With a significant number of the most provocative films and videos from the 1980s underground scene to his credit, artist and photographer Richard Kern is the undisputed master of transgressive cinema. A hard-core social satirist, he makes work that is by turns perverse, sadistic, theatrically bizarre, and darkly humorous, pursuing his interest in lives at the extreme and a fascination with the “geography of faces and bodies.” Lydia Lunch, Leg Lung, Tommy Turner, Nick Zedd, David Wojnarowicz, and Sonic Youth are among the legendary downtown artists whose collaborations with Kern are featured here. Program highlights include his first film, Goodbye 42nd Street, a loving portrait of Times Square in all its seedy glory; Manhattan Love Suicides, a remarkable anthology on erotic obsession; and Fingered, his reimagining of Nicholas Ray’s They Live by Night (1947), which John Waters has described as “the best hillbilly-punk-art-porno movie in the world.” Program 75 min.
Goodbye 42nd Street. 1983. USA. Digital projection from Super8mm. 5 min.
Courtesy the artist.
The Right Side of My Brain. 1984. USA. Written by Kern and Lydia Lunch. With Lunch, Clint Ruin (JG Thirlwell), Henry Rollins. Digital projection from Super8mm. 23 min.
Courtesy the artist.
Manhattan Love Suicides (Parts 1-4). 1985. USA. With Nick Zedd, David Wojnarowicz, Bill Rice, Tommy Turner. Digital projection from Super8mm. 35 min.
Courtesy the artist.
Submit to Me. 1985. USA. With Lydia Lunch, Audrey Rose, Clint Ruin (JG Thirlwell), Lung Leg, Tommy Turner. Music by The Butthole Surfers. Digital projection from Super8mm. 10 min.
Courtesy the artist.
You Killed Me First. 1985. USA. With Karen Finley, David Wojnarowicz, Lung Leg. Digital projection from Super8mm
. 12 min.
Courtesy the artist.