Pop in TV and the Movies
The well composed and entertaining exhibition on Whitney in New York runs until March 2013. It has the title ”Dark and Deadpan: Pop in TV and the Movies” and invites you to a dark room with a dozen of screens in different sizes with moving images from the 1960’es. You walk into the room and get the sound – a true cacaphony – from the screens around you, the sound of dialogues, music, speeches, monologues like the one from Andy Warhol, who is eating a burger in the film by Jørgen Leth and Ole John, ”66 Scenes from America” (1981).
That for me very well known clip from the Danish documentary classic is placed on one of the four walls close to a tv screen on the floor showing Warhol’s ice cream commercial for Schrafft’s restaurants. Next to that a clip (by Ger van Elk, 1970) of a cactus being shaved!… Also in the playful genre is George Kuchar’s ”Hold Me While I am Naked” (1961), said to be loosely autobiographical, very funny to watch today as is David Lynch ”The Alphabet” (1968) by imb characterised as ”a woman’s dark and absurdist nightmare vision comprising a continuous recitation of the alphabet and bizarre living representations of each letter.” You dare say so, playful yes, as is the video close by not – that presents numbered photos of soldiers who died in Vietnam.
Pop art is also Godard, isn’t it? Wonderful to see the original trailer of “A Bout de Souffle”, Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo, a revolver, the pretty girl, the bad boy etc.
There is a lot of creativity and naivity in this room (forgot to write that in the more informational end the landing on the moon (July 20 1969) was also in the room, as well as presidential promotion clips for Johnson and Nixon), which is balanced in the room next door with pop art of a more sinister approach. You are really reminded how great an artist Andy Warhol was, when you see his “Nine Jackies” (1964), three times three Jacqueline Kennedy, just before and just after her husband had been shot (November 1963), and in deep grief – and his series “Electric Chair” (1971).
Most of the mentioned films/tv clips you can find on youtube.
Photo:Sherman Price (active 1960s), still from The Imp-Probable Mr. Weegee, 1966. 35mm film transferred to high-definition video, color, sound; 75 min. Image courtesy Something Weird Video (from the site of Whitney, below). Totally humorous short film about a photographer taking pictures of women and big boobs in Paris.
