Dirty Looks

2012-01-07T11:48:00.003-05:00

The dirty looks website has changed domains. Please visit dirtylooksnyc.org for all of our upcoming events!

Thanks...
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Yale

2011-12-31T13:41:00.001-05:00

Sparkle's Tavern

2011-12-08T10:48:00.009-05:00

Wednesday, December 28th 8pm

Sparkle's Tavern, 1985
a film by Curt McDowell
Starring Melinda McDowell, Marion Eaton and George Kuchar

Participant Inc
253 East Houston St.
New York, NY 10002

Welcome to Sparkle’s Tavern – a sing-and-suck bordello where a brother-sister entrepreneurial duo are just trying to earn an honest buck. Their little brothel is a secret, hard kept from their conservative mother (Eaton). But when she receives a visit from the magical Mr. Pupik (Kuchar) he shares with her the joys of sexual enlightenment and Sparkle’s becomes a raucous, sex-positive family film. Shot in 1976 but not edited until 1984, the film was the last completed by the late, great Curt McDowell.

“Sparkle’s Tavern is a lusty, bizarre, sexually-dripping marvel of the emotional dangers in a dysfunctional family crippled with secrets and lost passions. Marion Eaton as Mrs. Blake is the marvelously pinched backbone of this body of decadence and Dionysian mania.” – Frederic E. Kahler

“Curt was curt, cute, controversial, and not celibate,” wrote his former friend and collaborator George Kuchar. Curt McDowell worked in San Francisco from the late 1960s until his death in 1987–a period that witnessed the Summer of Love, gay liberation, and the onset of AIDS, to which he succumbed at the age of forty-two. The author of numerous films that recast the American dream of plenty in pansexual terms, McDowell, like so many artists of his generation, indulged in the era’s carnal abundance, and his appetites and experiences are reflected in his work, which alternates between the revealing and the puerile. His short films, such as Weiners and Buns Musical (1972) and Loads (1980), celebrate sex as well as genre riffing and autobiographical narratives (McDowell’s insatiable desire for seducing straight men is explicitly documented in his 16-mm works), and bear the influences of Jack Smith’s lush, DIY camp aesthetic, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s explosive melodrama, and Nan Goldin’s glimpses of countercultural bohemia.

The festive holiday event will feature a complimentary publication featuring original artwork and writings by Curt McDowell, George Kuchar and much more!

Sparkle's Tavern, 1976. Original casting poster; collage, construction paper, markers and ink, 12 x 16 inches. Courtesy of the Curt McDowell Estate and [ 2nd floor projects ]

Cecilia Dougherty and Dani Leventhal Podcast 11/30

2011-12-01T13:07:00.006-05:00

"I remember when I first started using effects in video, and also if you're sort of in a group where filmmakers are very into working in film and being in the cutting room, and you're working in video, you're not projecting this beautiful light out. You're actually making a light box. And video effects were always thought of as perfectly cheesy and terrible. However, I liked that and just thought, "Use them!" I actually really like to use them and see where they can go. I think video has a lot of really amazing textures" Cecilia Dougherty

An Unseen Cloud: Thornton, Leventhal, Dougherty

2011-11-29T11:48:00.000-05:00

Wednesday November 30th, 8pm
An Unseen Cloud
in partnership with Women Make Movies

PARTICIPANT INC
253 E. Houston Street
New York, NY 10002

Program:
Dani Leventhal, Tin Pressed, 2011
Cecilia Dougherty, Laurie, 1998
Leslie Thornton, There Was An Unseen Cloud, Moving, 1987

An Unseen Cloud collects three intimate video portraits that capture their subjects in varying, extreme states. Leventhal opens Tin Pressed with a sequence of intense violence that illuminates the subtler kinds of daily violence, which go unnoticed in the world around her. Dougherty's subject, Laurie Weeks, recounts the drug-fueled prose of her recently-published junkie's novel, Zipper Mouth. And Thornton's near-feature-length, There Was An Unseen Cloud, Moving restages the plight of Isabelle Eberhardt, a Victorian writer who masqueraded in mens attire in order to move freely about Moslem regions. Each video presents an ode to life lived on the edge.

More about There Was An Unseen Cloud, Moving: A fragmented, experimental biography of the 19th-century poet and writer Isabelle Eberhardt, whose brief, unusual life ended abruptly in a flash flood in the desert. The tape makes no claims to telling the "truth" about Isabelle, choosing rumors about her tyrannical, nihilistic father, and her flight to Armenia, where she dressed as a man and "wrote one of the strangest documents a woman has ever given to the world." Following Eberhardt's travels and the strangely syncretic vision of her father, Thornton creates a portrait of cultural cross-breeding in which "neither this world nor the other remains." In all, There Was An Unseen Cloud, Moving is an arresting mixture of rare and iconic images that undermines its authenticity through re-enacted "historical" scene and deliberate anachronisms that place Neil Armstrong in 19th-century Geneva.

Dirty Talk, a Cinematic Reading Event in Downloadable Podcast Form

2011-11-29T11:16:00.004-05:00

Audio recordings of the cinematic reading, which took place on November 27th, 5pm at MIX NYC's MIXploratorium at La Mama Galleria in the Lower East Side.

Jennifer Blowdryer reads from a past erotic article from Penthouse.

Stephen Boyer reads 'Sex With Falcor' and 'SM Porn' from the forthcoming novel Parasite

Bradford Nordeen reads 'Psycho Therapy' from the forthcoming novel Watching Wounded

Masha Tupitsyn reads 'I Touch Myself' from the forthcoming collection Screen to Screen.

Daniel Sander reads 'My Gaping Gap Is Pink in Foggy Light; or, The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game'.

Dirty Talk: a cinematic reading event

2011-11-16T13:10:00.004-05:00

Sunday, November 27th, 8pm
Dirty Looks will participate in MIX NYC's MIXploratorium at La Mama Galleria with... Dirty Talk: a cinematic reading event by Dirty Looks
La Mama Galleria
6 East 1st Street
New York, NY 10003

Featuring:
Jennifer Blowdryer
Stephen Boyer
Bradford Nordeen
Daniel Sander
Masha Tupitsyn

Since the invent of cinema, its influence on every art form has been totally immeasurable, not least of which is its distinct impact on literature, poetry and prose. Dirty Looks assembles 5 inter-generational writers who will present work that takes the moving-image as a primary point of inspiration.

Jennifer Blowdryer started screaming in a punk band called the Blowdryers in 1979, San Francisco. That's where she got her dumb name from, which she prefers to Jennifer Waters, her slave name. After all, anybody can just get born, but keeping a band together and staying raw is an accomplishment. Her first book, Modern English, was a photo illustrated dictionary with chapters on Lounge Lizards, Cholos, and Drugs. Her most recent book is Good Advice for Young Trendy People of all Ages, and she is currently performing punk cabaret with The Jennifer Blowdryer Band. It is fun.

Stephen Boyer is a writer, artist, performer, and activist. the work is never finished. home is never found. and there is nothing a google investigation cannot unearth!. He’s displayed work online at youtube, facebook, Dennis Cooper’s Blog, fineline internet, defiant productions, friendster, myspace, dlist, tom ropes mcgurk, daddy howard, twitter, yelp, minorprogression, kink, xpeeps, bourgeois problems, Marjorie Wood Gallery; at the David Cunningham gallery, [ 2nd Floor Projects ], the Mix Festival, Poets Theater; his book Ghosts was published by Bent Boy Books and he’s been published in the anthologies Cool Thing: Best New Gay Fiction and Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism. Recently Boyer has organized The Peoples' Library of Occupy Wall Street, which published the collection, Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology.

Bradford Nordeen was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He holds an MA in Cinema Cultures from King's College London and a BFA in Photography and Media from CalArts. Nordeen founded Dirty Looks in January 2011 and has organized screenings internationally at spaces like Participant Inc., the UCLA Hammer Museum and the Yerba Buena Center for Art. His writing has been published in Art in America, Bomb, Fanzine, the L Magazine, X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly, Slant, and Butt Magazine amongst others. Fever Pitch, a collection of pop culture essays, was published in 2008. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Daniel Sander is a Brooklyn based artist and writer. His transdisciplinary creative and academic work has been performed, published, and exhibited internationally. He is currently a doctoral student of performance studies. He plays music in the band B0DYH1GH and tumbles at ohrenoir.tumblr.com

Masha Tupitsyn is a fiction writer, cultural critic, and college professor who lives in New York City. She is the author of Beauty Talk & Monsters, a collection of film-based stories (Semiotext(e) Press, 2007), LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film (ZerO Books, 2011), and co-editor of the anthology Life As We Show It: Writing on Film (City Lights, 2009), voted one of the best film books of 2009 by Dennis Cooper, January Magazine, Shelf Awareness, and Chicago’s New City. She is working on a new book of essays on film, Screen to Screen as well as a book about the actor John Cusack, Star Notes: John Cusack and The Politics of Acting. Her work has appeared in the anthologies Wreckage of Reason: XXperimental Women Writers Writing in the 21st Century (2008) and the Encyclopedia Project Volume II, F-K (2010), and journals such as Keyframe, Specter, BOMB Blog, Indiewire's Press Play, Bookforum, Fence, Puerto del Sol, Vertebrae Journal, 2nd Floor Projects, Venus Magazine, The Rumpus, Animal Shelter, Fanzine, Make/Shift, NYFA, and San Francisco’s KQED’s The Writer’s Block. She regularly contributes video essays on film and culture to Ryeberg Curated Video, which features writers like Mary Gaitskill and Sheila Heti. In 2011, she was commissioned to write a radio play for Performa 11, the New Visual Art Performance Biennial, in conjunction with Frieze Magazine.

Gary Indiana Podcast 11/1

2011-11-04T11:19:00.003-04:00

On November 1st, Dirty Looks was joined by Gary Indiana who participated in a lengthy discussion of his early 80s stint as an underground playwright, in conjunction with our screening of his teleplay A Coupla White Faggots Sitting Around Talking, 1980. Listen to the below podcast to hear Indiana on Cookie Mueller, Alice Neel, writing, blogging, no money and nostalgia.

Gary Indiana / A Coupla White Faggots Sitting Around Talking @ QT Reading Series

2011-10-27T15:03:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, November 1st, 7pm
In partnership with Dixon Place's Queer Text reading series
Curated by Nicholas Boggs
$6

A Coupla White Faggots Sitting Around Talking, 1980
a video by Michel Auder

The lounge at Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street
New York, NY 10002

Queer Text at Dixon Place presents Bradford Nordeen of Dirty Looks introducing an evening with Gary Indiana who will screen the video based on his teleplay, A Coupla White Faggots Sitting Around Talking, a hilarious indictment of bourgeois life in 1980 New York City starring Indiana, Jackie Curtis, Cookie Mueller and Taylor Mead.

The teleplay for the video is reproduced in full in Indiana's recent book, Last Seen Entering the Biltmore: Plays, Short Fiction, Poems 1975 - 2010, on Semiotext(e) .

Fancy Days, Fancy Times documentation

2011-10-27T14:44:00.009-04:00

Ribbon Candy, 2003/4

Fancy Days, Fancy Times, films by Luther Price showed a great turnout. The filmmaker's first New York appearance in over five years found Price discussing his recent exclusive turn to found footage filmmaking, as well as looking back on older periods in discussing Sodom and Me Gut No Dog Dog. See snippets of last night's dialogue below...

On working with found footage and moving on from his more fiercely autobiographical, performative films.

On Me Gut No Dog Dog as the found footage strain of his practice, as opposed to A

On Sodom as a transitional film from prior persona Tom Rhoads, into Luther Price

Luther Price: Fancy Days, Fancy Times

2011-10-07T08:57:00.007-04:00

Wednesday, October 26th 8pm

Fancy Days, Fancy Times
The films of Luther Price
-Filmmaker in Person-

PPOW Gallery
535 West 22nd Street, 3rd floor
New York, NY 10011

Program:
Ritual 629, Super-8mm, 1999, 8min.
Silk, 16mm, 2006, 15min.
Ribbon Candy, 16mm, 2003/4, 7min.
Me Gut No Dog Dog, 16mm on DVD, 1995, 45min.
Sodom, 16mm, 1989, 15 min.

One of the most important experimental filmmakers of the past 25 years, Luther Price gained notoriety for his late 80s and early 90s Super-8mm films, works that pushed the boundaries of good taste with their deliberately crude construction (mostly from found footage) and their often troubling images (extreme gay porn, surgical footage, psychodramatic performances). Culling from new work and old, this screening will showcase Price’s distinct and tumultuous visions.

“Home Movies from hell?”
“Ascending from one plane into the next?”

Price’s films are startling and extreme states that must be experienced, whatever the cost. Fancy Days, Fancy Times is a career spanning program that takes Price’s preoccupation with explicit, gay imagery as its starting point. Whether it be self-performative, as in the excruciating Ritual 629, or vintage porn Silk and Ribbon Candy, Price’s intervention in these sexual acts transcends the original footage into a realm of psychological complexity and trauma. Screened alongside Price’s masterpieces, the near-feature Me Gut No Dog Dog and the infamous Sodom, the evening will make a startling impression on all assembled.

The event will also feature a complimentary publication featuring writings by Luther Price, Lia Gangitano, Bradford Nordeen and more.. with original artwork.

City Screening

2011-10-03T12:02:00.004-04:00

Another fantastic screening saw 60+ viewers in attendance, to traipse the City of Lost Souls and see a brilliant introduction by Mother Flawless Sabrina / Jack Doroshow.

Rosa von Praunheim's City of Lost Souls

2011-09-11T10:51:00.001-04:00

Wednesday, September 28th, 8pm
a co-venture with Translady Fanzine

City of Lost Souls, 1983
(Stadt Der Verlorenen Seelen)

Starring Angie Stardust & Jayne County
A film by Rosa Von Praunheim

PPOW
535 West 22nd St. 3rd floor
New York, NY 10011

Featuring a complimentary publication with writings by Bruce Benderson, Amos Mac and Justin Shock.

Angie Stardust has a lot on her plate, running a boarding house called Pension Stardust filled with misfit lodgers: an erotic trapeze duo, a magikal group therapist, assorted layabouts, nymphomaniacs and Lila (Jayne County), a Southern blonde who dreams of Hollywood. These tenants also staff Angie’s fast food enterprise, Burger Queen. But when Lila gets knocked up by a Communist who promises to make her a superstar on East Berlin television, the real havoc ensues. Rosa Von Praunheim directs this mostly American cast in a trans musical spectacular that has been described as “Hedwig and the Angry Inch… in reverse.”

Filmmaker and gay-rights activist Rosa von Praunheim is one of the leading figures in gay and lesbian cinema and New German Cinema, although his deliberately controversial techniques, designed to challenge audiences, have sometimes caused him to be criticized by both gay and anti-gay supporters. Praunheim originally studied painting in Berlin and from there was an assistant for such gay filmmakers as Werner Schroeter and Gregory J. Markopoulous. As a director, he made many underground short films on Super-8 or 16 mm stock before going to work in television where he became known for such genre parodies as Die Bettwurst/The Bedroll (1970).

Von Praunheim made his first gay-themed film, Sisters of the Revolution, in 1969. The film was a three-part look at homosexual participation in the early women’s liberation movement taking place in New York. One of his most influential films was 1970′s made-for-TV outing, It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives, another example of his usage of negative gay stereotypes to politicize their plight and plea for more rights. Not all of von Praunheim’s films focus on homosexuality; some deal with those living on the fringes of society.

Jayne County became rock's first undeniable transgender superstar, influencing acts like David Bowie, The Ramones, Patti Smith, Lou Reed and The Police. Having performed in Warhol's Factory, County became an international sensation with her songs like "Are You Man Enough to be a Woman" and "Fuck Off," appearances in films like Wigstock: The Movie, eventually publishing her autobiography Man Enough To Be A Woman through Serpent's Tail press in 1995.

Angie Stardust (1940 - 2007), née Mel Michaels, was a singer and drag artist who began performing at the age of 14. She was a staple at the Jewel Box Revue in the late 50s and into the 1960s, when she became the first black performer at the 82 Club, which also served as a transitional venue for the rock acts (County, included) who had performed at Max's Kansas City, before the opening of CBGBs. She was fired from the club after it was discovered that she was self-administering female hormones. In 1974 she moved to Hamburg, where she would act in 4 German-language films, eventually opening her own club.

Copies of the first issue of Translady Fanzine featuring artist Zackary Drucker will be on sale before the screening.

The screening will be a part of PPOW's Create Art Today program, organized by director Jamie Sterns.

2011-09-08T13:17:00.000-04:00

George Kuchar 1942 - 2011

Photos from KUCHARS!

2011-09-06T13:45:00.001-04:00

George's favorite food, ice cream cake, in honor of the brothers' 69th birthday, which coincided with the screening!

Curator Bradford Nordeen and filmmaker Marie Losier

KUCHARS!

2011-08-22T09:21:00.000-04:00

Wednesday August 31st, 8:30pm

George & Mike Kuchar
Lovers of Eternity, 1964
Lust for Ecstasy, 1964

George Kuchar
Hold Me While I'm Naked, 1966

Marie Losier
Electrocute Your Stars, 2004
(starring George Kuchar)

Program approx. 95mins.

Silvershed
119 West 25th Street PH
New York, NY 10001

Featuring a complimentary publication curated by [2nd floor projects] San Francisco with writings by Nathaniel Dorsky, Johnny Ray Huston, Kevin Killian, Anne McGuire, Margaret Tedesco, Steven Wolf and more.

Since the age of 12, George and Mike Kuchar have been staging bawdy remakes of Hollywood fare, carnal fantasias build out from the most home-spun means. Presaging Camp cults like that of John Waters by over a decade, Dirty Looks is proud to present an evening by and about these outrageous auteurs.

Lovers of Eternity and Lust For Ecstasy were two collaborative efforts made just as the avant-garde film scene, then called the underground, embraced the Kuchar brothers as members of the community. Before this point, the films caught in the Kuchars' lens were more home movies or family affairs outside of any conscious, artistic movement. But the brothers upped their production ante with Lovers of Eternity, a tale of a struggling artist, torn between his recent affections for a young woman and the ravenous secret in his closet. Lovers also features a hilarious cameo from underground filmmaker, Jack Smith.

Lust for Ecstasy is just that, a manic sexual explosion set in a hospital. An end of days is brewing and the staff seem to do quite little but assault one another with household instruments and dissolve into fits of hypersexual hysteria. This is one of the Kuchar's most excitable and excessive productions.

George Kuchar's first solo picture, Hold Me While I'm Naked, remains to this day his most celebrated. A tragic-comic self-portrait, the film follows the efforts of a burlesque filmmaker who tries in vain to finish a production abandoned by its busty starlet. A pitch-perfect melodrama, Hold Me oscillates between abject hilarity and heart-wrenching pathos, moment by moment.

Recently off the festival circuit with her documentary The Ballad of Genesis & Lady Jaye experimental portrait filmmaker, Marie Losier, will be present at the screening to show her film Electrocute Your Stars and discuss working with these original auteurs.

Benefit show - August 19th at Splatterpool

2011-08-19T12:35:00.000-04:00

$10 at the door.
Free for Kickstarter Backers - pledge now!

2011-08-16T18:26:00.000-04:00

Dirty Looks DVD

2011-08-16T14:09:00.000-04:00

Dirty Looks has collaborated with many of the artists and filmmakers who have participated in recent screenings to compile a DVD of film and video works. These works are exclusive to this DVD and cannot be commercially acquired elsewhere. The disc is a complimentary benefit to the $60 pledge in our current Kickstarter campaign, which will end on Saturday, August 20th at 12:40pm (EST)

Titles include:

Zackary Drucker, Fish, 2008

Glen Fogel, Warrior, 2009

Paul Mpagi Sepuya, A Separate Peace, 2009

Narcissister, Every Woman, 2010

Luther Price, Home, 1999

Luther Price, Mother, 1999

Michael Robinson, All Through The Night, 2008

Michael Robinson, Victory Over the Sun, 2007

Pledge now in order to own these remarkable works by contemporary queer artists. A limited number of copies will be available at our benefit, A Night of Dirty Looks, which will take place at Splatterpool, August 19th, 8-11pm, and where we will screen selections between the readings and live performances. The Dirty Looks DVD is a very limited edition, so pledge your support now.

Under The Stars

2011-07-06T10:24:00.000-04:00

Wednesday July 27th, 8:30pm

Home Stories Matthias Müller, 1990
Quarry Glen Fogel, 2008
A Hallow Kiss for Mark Lapore Luther Price, 2008
A Separate Peace Paul Mpagi Sepuya, 2009
Her Fragrant Emulsion Lewis Klahr, 1987
Rose Hobart Joseph Cornell, 1936
The Maids Paul Mpagi Sepuya, 2011
Andy Warhol Marie Menken, 1964 - 65

Program approx. 70 minutes

Silvershed
119 West 25th Street PH
New York NY 10001

Dirty Looks presents Under the Stars: Experimental portrait films of stars and their makers. These distinct, experimental works take stars and other filmmakers as their starting point, working with found footage or repotage style camera work, these seven filmmakers explore star text and the particular form of personal obsession that such heavenly bodies engender. The screening will be Dirty Looks' first rooftop screening of the season and will be accompanied by a complimentary publication produced with Birdsong Micropress.

Matthias Müller's Home Stories culls from classic Hollywood Woman's Films like Written on the Wind, Madame X and The Birds, re-editing footage shot off the tv to examine the finite gestures and the repetitive interplays of genre (and gendered) cinema. In Quarry, Glen Fogel submits himself to an act of revisionary portraiture, inserting himself into a particularly unsettling episode of "Law and Order." A Separate Peace reconfigures brief sequences of homoerotic longing hidden in this coming of age teen drama, A Separate Piece, the 1972 film adaptation of the John Knowles young adult novel. "It is fraught with admiration, competition, and (un)conscious attempts to contain the other."

Luther Price's A Hallow Kiss for Mark LaPore is an elliptical portrait film made after the passing of the late, namesake experimental filmmaker. Price's typically masterful use of found-footage is embellished by a cinematic stutter effect that brings the screen to life with a frenetic luminosity. Lewis Klahr's Her Fragrant Emulsion is an obsessive homage to B-starlet Mimsy Farmer. “The images I use are outmoded, and there’s a way that they’re dead. By working with them I’m kind of re-animating them, so I don’t really think of myself as an animator, as much as a re-animator that’s bringing these things back into some kind of life.” Made by Joseph Cornell in 1936, Rose Hobart is one of the most important films in the history of experimental cinema. Cornell reduced the adventure film East of Borneo to longing takes of its star, Rose Hobart. Placing a blue glass before the projector, the film is a wondrous rabbit hole of dreamy obsession.* The Maids submits the 1975 film adaptation of Jean Genet's play to the same technique used to create A Separate Peace. Marie Menken's Andy Warhol captures the elusive artist in a delirious candor, at work in the studio, at exhibition openings, rarely has Warhol been caught this unguarded as in close friend Marie Menken's lens.

*The print screened at Under The Stars, supplied by and © the Museum of Modern Art, will feature an alternate, rose tint, as per Cornell's later print specifications.

6/29 Podcast

2011-06-30T13:43:00.000-04:00

Last night, a wonderful assortment of folks flooded PPOW gallery to attend Dirty Looks: FEMALE TROUBLE. A few participating artists were on hand to discuss their works. See some of the video highlights below or download the podcast to listen to the talk in its entirety.

2011-06-24T18:42:00.000-04:00

FEMALE TROUBLE

2011-05-31T17:19:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, June 29th 8pm

Conrad Ventur Mario Montez Screen Test, 2010
Patti Podesta Stepping, 1980
Steven Arnold Messages, Messages, 1968
Narcissister Every Woman, 2010
Zackary Drucker Fish, 2008
Vaginal Davis Barbi Twins (excerpt), 1993
-Exciting new addition-
Steven Arnold The Liberation of Mannique Mecanique, 1967

PPOW Gallery
535 West 22nd Street 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10011

A night of experimental film and video that explores & explodes normative roles of femininity and gender. With work that spans five decades, these artists queer female subject space via drag tactics, narrative juxtaposition and overt performativity, with styles ranging from masquerade to mythic, performance document to exposé video zine.

With Mario Montez Screen Test, Conrad Ventur resubmits Jack Smith/Warhol Superstar Mario Montez to Warhol's screen test format. Patti Podesta writes of her Stepping, "I wanted to make something about risk, about repetition and a sort of lulling into nonsense of a very dangerous situation." Steven Arnold won the Best New Director award at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Messages, Messages continues in the tradition of Cocteau and Anger, following its singular protagonist through a psychosexual labyrinth of libidinal delights and genderfuck costumery.

Narcissister's Every Woman is a performance document in which the artist spews slinky feminine attire from every orifice imaginable, all to Chaka Khan's ubiquitous anthem of the same name. A chapter from Vaginal Davis' Fertile La Toyah Jackson "Aksionist Video Magazine," Barbi Twins documents an incongruous sister duo's Los Angeles exploits and lively recollections in true reportage form. Z Drucker's Fish is "a matrilineage of cunty white woman realness."

5.25 Podcast

2011-05-26T10:30:00.000-04:00

Another GREAT night at Dirty Looks, with a real summery crowd turning out for our screening of Taxi Zum Klo and the launch of Little Joe No. 2! It was great to have many contributors to the magazine in the audience like Matt Wolf and AL Steiner. You can listen to Yale scholar, Ron Gregg's fabulous introduction to the film below.

And stay trained to this site for details about next month's genderfuck film and video shorts program, FEMALE TROUBLE!

2011-04-29T12:42:00.000-04:00

Dirty Looks will be teaming up with Little Joe magazine for May 25th's screening of Taxi Zum Klo! What's more, it will be our first screening at PPOW Gallery as part of the Create Art Today project.

Wednesday May 25th, 8pm

Frank Ripploh's Taxi Zum Klo (1980)

PPOW Gallery
535 West 22nd St. 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10011

Taxi Zum Klo is an experimental autobiography, a feature document of gay life in 1980s West Berlin. Frank, a public school teacher by day, trolls the toilets at night in search of tearoom trade. When he falls for Bernd, trouble ensues as Frank’s libidinal behavior conflicts with Bernd’s more traditional views on coupling. Still shocking in its frank portrayal of sexual subculture, Taxi was heralded as “the first masterpiece about the mainstream of male gay life” by the Village Voice.

The event will be introduced by queer film scholar, Ronald Gregg

Copies of Little Joe – No. 2 will be on sale before the screening

4/20 Podcast

2011-04-21T09:04:00.000-04:00

Another wonderful night at Dirty Looks! April 20th found 70 folks indulging in the rare treat that is Jack Smith's No President and the exceptional films of Michael Robinson. Listen to the podcast below to hear curator Bradford Nordeen and scholar Josh Lubin-Levy's intro to the program.

Michael Robinson / Jack Smith Podcast

Michael Robinson / Jack Smith

2011-04-04T11:43:00.000-04:00

Michael Robinson / Jack Smith
Wednesday April 20th 8pm

Jack Smith - No President (1967 - 70)

Michael Robinson - And We All Shine On (2006)
All Through The Night (2008)
These Hammers Don't Hurt Us (2010)
Victory Over the Sun (2007)

Featuring a special publication with art and writings by Robinson.

Participant Inc.
253 E. Houston St.
New York, NY 10002

Michael Robinson is one of the most exciting new voices in experimental film. Recoding snippets ripped from popular movies, t.v. and song, Robinson makes personal, digital landscapes out of our cultural debris.

Jack Smith was the grandaddy of the underground film scene, who used actual debris to construct libidinal playlands for his flaming creatures. Smith's last finished film, No President, is a "political burlesque" that Parker Tyler once described as "an even more daring exploitation of the themes of Flaming Creatures."

Genevieve Yue on Michael Robinson at ArtForum
Interview with (and fetching photo of) Robinson on Wheel Me Out
Tom McCormack on Robinson at the L Magazine
Watch the trailer for Mary Jordan's documentary on Jack Smith
Garry Morris on Jack Smith at Bright Lights
Jack's interview with Sylvere Lottringer

Ulrike Ottinger's Madame X w/ Gary Indiana

2011-03-08T10:49:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, March 30th 8pm

Ulrike Ottinger's Madame X - An Absolute Ruler (1978)

Participant Inc.
253 E Houston St.
New York, NY 10002

Dirty Looks is excited to announce the screening of Madame X - An Absolute Ruler, the experimental feature by Ulrike Ottinger, with a very special post-discussion by writer and former Ottinger actor, Gary Indiana.

Chinese Orlando - stop
to all women - stop
offer world - stop
full of gold - stop
love - stop
adventure - stop
at sea - stop
call Chinese Orlando - stop!

With this classified ad printed throughout the world, Madame X places a call to all bored feminists: professors, housewives, divas. An appeal to join her carnal oceanic quest, her voyage to loot and plunder the bourgeoisie, to dash all sexual boundaries and binaries in this singular pursuit of thrill and intrigue. Ulrike Ottinger’s Madame X is a thrilling and wild adventure on the high seas, a firey feminist pirate playland where nothing is sacred and any trade is fair game.

Ulrike Ottinger is one of the most exciting and epic experimental filmmakers at work today. Her next film, The Blood Countess, starring Isabelle Huppert and Tilda Swinton with a screenplay by Nobel Prize winning author Elfriede Jelinek, is currently in pre-production, and her past films include Ticket of No Return (1979), Freak Orlando (1981), Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press (1984), Joan of Arc of Mongolia (1989), and the recent documentary, Prater (2007). Seen as a precursor to abstract epic art films like Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, Madame X is Ottinger's most celebrated film. Gary Indiana is the author of many books, Horse Crazy, Gone Again and recently Andy Warhol and the Can the Sold the World and a collection of early writings, Last Seen Entering the Biltmore.

An interview with Ottinger on Electric Sheep
A few pages from Patricia White's Screen article on google books
A recent podcast with Ottinger and Kaja Silverman
Gary Indiana reads from his recent The Shanghai Gesture on the Bomblog

2/23 Podcast

2011-02-24T12:14:00.000-05:00

William E. Jones and Fred Halsted intro by curator Bradford Nordeen by Dirtylooksnyc
Another amazing night at Participant Inc. for Dirty Looks with the films of Fred Halsted and William E. Jones. Last night's screening saw 50+ folks converging on this intersection of art and porn, making for a truly unforgettable evening. Thank you to all who attended. And be sure to keep your eyes peeled to this site for the announcement of next month's exciting line-up!

The Sex Garage / Finished Videos

2011-02-22T10:24:00.000-05:00

The above clip is from Fred Halsted's feature-length follow-up to The Sex Garage, LA Plays Itself. Click here to watch William E. Jones' short The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography. Also, Dirty Looks curator Bradford Nordeen has interviewed Jones on Slant's blog, The House Next Door. Follow the link to read Jones discussion of his forthcoming book on Halsted and his secret yearning for show-biz stardom!

The Sex Garage and Finished

2011-02-01T11:36:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, February 23rd 8pm

Fred Halsted - The Sex Garage (1972)
William E. Jones - Finished (1997)

Participant Inc.
253 E. Houston St.
New York, NY 10002

William E. Jones has crafted a remarkable art career around pornography. Emerging in the mid-90s on the indie scene with the documentary Massillon, Jones’ second feature, Finished follows the filmmaker’s obsession with Quebecois porn star, Alan Lambert. Finished is as much about a viewer’s heated voyeurism as it is an account of the troubled actor - who committed public suicide in a misguided act of political defiance. After the film’s release, Jones took to working with historic porn footage, organizing massive archives for various collectors and institutions.

He emerged with a new subject: Fred Halsted, a 70s porntrepreneur who opened Halstead’s, a stand-and-fuck bar in Silverlake, ran the magazine Package, and directed experimental sex films like LA Plays Itself, A Night At Halstead’s and the short, The Sex Garage. Dirty Looks brings together these obsessions.

**the screening contains explicit material not suitable for minors**

Massillon will be released this August as a limited edition DVD by Facets. Jones’ book on Fred Halsted will be released by Semiotext(e) later this year.

Join our Facebook group: “Dirty Looks NYC” to access exclusive content.

Some great reads about Jones and Halsted:
William E. Jones' 500 Words on Art Forum
'Halsted Plays Himself' by Jones on Art Forum
Fred Halsted, The Butt Interview (Speculatively written by Jones)
Garry Morris on the films of Halsted on Bright Lights Film Journal
An interview between Jones and Bruce Hainley in Bidoun

Harrington Podcast

2011-02-01T11:09:00.000-05:00

Click here to download the podcast of introductory notes on the films of Curtis Harrington. On Wednesday January 26th, 40+ viewers packed into Participant Inc. for an experiment - pairing the first films of the varied experimentalist with a late-career television work. It was fascinating to hear feedback and watch newcomers to Harrington's cinema approach both forms of filmmaking.

Curtis Harrington Intro by curator Bradford Nordeen by Dirtylooksnyc

Thank you to everyone who attended!

2011-01-27T10:23:00.000-05:00

The first Dirty Looks was a smash! Sorry, we ran out of chairs! Even though New York was in the thick of a blizzard, some 40+ cinephiles made it out to take in The Films of Curtis Harrington. We were joined by a very special guest, author Bruce Benderson, who lead the post-screening discussion with his typical dexterity. Special thanks to our wonderful projectionist Sarah Halpern and Thomas Beard and Ed Halter at Light Industry. Stay tuned to this site where February 23rd's line-up will be announced shortly!

Bruce Benderson and Bradford Nordeen

Glen Fogel's current exhibition, "With Me... You" went very well with the Dynasty imagery.

The Films of Curtis Harrington

2011-01-20T12:23:00.000-05:00

Read the Program Notes before the screening

2011-01-05T16:38:00.000-05:00

'Fragment of Seeking' (1946)
'On the Edge' (1949)
"Dynasty" Episode 4.7 'Tracy' (1983)

Wednesday, January 26 8 p.m.

A close friend to the young Kenneth Anger, Curtis Harrington shot his own complex psychodramas at the same time that he assisted Anger with the filming of his well known short, Fireworks. Harrington’s career twisted into Hollywood, with feature film efforts like Night Tide, What’s The Matter With Helen? and the Roger Corman production, Blood Queen, then out to television, directing television movies like Mata Hari, How Awful About Alan, and episodes of “Charlie’s Angels," “The Colbys” and “Dynasty.” The inaugural screening of Dirty Looks will bring together two early shorts, “Fragment of Seeking” and “On the Edge,” with one of his final efforts: “Tracy” Episode 4.7 of "Dynasty".

Through ominous tracking shots of empty hallways and in the moody lighting of seedy bordellos, Harrington’s signature panache shines through the serial format, showcasing a subversive queer imprint on, what was then, the number one show in American broadcasting.

2011-01-03T18:30:00.000-05:00