Light Industry at ISSUE Project Room: films by Warren Sonbert and readings by Charles Bernstein, Corrine Fitzpatrick, and Carla Harryman December 15, 2010
Brooklyn, New York
Two Films by Warren Sonbert
With readings by Charles Bernstein, Corrine Fitzpatrick, and Carla Harryman
Light Industry, a venue for film and electronic art, is crashing with friends in November and December, organizing a series of events at like-minded spaces across the city while it relocates to its new home. For more information on these shows, please see their calendar.
The Cup and the Lip, Warren Sonbert, 16mm, 1986, 20 mins
Friendly Witness, Warren Sonbert, 16mm, 1989, 32 mins
Though Warren Sonbert has frequently been described as a maker of diary films, the label fails to capture the emotional and formal intricacies at play in his work. In less than twenty films made from 1966 to the mid-90s—his career caught short by his death from AIDS at age 47—Sonbert’s primary method was indeed the creation of dense montages from 16mm shot in the course of daily life. The same images and ideas were often reused in different permutations for new films and, through this process, footage of his friends and colleagues attains an iconic status that transcends its documentary valence, becoming vibrant evocations of Sirkian melodrama. “I think the films I make are, hopefully, a series of arguments,” Sonbert said of his own work, “with each image, shot, a statement to be read and digested in turn.” The rich use of color and delicately punctuated editing also point to the influence of his mentor, Gregory Markopoulos, and Sonbert’s love of Hitchcock, Kenneth Anger, and opera.
Added by margszie on December 7, 2010