LUX Salon is a free monthly screening series showcasing works from the LUX collection in context. This programme is curated by the filmmaker Ben Rivers and includes the following works: The Inhabitants, Artur Pelechian, Mongreloid, George Kuchar, Portrait of Ga, Margaret Tait, Big Business, Laurel & Hardy, The Mongrel Sister, Luther Price and Rehearsals for Retirement, Phil Soloman.
A programme of animals and the sub-species, humans. I was choosing a handful of films by filmmakers who have inspired me to make my own films, starting with Laurel + Hardy, and one of the great comedies of primal human conflict, then on to The Mongreloid by George Kuchar, Margaret Tait and Lewis Klahr, who all showed me that there were other kinds of films to find. The Pelechian and Price films are more recent discoveries, which continue, with much violence and melodrama, investigations into human/animal relationships on film. Essentially these are films that came to mind as favourites at this point in time, so any thematic links are happily accidental.
[This screening is organised to coincide with If: people and places in recent film and video. Mark Boulos, Dwight Clarke, Stephen Connolly, Ben Rivers, Stephen Sutcliffe at Bloomberg SPACE, 50 Finsbury Square, London EC2A 1HD from 28 March – 10 May 2008]
The Inhabitants, Artur Pelechian, 1970, video, 10′
A look at the creatures with which we share the planet and the atrocities we commit against our natural surroundings. Filmed in a stunning wide-screen format, the film presents the whole of human history without even so much as one shot of a human being.
The Mongreloid, George Kuchar, 1978, 16mm, 10′
A man, his dog, and the regions they inhabited, each leaving his own distinctive mark on the landscape. Not even time can wash the residue of what they left behind.
Portrait of Ga, Margaret Tait, 1955, 16mm, 4′
Portrait of Ga was the first of many portraits made by the Orcadian artist Margaret Tait during her long life of filmmaking. A portrait of her mother, it was shot on a visit home from the Film School in Rome. It signals the beginning of her commitment to making simple films about real life and real people.
Big Business, Laurel and Hardy, 1929, 16mm, 19′
The all-time classic Big Business – sometimes hailed as the greatest of all the L&H films – involves them in battle with irascible James Finlayson, following their attempts to sell him a Christmas tree.
The Mongrel Sister, Luther Price, 2007, 7′
Parallel worlds uncoil and ensnare with twisted logic.
Rehearsals for Retirement, Phil Solomon, 2007, 10′
The days grow longer for smaller prizes
I feel a stranger to all surprises
You can have them I don’t want them
I wear a different kind of garment
In my rehearsals for retirement
The lights are cold again they dance below me
I turn to old friends they do not know me
All but the beggar he remembers
I put a penny down for payment
In my rehearsals for retirement
Had I known the end would end in laughter
I tell my daughter it doesn’t matter…
– Phil Ochs, ‘Rehearsals for Retirement’
