Edwin S. Porter, frame from The Great Train Robbery, 1903
In honor of great filmmaking and a few looming deadlines, today we celebrate the amazing archive of artists’ film and video at UbuWeb. There are several days’ worth of ass-numbing/brain-tickling material here (or, indeed, enough work to foster a heavy duty graduate seminar), so I’ll take the liberty of selecting a few highlights from the collection. Please turn off your cellphones.
David Byrne, “Report from L.A.,” 1986
Sophie Calle and Greg Shepard, “No Sex Last Night AKA Double Blind,” 1992
Jorge Luis Borges (documentary), “The Mirror Man”
Christian Boltanski (documentary), “Boltanski,” 1996
Jean Baudrillard (lecture), “The Violence of the Image,” 2004
John Baldessari, multiple films, 1971-3
Tacita Dean, “Kodak,” 2006
Richard Kern, “Five Films,” 1986-91
László Maholy-Nagy, “Black-White-Grey (excerpt),” 1932
Man Ray, multiple films, 1923-38
Robert Smithson, “Hotel Palenque (bootleg),” 1969
Ralph Steiner, “H20,” 1929
Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler, “Manhatta,” 1921
William Wegman, “Selected Works (excerpt),” 1972
THAT'S A NEGATIVE 