Doin’ It on Tape: Video from the Woman’s Building

Video still from "Eclipse in the Western Palace" by Cheri Gaulke, 1976

On Sunday November 13, 7:30 pm, Los Angeles Filmforum and Otis College of Art and Design present Doin’ It on Tape: Video from the Woman’s Building. The screening is the 7th in the series Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980 at the Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd (at Las Palmas), Los Angeles CA 90028. Excerpts from two of my videotapes will be included in the program – Eclipse in the Western Palace (1976) and Our Lady of LA (1987).  To purchase tickets go to http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/209055.

Jerri Allyn and Alex Juhasz host this screening, and introduce video excerpts from 1971 through 1987, from the Woman’s Building and LA Women’s Video Center Archives (LAWVC). Video art, documentary features, and raw footage touch on the 1893 Woman’s Building at the Chicago World’s Fair, women artists in Southern California circa 1968-1973, feminist education, lesbian art, the goddess in the city of angels, violence against women and women fighting back, art collectives and art activism – with some thoughts on media archives. The program looks at some of the amazing media work created at the Woman’s Building and the LAWVC, usually on video, much of it not seen in twenty years or more, by many of the leading artists of the era. Featured artists include: The L.A. Women’s Video Center collective, Cheri Gaulke, Starr Goode, Suzanne Lacy, Leslie Labowitz-Starus, Susan Mogul, Sheila Ruth, Jane Thurmond, and more. The LAWVC was cofounded at the Woman’s Building: A Public Center for Women’s Culture by Nancy Angelo, Candace Compton, and Annette Hunt in 1976 and joined by Jerri Allyn in 1977.

This screening is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Doin’ It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman’s Building on view at Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design October 1, 2011-January 28, 2012. Dr. Alexandra Juhasz, Professor of Media Studies at Pitzer College, mined the Woman’s Building video archives housed at the Getty during the research phase of Pacific Standard Time. Her essay, A Process Archive: The Grand Circularity of Woman’s Building Video, can be found in the Doin’ It in Public catalog. Jerri Allyn is an artist and educator who was instrumental inn the early years of the LAWVC. Her Debating Through the Arts performance was recently presented at LACE as part of Pacific Standard Time.

See http://www.otis.edu/public_programs/ben_maltz_gallery/womansbuilding.html and http://www.womansbuilding.org for more on the Woman’s Building and the exhibition.

In person: Jerri Allyn, Alexandra Juhasz, Susan Mogul, Cheri Gaulke, Sue Maberry, Kathleen Forrest, Suzanne Lacy, Leslie Labowitz-Starus (schedules permitting).

Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980 will feature over 24 shows from October 2011 through May 2012. Alternative Projections is Filmforum’s exploration of the community of filmmakers, artists, curators and programmers who contributed to the creation and presentation of experimental film and video in Southern California in the postwar era. Film series curated by Adam Hyman and Mark Toscano, with additional contributions by guest curators and is presented in conjunction with the support of the Getty initiative Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980.

– Cheri Gaulke

About the LACE Installation

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/10/pst-a-to-z-los-angeles-goes-live-at-lace.html

Quote from the L.A. Times Culture Monster by Sharon Mizota: “Although there are ten artists or collectives included in the show, only three of them have installed works in the gallery in any traditional sense. Cheri Gaulke’s installation greets viewers like a shoe store with only one choice—hot red high heels. The shoes are provided in most women’s and men’s sizes, and viewers are encouraged to wear them while walking around the gallery. Building on early performances that advanced a feminist critique of women’s footwear, Gaulke has also created a video loop of various people walking in the shoes across different natural terrains—mud, sand, rock, etc. It’s amusing and gets its point across—nature never planned for high heels.”

Please vote for my project!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqG5tqA1Cgo]I am working on a new project that is in competition for funding through the Jewish Federation. You could help us immensely if you click on the link and vote for our project. You must do so by March 31! (and you can only vote once per email address)

Here’s a quick synopsis. It’s called I Will Remember and it is a collaboration between Holocaust survivors and teens. There are three parts to it – events at which teens hear survivors’ stories first-hand, workshops in which teens make public service announcements about contemporary injustices, and a web site that showcases the PSAs. I am involved with the PSA workshops and in making a documentary about the entire project.

Today’s teens are the last generation who will know survivors personally and from their interactions be moved to make a difference in their world. My commitment is to facilitate the teens to use media to speak out against today’s injustices – whether those be current genocides in Darfur, marriage equality, or conflict minerals in the Congo. We will help the teens become aware of various issues and they will choose what moves them to speak out. The project was generated by some Harvard-Westlake moms (some whose own parents are survivors) and their daughters. I am proud to be a part of it.

Thanks for your help. There’s a wonderful short video that you can watch to meet some of the survivors and teens that we are working with.

http://www.thenextbigjewishidea.com/ideas/entry/i-will-remember/#

Feel free to pass this along to others!

Los Angeles Film Festival features Cheri Gaulke’s student films

 

Xochi Maberry-Gaulke and Anjoum Agrama in The Stand

Saturday, June 19, 10 am will be the first of two screening dates for the Future Filmmaker Showcase, an annual feature of the Los Angeles Film Festival. Each year student films are selected from international submissions and I’m proud to say Harvard-Westlake student films have been represented every year since we started entering. This year we have a record four films in the High School Program #1. They are The Stand, Still Life, A Gum’s Life and Dem Shoes. The first three were created in my Summer Film Camp and the last one was created by seniors in my advanced video art class, all at Harvard-Westlake School. I am especially proud of The Stand, which co-stars my daughter Xochi in a comedic role. She has been getting great feedback on her performance from film festival judges as luminary as composer Randy Newman. My other daughter, Marka, is the assistant director.

Many thanks goes to Hebe Tabachnik who puts together a great program every year including a luncheon for the youth filmmakers and this year, one-on-one guidance sessions with industry professionals. Here’s how the Los Angeles Film Festival describes High School Program #1:

Through comedy, music, and documentary, these stories illustrate how teens (and some unfortunate pieces of gum) face love, death, commerce, depression, and even sexual harassment.  Candid, poignant, and comedic, this collection gives us a peek into the challenges of their everyday teen existence. Program running time is 84 minutes. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased online at http://www.lafilmfest.com/2010/ or at the box office.

High School Program #1, June 19, 10 am and June 26, 3 pm

L.A. LIVE Regal Cinema 12, downtown Los Angeles

1000 West Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA (213) 763-6070

Here’s more about my students’ films. A Gum’s Life (director Sophia Tran) combines stop-motion animation and live action to delve into a day in the life of a piece of chewing gum. Still Life (director Lee Feldman) is a silent-film love story gone awry when one lover gets stuck in the film frame and is separated from her love. Dem Shoes (directors Lucas Casso and Adam Maltz) is a hip-hop don’t stop music video celebration of one boy’s amazing collection of shoes. The Stand (director Olivia Chuba) is a mockumentary about trying to beat the competition. Two old friends – a free spirit and a control freak – set up a lemonade stand. Will their friendship survive when a boy moves his competing business next door? Come find out the answer to this and other questions tomorrow or next Saturday!

Exhibition about gay marriage opens in Minneapolis

Our Wedding, July 5, 2008

I’m very proud of my latest video art work called Our Wedding which was created in collaboration with my life partner Sue Maberry and our daughters Xochi and Marka. It just opened in an exhibiton called Love Never Dies at Form + Content gallery in Minneapolis.  The exhibition also includes Sue’s and my artists’ book, Marriage Matters, which is one of our art works that incorporates Sears portraits of gay and lesbian families. The book and video were called the “centerpiece” of the exhibition by Minnesota Public Radio (though they failed to say our names!). Here’s a link to the story and some wonderful shots of some of the other artists’ works in the show. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/archive/2010/05/love-never-dies.shtml.

The video Our Wedding was produced by Sue Maberry and me, but the impetus for it came when our daughter Xochi wrote an essay about our 2008 wedding for a school application. Fifteen-year-old Xochi is the writer/narrator and her twin sister Marka is the director/editor. Sue and I served as producers/editors. Soon I will begin entering it in youth and lesbian and gay film festivals. Here’s a description of the 7 1/2 minute video art documentary.

Twin daughters of lesbians collaborate to tell the story of what their mothers’ legal marriage means to them. The 14-year-old girls served as “documaidens,” carrying flip video cameras instead of bouquets to record the ceremony. Phranc, the All-American Jewish lesbian folk singer, wrote and performed an original song for the event. The story unfolds against the backdrop of the battle against California’s Proposition 8. Not your typical home movie, this short documentary offers a glimpse into the life of an artistic lesbian family.