[Frameworks] Barbara Rubin - Christmas on Earth, Opens Tue Dec 18th

[Will Cameron]

New Exhibit: Barbara Rubin - *Christmas On Earth*

December 18th - January 16th

Opening Reception
Tuesday, December 18th, 6-9 PM

Boo-Hooray
boo-hooray.com
265 Canal St., 601
New York, NY 10013

*Barbara was the moving force and coordinator between us all.
*                                                 - Lou Reed, December 2012

*so i shoot & shoot & shoot & shreak
**up over slow & fast down & often all the way around & rewound many times
**the subject, what else could it be, was all about cocks & cunts &
fantasies
**that freely expressed our sexual needs & dreaming beliefs
**painted on their nude bodies**
**(...)**
**so i spent 3 months chopping the hours of film up
**into a basket
**and then toss and toss
**flip and toss
**and one by one
**Absently enchantedly Destined to splice it together
**and separate on to two different reels
**and then project one reel half the size
**inside the other reel full screen size
**and then i showed it
**and someone tells me, 'my what a good editing job that is indeed!*


                                            - Barbara Rubin, from "A, P.S.
to *Christmas On Earth*" (1966)

Boo-Hooray in co-operation with Jonas Mekas and Anthology Film Archives is
staging an exhibition of still images and ephemera relating to Barbara
Rubin's landmark 1963 underground film *Christmas On Earth.*

The exhibition opens with a reception at Boo-Hooray from 6 to 9 PM Tuesday,
December 18th and runs through Wednesday, January 16th. Festive seasonal
sausages from Zum Stammtisch and pretzels by Keegan Cooke will be served
up. Boo-Hooray is closed December 22nd through January 3rd 2012. In
conjunction with the exhibition, a screening of *Christmas On Earth *and *To
Barbara Rubin With Love* by Jonas Mekas is scheduled for Wednesday, January
9, 2013 at 7:30 PM at Anthology Film Archives.

Boo-Hooray is also publishing a limited edition book of still images
from*Christmas On Earth
*. This book comes with an extended biographical essay and bibliography by
art historian Daniel Belasco, alongside rare ephemera and correspondence.
More information to follow.

Originally titled *Cocks and Cunts*,* Christmas On Earth* is a film of
sexual tableaux vivants, gay and straight, where two separate reels of film
are superimposed on each other, with additional light effects layered on
these images, all accompanied by a contemporary rock radio soundtrack, as
specified by Rubin.

The film was projected onto the performing Velvet Underground as a
part of *Andy
Warhol Up-Tight*, an early version of *Exploding Plastic Inevitable *multimedia
performance, in February 1966 at the Filmmaker's Cinematheque, in March of
the same year at Rutgers University, and in April at the renamed *Exploding
Plastic Inevitable *performances at the Dom in Manhattan.

Barbara Rubin (1945-1980) was a filmmaker, writer and scenester who started
working for Jonas Mekas at the Filmmaker's Cinematheque in 1963. This was
the year she filmed *Christmas On Earth* in the Lower East Side apartment
of Tony Conrad and John Cale at 56 Ludlow Street. This was also the future
home of Sterling Morrison and Lou Reed, and where the first version of "All
Tomorrow's Parties" was recorded in the summer of 1965.

Rubin introduced The Velvet Underground to Andy Warhol. A photograph exists
of her filming The Velvet Underground performing at the Café Bizarre in
December 1965. The footage she shot is lost. As a human link document,
Rubin also introduced Bob Dylan to Allen Ginsberg, and according to John
Cale, Edie Sedgwick to Andy Warhol. She left New York at the tail end of
the 1960's, became heavily involved in Orthodox Judaism, and died in
childbirth in 1980 in France.

After a handful of screenings in the mid- to late- 1960's, *Christmas On
Earth *remained unseen for years as per Rubin's instructions for the film
to be destroyed. Luckily, Mekas did not follow through on Rubin's request,
as she later changed her mind and allowed him to screen and distribute the
film. Since 1983, it has been screened regularly, and is slowly but
steadily taking its place in the canon of 1960's underground films and
cultural milestones that unraveled American censorship law and opened the
field for artistic studies of sexual narratives.

*
*
*Hadn't I once a youth that was lovely, heroic, fabulous, something to
write down on pages of gold? - I was too lucky! Through what crime, by what
fault did I deserve my present weakness? You who imagine that animals sob
with sorrow, that the sick despair, that the dead have bad dreams, try now
to relate my fall and my sleep. I can explain myself no better than the
beggar wth his endless Aves and Pater Nosters. I no longer know how to talk!
*
*
*
*And yet, today, I think I have finished this account of my Hell. And it
was Hell; the old one, whose gates were opened by the Son of Man.*
*
*
*From the same desert, toward the same dark sky, my tired eyes forever open
on the silver star, forever; but the three wise men never stir, the Kings
of life, the heart, the soul, the mind. When will we go, over mountains and
shores, to hail the birth of new labor, new wisdom, the flight of tyrants
and demons, the end of superstition, - to be the first to adore! -
Christmas on earth!*
*
*
*The song of the heavens, the marching of nations! We are slaves, let us
not curse life!*


                                                                  -Arthur
Rimbaud, 'Morning' from *A Season in Hell*

For more information, contact press at boo-hooray.com, or visit our site.

Boo-Hooray is an exhibit space dedicated to 20th/21st century
counter-culture ephemera, photography and book arts. We publish catalogs,
books, artists' books and LPs regularly, as well as arrange readings and
performances.

boo-hooray.com

265 Canal St. #601,
New York, NY 10013
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