cook.
Shoot Shoot Shoot is a LUX project.” (from Introduction)

Publisher Lux, London, May 2002
8 pages

project
more (touring programme, Lux Online)
overview of the touring programme (George Clark, Senses of Cinema)
DVD anthology (published in 2006)

PDF (85 MB, added on 2014-12-22), Scribd

Peter Gidal (ed.): Structural Film Anthology (1976/1978)

“This anthology of texts about what have been termed Structural Films attempts to bring together some of the more important essays and articles on those films which have formed the core of film work in this field since its inception. It is a first attempt to bring together texts from Europe, Britain and the United States. In the past we have been inundated with the parochial, American view of avant-garde film work, as expounded on both sides of the Atlantic. This anthology was published to coincide with the series of eighteen programmes, Structural Film Retrospective, at the National Film Theatre, London, in May 1976.

As it happened, no film-maker was included in the programmes who had not produced relevant work before 1971, though many works were from after that year. No new films were introduced; this was a retrospective programme intended to enable a viewing that saw each film in the context of each other film, that could recognise alliances and misalliances between films, that could attempt to deal with the individual filmworks and the critical practice which preceded or followed.

In some cases, the critical practice here is a virtually complete repression through ideology of the text of the film; in the gaps presented work can now take place. The lengths of the sections are dictated by the materials of interest available, and unfortunately in a few cases only very slight material existed. I hope that the selection will not offend; the younger Americans have been left out, as have many of the younger British, because of the wish for a solid retrospective programme as elucidated above. No doubt there are quite a few film-makers completely unknown to me, and to nearly everyone else, who have done and may be doing very important work, and whose work remains ‘out of view’ for a variety of sociological reasons, none of which are praiseworthy. I wish to thank all the film-makers and writers, obviously.

For this reprint nothing has been changed, though a few minor errors have been corrected and Ben Brewster’s review of the Anthology inScreen has been included as an afterward. I call attention to the ‘Theory and Definition of Structural/Materialist Film’ article in its original form in Studio International (November 1975), and to Deke Dusinberre’s article relating to it in Screen (Summer 1977). P.G., January 1978” (Introduction)

With an introduction by Peter Gidal
Publisher British Film Institute, London, 1976; reprint from 1978
ISBN 0 85170 0535
144 pages

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PDF (updated on 2012-7-14)

Richard Hertz: Jack Goldstein and the CalArts Mafia (2003)

Jack Goldstein and the CalArts Mafia is the compelling story of Jack Goldstein and some of his classmates at CalArts, who in the early 70s went to New York and led the transition from conceptualism to Pictures art, utilizing images from television and movies with which they had grown up. At the same time, they discovered an artworld increasingly consumed by the desire for fame, fortune and the perks of success.

The book is anchored by Jack’s narratives of the early days of CalArts and the last days of Chouinard; the New York art world of the 70s and 80s; the trials and tribulations of finding and maintaining success; his interpersonal relationships; and his disappearance from the art scene. They are complemented by the first person narratives of Jack’s friends, including John Baldessari, Troy Brauntuch, Rosetta Brooks, Jean Fisher, Robert Longo, Matt Mullican and James Welling. There are provocative portraits of many well known artworld personalities of the 80s, including Mary Boone, David Salle, and Helene Winer, all working in a time when “the competitive spirit was strong and often brutal, caring little about anything but oneself and making lots of money.” Has anything changed?

Publisher Minneola Press, 2003
ISBN 0964016540, 9780964016545
223 pages

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PDF, PDF (updated on 2014-12-22)