[Frameworks] Saul Levine & MassArt: resources

[Fred Camper]

John,

Thanks very much; I did not know about this. I first met Saul over 50 
years ago, having started as film society in Cambridge that showed 
experimental film; he was already an accomplished artist.

 From the /Artforum /article linked to:

Last Thursday, MassArt released a “Campus Climate Update” to students 
and staff that stressed the school's committment to ensuring a “healthy 
living and learning environment.” This campus-wide letter came shortly 
after Nicholas Nixon retired, following allegations of sexual harassment 
made against him.

/My comment:/

I cannot imagine supporting the sexual harassment of an individual, 
though Nixon is a photographer of such long-standing repute that one 
would hope that he was offered the chance to make some kind of “I will 
not do it again” promise in return for being encouraged to stay. But it 
seems evident Levine could not harass by simply showing a film. More 
importantly, is not the act of trying to create the very best, and most 
original, art often dangerous, sometimes including risks to the “health” 
of the artist? Does not the best art often break barriers, challenge, 
feel threatening, perhaps even “unhealthy,” whatever that may mean, to 
some viewers? I remember Stan Brakhage's fear of some danger to himself, 
as he was making his wholly “abstract” (a word he hated) /Romans /and 
/Arabics/, from the fact that he felt he was exploring some of the same 
mental “strata” that Mark Rothko had explored in his paintings before 
committing suicide. Especially in my own first years of viewing 
avant-garde film, many of my deepest experiences were of films that I 
found genuinely terrifying.

“With each touch I risk my life. ” – Paul Cézanne

Sounds like MassArt has become not so much an art school as a therapy 
group – or a kindergarten.

Fred Camper
Chicago

On 4/1/2018 5:42 PM, John Muse wrote:
> Surprised that I haven’t read anything here on the recent news that Saul Levine "was pushed out of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design after administrators accused him of 'harming students' by showing his film Notes After Long Silence, 1989, to his senior thesis class.”
>
> Here are a few resources:
>
> Saul’s original post detailing his decision to “[retire] from MassArt,” as he says, and his reasons:https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10215932754649479&id=1165322620
>
> The Artforum article:https://www.artforum.com/news/filmmaker-saul-levine-leaves-massart-following-dispute-over-artwork-74844
>
> Indiewire article:http://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/saul-levine-mass-art-notes-after-long-silence-1201945678/
>
> Saul’s Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/saullevine  
>
> Films mentioned in the Artforum article include "Notes After a Long Silence"https://vimeo.com/73242778  and “The Big Stick / An Old Reel”https://vimeo.com/89886468
>
> j/PrM
>
> *************************************************
>
> john muse
> visual media scholar
> haverford college
> he/him/his
> http://www.finleymuse.com
> http://www.haverford.edu/faculty/jmuse
> http://haverford.academia.edu/JohnMuse
>
> *************************************************
>
>
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