[Frameworks] Views From the Avant-Garde 2010

[gregg biermann]

  Ben  -- Frameworkers,

I cannot give you a review of the screenings but only my general 
feelings about the many years of screenings that I had attended in the 
past. My beef with the programming is that the Views represents only the 
views of Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith. The screenings have a 
gravitational pull in this community perhaps in large part to their 
institutional affiliation with Lincoln Center. Whatever the reason, the 
programmers do not seem to take seriously what I see as a special 
responsibility to present the breadth and depth of what is really being 
produced out there in this mode. If these screenings have become the 
central venue for avant-garde cinema, the programming cannot be 
arbitrary. It needs to get beyond the peculiar tastes of the programmers 
(even keeping in mind Mark's long time commitment to programming in the 
avant-garde idiom).  As an artist that was repeatedly ignored by the 
programmers and eventually stopped attending the screenings altogether, 
I felt compelled to contact Smith directly about a year ago. Of course I 
complained about being undervalued but more importantly to this group, I 
told him that I thought that these screenings had become uptight and 
insular -- an insider game. I suggested to Gavin that the best way to 
avoid that perception among artists that are productive and committed to 
avant-garde cinema and repeatedly not included in the screenings would 
be to have a different guest programmer join them each year. I had hoped 
that he would take my criticism as constructive but he rejected the idea 
out of hand and certainly did not allow that I in any way had a valid 
point. As far as expanding the list of programmers and getting another 
view as to what is valuable in a given year -- I doubt that this will 
happen unless this community demands it.

Best regards,
Gregg


On 10/13/2010 12:40 PM, ben russell wrote:
> Frameworkers,
>
> Until those long-awaited words of review-and-criticism about VIEWS 
> make their way beyond social networking sites, here are some images by 
> yours truly of the film/video weekend in question (with special 
> appearances by Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith as Francis Bacon 
> paintings and the silhouette of Vincent Grenier's hair): 
> http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2422
>
> Enjoy,
>
> BR
>
>
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