In conjunction with the gallery presentation In the Shadow of the American Dream, French filmmaker and photographer Marion Scemama joins us to present Relax Be Cruel, her long-unseen film of Manhattan’s West Side piers. In the early 1980s, having recently arrived from Paris, where she was involved in feminist circles and leftist newspapers, Scemama became instantly drawn to Pier 34. The disused industrial hangar was at the time a site of ephemeral artmaking and queer cruising alike; it was dubbed “the real MoMA” by David Wojnarowicz, who, along with Mike Bidlo, invited artists to make anonymous murals in the space. Over the course of the summer of 1983, Scemama filmed in the piers at length, casting acquaintances from the East Village club scene to appear in her loosely fictional film, which revolved around a punkish woman who becomes witness to the piers’ many lives. An extraordinary record of a legendary site, created months before the piers were demolished by the city, Relax Be Cruel has its own history of loss. Damaged in a fire before it was ever exhibited publicly, the film is being presented here in its first New York screening thanks to a 2023 restoration that is now in the MoMA collection.
Relax Be Cruel was created before Scemama and Wojnarowicz knew each other, but their meeting months later sparked a deep friendship fueled by periods of intense creative collaboration until Wojnarowicz’s death from AIDS-related complications in 1992. Also featured in this program is Scemama’s little seen Summer 89, a video diary from an upstate New York summer spent with Wojnarowicz (then working on the manuscript for his incendiary memoir Close to the Knives) and her partner François Pain. The work exudes the intense emotions of a heady time—contemplation, despair, rage, but also moments of exhilaration and tenderness—all captured as a VHS video camera switched hands among the trio, who experimented with its new special effects. “I really believed that if I could keep David working, it would prevent him from dying,” Scemama solemnly recalled. “As if creation could keep death away.”
The screening is followed by a conversation between Scemama; Cynthia Carr, writer and author of Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz; and Sophie Cavoulacos, associate curator in the Department of Film.
Heroin. 1981/2018. USA. Posthumously edited by François Pain and Jesse Hultberg, using original 16mm rushes by David Wojnarowicz with Brian Butterick, John Hall, and Jesse Hultberg. Music by 3 Teens Kill 4 No Motive. Special thanks to Marion Scemama.
Relax Be Cruel. 1983/2023. USA. Directed by Marion Scemama. With Dea Cleavenger, Jim Krell, Marilyn Horan Boteler, Mïron Zownir. Cinematography by Maryse Alberti. 16mm transferred to digital video. 40 min. The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Summer 89. 1989–97. USA. Directed by Marion Scemama. With Scemama, David Wojnarowicz, François Pain. 28 min. Courtesy the artist