Opening reception with the artist: Thursday, December 9, 6-8 PM
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11-6 PM, or by appointment
Michael Caines' current work situates American political figures, both past and present, in altered 18th century paintings and Christian religious kitsch, referencing scenes from Alice in Wonderland, Bambi, and the Wizard of Oz. Drawing on the lineage of political cartooning in these pictures, Caines treats Richard Nixon, JFK, and Carl Rove, among others, with surprising tenderness and humor.
Influenced by Rick Perlstein's 2008 book, Nixonland: The Rise Of A President And The Fracturing Of America, Caines considers the fate of now obsolete political figures, and those who will someday, in turn, fall into the shadow of history. Their images, so vivid, are given an afterlife in electronic media, and they are, in a sense, both entombed there and in limbo. Caines' new work reveals the peculiar beauty that history lends to these iconic physiognomies, and his work is as much a response to their physicality as it is to the politics they are, or were, embroiled in. Thus baby-headed Carl Rove is cuddled by Ronald Reagan as dowager duchess, while a younger, glowingly handsome Jesus-Reagan cradles a little Glenn Beck lamb.
Caines rifles through the past, masterfully reworking elements of historical pictures to provide landscapes for these figures to inhabit. By conflating painting and political history, his work evokes nostalgia for the idealism that comes with belief, whether in political or artistic greatness. Caines references Sir John Tenniel's beautiful illustrations for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, utilizing the spirit of absurdity in the drawings and text as a form of critique. Rather than passively absorbing history and media images, Caines asserts his right to creative action. He thereby extends to us, his viewers, a kind of tentative idealism, one in which he in turn asserts our right to act on – rather than be acted upon – the images of our shared histories.
Contact: mulherinpollard@gmail.com
To see works from this show, click here.
Mulherin Pollard Projects is pleased to present GEORGE KUCHAR: ALWAYS & FOREVER.
Legendary American artist George Kuchar exhibits film, video, stills, drawings, paintings, comics from the 60's to today in our new Chelsea gallery's fourth exhibition since opening in June.
George Kuchar has directed over 200 films and videos since the 1950's. His films have screened all over the world, including a recent inclusion in this summers Berlin Biennale, a three day "Kuchar Celebration" event at Harvard Film Archives, a drive-in event in Portugal, and a four-program tribute at the San Francisco International Film Festival. George has won countless awards throughout his career, including grants from The National Endowment for the Arts and The Eureka Fellowship Program, A Ford Foundation Fellowship from United States Artists, The Worldwide Video Festival First Prize Award, The prestigious Maya Deren Award for Independent Film and Video Artists from the American Film Institute, The Frameline Award, The Cinevegas Vangaurd Award, The Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Independent/Experimental Film and Video, and Kuchar's recent major work, Secrets of the Shadow World, was fully funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. George's films have screened in many major museums in the US & abroad, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Pompidou Center in Paris.
George and his twin brother Mike began making films when they were twelve. In the early 60's, the twenty-one year old Kuchars began regularly showing their films at the apartment of Ken Jacobs alongside their underground film contemporaries, Jack Smith, Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, as well as others in the downtown scene like Rauschenberg and Oldenburg. Village Voice film critic, Jonas Mekas also attended these events and made sure the Kuchars were written into the story of the New American Underground. At one of these parties, after viewing George's freshly developed 16mm film "Hold Me While I'm Naked" , Warhol told George he was getting "too good". The Village Voice ranked “Hold Me While I’m Naked” one of 100 Best Films of the 20th Century ( actually it ranked 52nd). "Before Warhol’s Superstars, the Kuchars already had anointed as movie-star icons their gawky Bronx neighbors and relatives, who populated their 8mm and 16mm melodramas," Gerald Peary. John Waters proclaims the early Kuchar films to to be his "biggest influence.... more than Kenneth Anger, The Wizard of Oz."
Other fans include Todd Solondsz, Gus Van Sant, Wayne Wang, David Lynch, Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin and Brian De Palma. In an essay that accompanies The "World of George Kuchar" (Video Data Bank) , Gene Youngblood references his 1968 article on the (then) filmmaker, writing that, ‘“in these apparently lighthearted works I have always detected something more serious, something similar to the corrosive personal vision of Luis Buñuel, though I would not for an instant compare Kuchar to the Spanish master. Today,” Youngblood continues, “I would. There is no doubt in my mind that George Kuchar is one of the great artists in the history of the moving image.”
Filming on rooftops in the Bronx by night, The Kuchars attended The Manhattan School of Art and Design by day, where they honed their commercial art skills. Before leaving New York to teach at The San Francisco Art Institute one of George's first jobs was drawing illustrations for the local NBC weather segments. When George moved to San Francisco in the early 70's, he became involved with underground comic scene through his friends, Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith and Robert Crumb. They regularly submitted their artwork to the underground comic, Arcade. Bill Griffith says that George is partly the inspiration behind his famous comic character, Zippy.
A TINY PORTION of GEORGE's recent resume....
2010, Portland Art Museum Film Center, “An Evening with George Kuchar”, Portland, OR
2010, Berlin Biennale, Berlin, Germany
2010, Harvard Film Archive, “A George Kuchar Celebration”, Cambridge, MA
2010, Arizona State University West, “America’s Original Underground Filmmaker”, Glendale, AZ
2010, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, “Cinematic Excursions with George Kuchar”, Milwaukee, WI
2010, University of Texas at Austin, “Film Screening: Shorts by George Kuchar”, Austin, TX
2010, WNDX Festival of Film and Video Art, Winnipeg, Canada
2010, Rauschenberg’s Children International Experimental Film and Video Festival, Zurich, Switzerland
2010, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, “From the Supernatural Shadows of Hollywood and Here: George Kuchar’s Influence on Experimental and Independent Cinema”, Milwaukee, WI
2010, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
2010, Portland State University, “Flash Stream”, Portland, OR
2009, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, “Tropical Vulture”, San Francisco, CA
2009, Performa 09, New York City, NY
2009, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, “George and Mike Kuchar: Recent Reservations”, San Francisco, CA
2009, Anthology Film Archives, “Futurist Life Redux”, New York City, NY
2009, Mustache Cinema, “A George Kuchar Triple Threat”, San Francisco, CA
2009, Ada Gallery, Scope Art Show, Miami, FL
2009, Ada Gallery, Scope Art Show, “Videographic Violations Sinema Show”, New York City, NY
2009, Anthology Film Archives, “A Lust for Ecstasy”, New York City, NY
2008, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, “Eureka”, San Jose, CA
2008, Karma International, “Tales of the Grotesque”, Zurich, Switzerland
2008, OCA Office for Contemporary Art, “Art(Core)”, Norway
2008, Emory University, “The Worlds of George Kuchar”, Atlanta, GA
2007, Casey Kaplan Gallery, “Good Morning, Midnight”, New York City, NY
2007, Cheekwood Museum of Art, “UNnatural”, Nashville, TN
2007, Lanzia Center for Contemporary Art, “American Video Art”, Gdansk
2007, Queensland Art Gallery, “Cinema in Revolt”, South Brisbane, Australia
2005, YIDFF Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Yamagata City, Japan
2005, Film Arts Foundation Cinematropolis, “Tribute to George Kuchar”, San Francisco, CA
2002, Podewil, “Cheap”, Berlin, Germany
2001, Champ Libre, “4e Manifestation Internationale Video et Art Electronique, Montreal, Quebec
1995, Philadelphia Museum of Art, “Downsizing the Image Factory”, Philadelphia, PA
1993, Beyond Baroque, “Films From the Kuchar Closet”, Venice, CA
