Thursday, April 19 at 8 PM  

Doors 7:30 pm; $5 admission

ACTION! Cinema As Catalyst invites filmmakers and activists to present a ‘political’ film that in some way inspires/reflects their own work. This month’s presenting filmmaker is Martine Syms. Martine has selected three films by Edward Owens: Tomorrow Promise (1967), Remembrance: A Portrait Study (1967) and Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts (1966).

In the mid 1960s, Edward Owens was an African-American teenager attending the Art Institute of Chicago when Gregory Markopoulos arrived to found the school’s film program. Owens, who was then studying painting and sculpture, had already been making 8mm movies for a few years; impressed by the maturity of his work, Markopoulos encouraged him to move to New York. Owens arrived in Manhattan in 1966 with Markopoulos, who quickly ushered him into the world of the city’s cultured demimonde, introducing him to figures like Andy Warhol, Gerard Malanga, Marie Menken, Gregory Battcock, and filmmaker-poet Charles Boultenhouse. 

–Ed Halter

Martine Syms (b. 1988, Los Angeles) uses video and performance to examine representations of blackness and its relationship to American situation comedy, Black vernacular, feminist movements and radical traditions. Her artwork has been exhibited and screened extensively, including presentations at the Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, MCA Chicago, Green Gallery, Gene Siskel Film Centre, and White Flag Projects. She has lectured at Yale University, SXSW, University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, and MoMA PS1, among other venues. Syms’ recently presented exhibitions include Projects 106, Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Easy Demands, CONDO, Sadie Coles; Borrowed Lady, SFU Galleries, Vancouver; Fact and Trouble, ICA London; COM PORT MENT, Karma International, Los Angeles; Vertical Elevated Oblique, Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York. From 2007-2011 she was the co-director of the Chicago artist run project space Golden Age, and she currently runs Dominica Publishing, an imprint dedicated to exploring blackness as a topic, reference, marker and audience in visual culture. She is a faculty member in the Art Department at the California Institute of the Arts.

ACTION! Cinema As Catalyst is curated by Aliza Khan.

This program is made possible by generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

No Events