Doors 7:30p
Program 8:00p

UnionDocs
352 Onderdonk Ave
Ridgewood, NY

Please join us for a night of re-animation with collage artist and filmmaker Lewis Klahr, whose enigmatic and affective films converse in what film curator Chris Stults calls the “infrathin”, moments existing outside of time.  For this night’s program, we’ve pulled a selection of docu-centric shorts from his oeuvre, in the spirit of UnionDocs!

Klahr’s collage animations borrow found images and sound to “traffic in modes that are pitched just beyond the realm of reason”, engaging audiences in an interstitial space of consciousness. His work has been described as “uncanny”, “mythical”, and “exquisitely melancholy” – those who are unfamiliar with his films are invited to dive into a night of elliptical narratives between reality and fiction, mythopoetics, melodrama, ephemeral talismans and more!

We’re delighted to host Klahr at UnionDocs for the first time for a program of his eclectic films across his far-ranging body of work and to have him join following the program for a conversation with beloved filmmaker Peggy Ahwesh.

A night that is sure to inspire – come through and bring your friends!

Program

The Aperture of Ghostings

13 mins, 1999-2001

Includes Elsa Kirk (1999), Catherine Street (2001), and Creased Robe Smile (2001).

In the mid 1990’s I unearthed three photographic contact sheets of 3 different women in a thrift store in the East Village. Only one was named and dated– Elsa Kirk, Feb 22 ‘63, but all looked like they were from the same photographer and time period. There were 12 images per sheet of these Models/Actresses and I found myself moved by the strong sense of aspiration in their poses; a poignant blend of fiction and document.

Candy’s 16

3 mins, 1984

Uses a suburban sweet 16 invite my older sister received in 1966 as it’s soundtrack to which I edited a montage of super 8 highlight film clips (including Spiderman’s origin story) to tell this teen coming of age story.

April Snow

10 mins, 2010

Another from my ongoing Prolix Satori series. I thought up the juxtaposition of these two pop songs while creating a mix-tape back in 1988 but never thought I’d work with them as a film soundtrack. Back then the taboo in experimental film circles about using music was so strong it seemed permanent.

Ambrosia

4:30 mins,  2014

From my feature length series 66, this film uses pics taken from my older brothers 1962 Bar Mitzvah to create a filmic ‘still life.’

Capitulations Promise

6:34 mins,  2020

It took me 5 years to complete this film– the “hit single” from my recent feature length series The Blue Rose of Forgetfulness. This degree of difficulty is just what I expected, however, when I chose to montage to such a memorable pop song as Lana Del Ray’s “Honeymoon”. What attracted me to this music is that it sounds both new and old, which allowed me to integrate contemporary imagery with the mid 20th century sources that my films are known for. “Honeymoon” also sounds like the romantic theme song to a James Bond film that has not and never will exist.

Virulent Capital

9 mins,  2018

From my feature length series Circumstantial Pleasures (2020) which is a portrait of the environmentally challenged contemporary world. With music from David Rosenboom.

High Rise

3 mins, 2016

Also from Circumstantial Pleasures (2020). I shot this on my phone on a high speed train from Beijing to Shanghai in 2016.

Untitled (The Life of Naomi Lang)

21 mins,  1991

Originally shot on B&W and Color Super 8 but here presented in a new digital transfer.

The climactic film of my 4 part feature length Super 8 series Tales of the Forgotten Future, this film is a chronological transposition of 8 photo albums of a woman’s life I found abandoned in a Los Angeles bookstore in the summer of 1990.

False Aging

15 mins,  2008

A 3 act “melodrama” that, among my large filmography, probably gets the closest to capturing what attracted me to film collage.

Program Duration: 85 mins

Bios

Lewis Klahr is a Los Angeles based collage artist who uses found images and sound to explore the intersection of memory and history. He is primarily known for his uniquely idiosyncratic films which have screened in such venues as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Biennial, the New York Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Hong Kong International Film Festival, The Wexner Center for the Arts, The Tate Modern, the Pompidou Center, Redcat and the LA County Museum of Art. Lewis Klahr teaches in the Theater School of the California Institute of the Arts and is represented by The Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London.

Since the 1970’s, Peggy Ahwesh has traversed a variety of technologies and styles in her work that forms the basis of her inquiry into feminism, cultural identity and genre. Ahwesh’s art practice insists on political and social topicality and theoretical rigor, while incorporating humor and the absurd in an open embrace of the inexplicable. Ahwesh studied with Tony Conrad, Paul Sharits and Janis Crystal Lipson at Antioch College. Recent exhibitions include: Two Serious Ladies (2015) Murray Guy, NYC; Plagiarist of My Unconscious Mind! (2015) Château Shatto, LA and Kissing Point (2014) Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn.