venue
date
time
available
Kinoteka, 3
2024-05-10
20:30
This retrospective of the queer and feminist cinema pioneer, icon, and activist Barbara Hammer covers her work ranging from the early 1970s – when the director brought the body and the lesbian nude to the screen, creating truly subversive art for that time – to her most recent films made in the 21st century. Barbara Hammer's films are the result of an experimental search for tools to challenge stereotypes about gender roles, lesbian identity, and sexuality and expose the historical exclusion of non-heteronormative people from public space. Her work features bold erotica used as a political tool in the fight for equality. Suitable for adult audiences only.

"Marie and Me", reż. Barbara Hammer, USA 1970, 12 min.

One of Barbara Hammer's early films. A sun-filled, joyful image of an intimate relationship with the artist's first partner - Marie. The image of the adventures of those two protagonists. The film shows the experience of the body, touch, eroticism and closeness.

"Dyketactics", reż. Barbara Hammer, USA 1974, 4 min

"Hammer's films of the '70's are the first made by an openly lesbian American filmmaker to explore lesbian identity, desire and sexuality though avant-garde strategies. Merging the physicality of the female body with that of the film medium, Hammer’s films remain memorable for their pioneering articulation of a lesbian aesthetic.” - Jenni Sorkin, WACK! Art and The Feminist Revolution, 2007.

"Jane Brakhage", reż. Barbara Hammer, USA 1974, 10 min

"I picked up Stan and Jane Brakhage at the airport and drove them to San Francisco State College where Stan spoke about his films to the student body. I was fascinated with Jane. She was so interested in the world around her while Stan seemed caught up only in his ideas. She picked seed pods from trees and plants and told me she had written a lexicon of dog language. She was so much more complex than Stan's portrayal of her in “Window Water Baby Moving” (1958) that I decided to make a documentary about her for my graduate project." — Barbara Hammer.

"Superdyke Meets Madame X", reż. Barbara Hammer, USA 1975, 21 min

The film documents the Barbara Hammer’s relationship with Max Almy on a reel-to-reel ¾” videotape recorder and microphone. This was Hammer’s first foray into recording with the Sony Portapak and was produced as part of a skill swap with Almy.

"Still Point", reż. Barbara Hammer, USA 1989, 10 min

“Still Point” whirls around a point of centeredness as four screens of home and homelessness, travel and weather, architecture and sports signify the constant movement and haste of late twentieth century life. "At the still point of the turning world, that's where the dance is," wrote T.S. Eliot in "Burnt Norton," the first poem of “Four Quartets”. Hammer seeks a point of quiet from which all else transiently moves.

"Lesbian Whale", reż. Barbara Hammer, USA 2015, 7 min

"Lesbian Whale” is a video animation of Hammer’s early notebook drawings set to a sound track of commentary by the artist’s friends and peers. The script is composed of fragments and stray thoughts – 'as a feminist I’m very skeptical'; 'not necessarily physical time but emotional time' – and it’s not quite clear whether it’s spontaneous, planned, composed by the speakers, or read from Hammer’s notebooks. If Hammer’s artistic influence is well documented, this slippage between voices, authors, and images suggests an ethos of collaboration and conviviality that may prove to be her greatest legacy." — Andrew Kachel, Artforum.

Voice Participants: A.K. Burns, Heather Cassils, Myrel Chernick, Janlori Goldman, Holly Hughes, Daniel Alexander Jones, Reena Katz, Bradford Nordeen, Liz Rosenfeld, Julia Steinmetz.

Fot. Courtesy of the Estate of Barbara Hammer, New York and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York

duration:
62 min
country:
USA/1970 ("Marie and Me"); USA/1974 ("Dyketactics"); USA/1974 ("Jane Brakhage"); USA/1975 ("Superdyke Meets Madame X"); USA/1989 ("Still Point"); USA/2015 ("Lesbian Whale")
director:
Barbara Hammer
producer:
Barbara Hammer
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