Exploded View Gallery, Tucson, AZ

Here I was expecting Tucson to be a hard sell, and the type of town I would feel most alien too. But no, if anything, I felt most comfortable here. Tucsonians are generous, beautiful, creative and friendly people. If you want to feel welcome, come here.

Reception of the Selected 3 programme at Exploded View Gallery was exceptional; applause after each film, whistles, appreciative laughter, sighs – everything in compliment. I was over the moon by the end with a deeply embedded grin on my face.

The screening was followed by interested questions; all the films were talked about, again Sophie Beresford’s Making Adidas Mermaid got attention – loved very much. Lots of curiosity about Cheryl Simmons’ film What are you doing man? They’re cooking my men like sausages. A glorious collage piece that examines reinterpretation and memory.

Exploded View is unique in Tucson; opportunities to show artists’ film and experimental work rely on Rebecca and David’s commitment to the gallery, which is an inspirational example. The University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography is worth checking out (the archive gets shown off to the public every Friday), and, off the arts track, there is also the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, a superb department for those interested in dendrochronology.

Tucson also has an amazing desert surrounding it, with huge Saguaro cacti soaring into the sky, perched on the mountain slopes like armies of headless triffids. I was driven into the desert by Carl Hanni, a devoted Tucsonian, who generously took me on a hike to see the Saguaros, desert sunset and endless mountainous landscape.

I leave Tucson with a heavy heart, but with eyes set on LA for Echo Park Film Center and to see some good friends.

Tucson desert sunset

WED.  4/23 * @7:30

Carl’s Cine Club

Filmed over ten years and released in 2000, Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen’s film, Benjamin Smoke documents the tortured life and career of the Atlanta based musician Robert Dickerson, aka Benjamin Smoke. Dickerson was a drug addicted, HIV positive gay misfit who died in 1991, and who fronted several local underground bands, including Smoke and the Opal Foxx Quartet. Filmed largely in and around the Cabbagetown neighborhood of Atlanta, the film profiles an artist who literally gave it all for his art.

*Carl’s Cine Club

Originally screened in 1991 on West Virginia Public TV, director Jacob Young profiles the troubled but always entertaining mountain dancer Jesco White. White’s father was a famous mountain dancer; his son is equally obsessed with Elvis Presley and combining clog and backwoods tap dancing, always with an eye towards the camera. A great look at end of the century Appalachia; Dancing Outlaw turns the camera on an American original and lets him do his thing.

{EXTREME SOUTHERN CULTURE part 2}

*Carl’s Cine Club

Director Stephen Earnhart filmed the denizens of a trailer park in Florida for this outlandish documentary from 2001. In Mule Skinner Blues, description defying weirdness unfolds as the locals are slowly revealed to be in a deep fried, static limbo while sort-of pursuing their dreams as musicians, filmmakers and writers. The film takes surreal twists and turns in mind-bending, unexpected directions.

The first of a 4 part documentary series {EXTREME SOUTHERN CULTURE}

curated by Carl Hanni (*Carl’s Cine Club)

Searching For the Wrong Eyed Jesus, Andrew Douglas’ deeply evocative 2003 film follows the idiosyncratic Americana musician Jim White (who records for David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label) on a fantastical journey through the American south. White muses on religion and culture and plays some music while making memorable stops in a Pentecostal church, a prison, a coalmine, local bars, cafes and much more. White’s on-screen pals include Harry Crews, The Handsome Family, Johnny Dowd and David Eugene Edwards.

(*Carl’s Cine Club)
Tony Silver + Henry Chalfant’s 1983 documentary on graffiti and bboy culture, Style Wars features many of New York’s most legendary graffiti artists, as well as footage of early hip hop and breakdancing. Music by Grandmaster Flash, Treacherous Three, Trouble Funk and more.

WED. 11/13 @7:30 *Carl’s Cine Club

Matt Wolf’s 2008 documentary Wild Combination tells the remarkable, improbable story of Arthur Russell, an Iowa transplant to New York City in the early 1970s who became a downtown fixture as a musician, artist and producer of early disco records. Arthur’s story is also the story of creating art under duress in the fertile, but also desperate milieu of downtown New York in the 70s and 80s. With remembrances by his collaborators Philip Glass, Allen Ginsberg, David Toop and others.