Tuesday 12 February 2008

FEBRUARY 14: ANDY WARHOL'S KISS



Screening: Andy Warhol’s Kiss. Date: 14.02.2008 Time: 7PM London; 8PM Rome; 9PM Oporto
Place: London, Bistroteque, 23-27 Wadeson Street, London, E2 9DR
Rome: 1:1 Projects, Piazza Scipione Ammirato 1/C, Roma
Oporto: Espaço Gesto, Rua Cândido dos Reis, 64 - 4050-153 Porto
Barcelona: Centre d’Art Santa Monica, La Rambla 7, 08002 Barcelona

It all started like this:
from: Filipa Ramos
to: “Pablo León de la Barra”, “cecilia canziani”, “Adrienne Drake”, “Carla Cruz”, "Ortega Lopez, Antonio", “Athena Panni”, “Francesco Ventrella”
date: Jan 14, 2008 9:10 PM
subject: Kiss, Andy Warhol, from Filipa
Dear all,
I am thinking of organising a screening of Andy Warhol's film Kiss in several different locations on the same day, which is the 14th of February, normally known as Saint Valentine's day. It has become an awful event, crowded with silly red and pink hearts that invade the shops and the streets of almost every Ocidental town. However, it is a beautiful event, celebrating love in its most simple and immediate form.
What I am trying to do is to purpose to some people that I consider dear friends, and with whom I have worked before, to develop this project together with me, in a way that this screening could be done in several different cities on the same day.
I think it is something quite simple to organise and that it can become a really nice event, not only because most of the people talk a lot about Warhol's films but very few has had the chance to actually see them, but also because it is an incredibly touching piece that analyses the act of kissing in a very conceptual and modern way, without destroying its romantic and emotional side.
Please let me know what do you think of this idea and if you are interested in being part of it.
Hope all of you are well and that the new year has started in the best possible way!
Love (and Kisses!) Filipa

And it goes like this:
Kiss consists of a series of short, silent, black and white films in which 13 couples kiss each other. Andy Warhol took more than one year to shoot the film, between August 1963 and the end of 1964, in several different locations.
Kiss signs the start of some long term relationships between Warhol and some of the members of the cast. Such is the case of Naomi Levine (Warhol’s "first female superstar") or Gerard Malanga (who became the artist’s manager during the second half of the 1960’s); others include the art critic Pierre Restany, Ed Sanders (lead singer of the Fugs), Rufus Collins (a member of the experimental group of the Living Theatre), the Venezuelan artist Marisol and the American painter Charlotte Gilbertson.
Several segments of Warhol's Kiss film(s) were shot in Naomi Levine's apartment. In fact, the first Kiss scenes (that included Naomi kissing Ed Sanders, Rufus Collins and Gerard Malanga ) were originally known as the ‘Andy Warhol Serial’ and were first shown at the Grammercy Arts Theater in September 1963.
According to the Village Voice’s critic Bob Colacello, the idea for Kiss came as a reaction to The Production Code (an American regulation, in force from 1930 to 1967, that enumerated the decent general principles for movies), which stated that films could not show actors kissing for more than 3 seconds.
Independently of its history, Kiss is a fantastic example of Warhol’s early movies, in which he uses his 16mm Bolex camera to create films that explore length and stillness, though a hard process of editing all the short movies.
At the same time, its minimalist and conceptual depicting of the romantic and deep act of kissing creates a work that gives us a constant tension between a cold perception of the couple’s act of kissing and an unavoidable feeling of involvement.

Cast:
(first part): Naomi Levine & Ed Sanders; Naomi Levine & Rufus Collins; Naomi Levine & Gerard Malanga; (second part) Baby Jane Holzer & John Palmer; Baby Jane Holzer & Gerard Malanga; John Palmer & Andrew Meyer; Freddy Herko, Johnny Dodd, Charlotte Gilbertson, Philip von Rensselaet, Pierre Restany, Marisol;B&N;
USA, 1963, 58

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