Lior Shvil – In Whatever Time

Posted on November 1, 2013 by doron

In Whatever Time (2010, 290MB, 15 min.)

“…Occupying a space somewhere between storytelling and spectacle, TV shows and
advertisements, the video and sculpture installations of such invented personas as
Cherry Bomb Fluffy White and Charley OnOff address the fragmented
representations of politics and gender, autobiography and history in contemporary
society. Embracing the roles of director, actor, narrator, editor, and set designer,
his experiments in epic theatrical production explore the comic territory of the jester
as he flirts with cultural stereotypes and satirizes political ideologies.”
Lior Shvil.

Lior Shvil – The Kosher Butcher

Posted on October 29, 2013 by doron

The Kosher Butcher (2010, 84MB, 8:56 min.)

“.. Israeli provocateur Lior Shvil presented “The Kosher Butcher,” a darkly humorous commentary on Mideast politics in which he portrays a meatpacking Sweeney Todd.”

Lior Shvil – Rough Cut

Posted on October 23, 2013 by doron

Rough Cut (2007, 54MB, 4 min.)

Born in 1971 in Tel Aviv, Lior Shvil currently lives in New York and recently attended Columbia University’s School of the Arts MFA program.

Shvil works primarily in video, installation and sculpture. His works are multi-layered, both poetic and critical; they tap into collective memory (cultural, mythical, historical), and are inspired by television, cinema and story telling.

Shvil received his B.A. from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem. He has had a solo shows at the Herzliya Museum of Art and the Heder Gallery in Israel. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Haifa Museum of Art in Israel, Milliken Gallery in Stockholm, The 7th International Istanbul Biennial, and NGBK Gallery in Berlin. Shvil won the Samuel Givon Prize for Young Artists, awarded by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, as well as the Israel-America Fund for Culture, Israel. – See more at: givon art gallery.

Lucy Mills – Simply British

Posted on March 30, 2013 by michael

Simply British (2013, 77MB, 4:03 min)

Hi Lucy,
I think it’s really good. Who did the Hard Day’s Night remix?
I really like the way it is clearly a powerful comment on lots of things to do with the contrast between Britishness & flag waving and national hubris &c. and the actual situation for many people, but it’s never simply a piece of agit-prop.
At first I thought its slowness in unfolding might be a problem but I like the way it makes us take the time to think, with the various repeated images (like the bus with the slogan on it) but also with different material developing against the background you establish, especially the ever present and heartbreaking Big Issue guy – it turns out to be slow burning as opposed to slow. I also like the 90 degree rotation of some of the stuff and the way that then fits rather nicely into empty-ish spaces in the other “channel”. Great work – congratulations!
michael

Betty Martins – I Wasn’t always Dressed Like This

Posted on March 29, 2013 by michael

I Wasn’t always Dressed Like This [Trailer] (2013, 120MB, 1:42 min)

If the substantive piece (which I gather is about 33 minutes in length) is
anything like as good as this trailer promises it will be stunning.

This has all the hallmarks of the previous piece by Betty Martins – When the Souls Arrive – we posted here : beautifully made, scrupulously attentive to those being observed/interviewed but with its own quite particular gentle and steely authorial stamp.
(I usually hate anthropomorphising art – you know the thing, ‘this piece investigates’ &c. – except here
I am sorely tempted to say that Martin’s work ‘knows how to listen’. Of course what I mean is Martins knows how to listen, carefully and empathetically, and then to re-configure parts of that listening and looking and understanding too as moving image soaked with detail and feeling.)
In addition the subject matter could not be more timely: a broadside of delicate
beauty in the face of bigotry.

The Story of Stuff

Posted on December 20, 2012 by brittany

The Story of Stuff (2008, 54.1MB, 21:20)

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard is a twenty
minute video about waste, recycling, corporations,
and sustainability. Even a radical like me finds it
occasionally heavy-handed, but then, this is serious
stuff. Nicely done, worth the twenty minutes you’d
otherwise spend watching crap TV, no?

Locusts

Posted on December 6, 2012 by brittany

Emergence – Locusts (2008, 233.8MB, 11:19)

From celebrated MC Invincible, a docu-music-video
about the history of gentrification and capitalism’s
destruction of communities in Detroit.
Video features several local activists, including
Grace Lee Boggs and (full disclosure) my good friend
Ron Scott.
This intense collaboration gives me chills every
time I watch it.
I’ll let the rest speak for itself.

Kino Da!

Posted on November 26, 2012 by michael

Kino Da! (1981, 5.6 MB,1:42 min )

Kino Da! , a wonderful portrait of the poet and communist Jack Hirschman
by the American experimental filmmaker Henry Hills is just one of the Hills films
that can be viewed at . More about Hills and his work see – henryhills.com

PS There is a marvellous DVD of Hill’s work now available. I have a copy and I
unreservedly recommend it. I come back to it time and time again.