Marnie Weber: Twenty Years and Forevermore
The Day of Forevermore, 2015 (Photo by LeeAnn Nickel)
Saturday, May 30, 2015, 8pm
Los Angeles Filmforum presents
Marnie Weber: Twenty Years and Forevermore
The Velaslavasay Panorama, 1122 West 24th Street, Los Angeles CA 90007
Second show added at 5:30 pm http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1592238
In person: Marnie Weber and F for Evermore!
Marnie Weber creates works that are at once haunting and mundane, beautiful and dissonant. Ever exploring the American mythos and mining its history for alternate lore, Weber collages powerful women into dangerous, faux fairytale backdrops that nonetheless illuminate very real issues. Through a multiplicity of disciplines, but with a surprisingly consistent focus, Weber creates worlds that parallel our own while invoking hallucinatory cosmologies reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch or H.P. Lovecraft. For over twenty years, she has chronicled these characters and their environments in moving images and Los Angeles Filmforum is proud to present a broad selection of Weber’s work, including excerpts from her as yet unreleased first feature entitled, Day of Forevermore plus a live performance by F for Evermore, which includes Weber, Doug Harvey, and Daniel Hawkins.
Tickets: $10 general, $6 students/seniors; free for Filmforum members.
Available in advance from Brown Paper Tickets at http://bpt.me/1592238 or at the door.
“Mixing mainstream with counter-cultural elements, but also inspired by classic westerns and Surrealism, Marnie Weber’s mythological world is populated with fantastic beasts and masked characters. … Her unique Surrealist lens is most trenchant in her videos, which she sees as ‘moving dreamscapes.’” —The White Review
Marnie Weber’s multidisciplinary practice encompasses performance, film, video, sculpture, collage, music, and costuming. By combining her own mythology of creatures, monsters, animals and female characters on film and stage sets,she creates her own fictional narratives of passion, transformation, and discovery. Weber creates uncanny worlds that exist in a realm between fantasy and reality, and invites viewers into an exploration of the subconscious. Using fairytale-like imagery, she places women in positions of power and primacy creating a backdrop as a site of transformation and magic. Grounded in performance art before moving into filmmaking and later large-scale installations, Weber has had an ongoing practice of making collages, music, and limited edition records as an art form; all of these media carry a homemade, intentionally naïve aesthetic that continues throughout her work. She has had solo shows, video screenings and performances throughout the U.S., Asia and Europe, and has had a retrospective of her work at Magasin in Grenoble France. Upcoming exhibitions include a large-scale installation at Mattress Factory, Pittsburg this summer, a video screening at the Mykonos Biennial, the Lyon Biennale and a survey exhibition at MAMCO (Musée d'art moderne et contemporain), Geneva in 2016.
F for Evermore is a Los Angeles art-rock supergroup whose motto is "Simplicity Through Noise" and who have developed a practice rooted in improvisational ensemble playing using electric guitars (played with rubber mallets and other extended as well as traditional techniques) and vintage synthesizers, in various combinations of three. Their debut album Fauxmish was released Sept 2, 2011. The members are established artists in their own right: Daniel Hawkins, Marnie Weber, Doug Harvey, and on occasion Dani Tull.
On this special occasion F for Evermore will be performing a live score to a sneak peek of excerpts from Marnie Weber's up coming feature length film A Day of Forevermore.
Programmed by Madison Brookshire
Songs Hurt Me (Photo by Jim Shaw)
Songs Hurt Me
1994, Super 8 film to digital, color, sound; 2:07
This film is a narrative flashback to Coquette, Circus Girl, who leaves her home, an airstream trailer, as her mother sadly waves goodbye. This is the artist’s first original soundtrack and subsequently she has continued to record all her own music for her films.
Destiny and Blow Up Friends (Photo by Jim Shaw)
Destiny and Blow Up Friends
1995, Super 8 film to digital, color, sound; 6:25
Filmed at the Salton Sea, which is a large dying, polluted salt lake in California. “Destiny” is a sailor who finds herself without a boat in a dry wasteland. She sets out on a journey through the surreal landscape while blow-up animals follow and cling to her as she bravely shoulders the responsibility of being their caretaker. Tragically the blow-up animals mysteriously deflate and “Destiny” takes them on their final journey in a boat called “Fate” to the sea.
Death Valley (Photo by Jim Shaw)
Death Valley
1996, Hi 8 video to digital, color, sound; 4:18
A cheerful flower takes on the burden of five “saw horse” animals that call Death Valley their home. They enslave their “master” in their existential bondage and she is no longer happy and free.
I'm Not a Bunny (Photo by Jim Shaw)
I'm Not a Bunny
1996, Hi 8 video to digital, color, sound; 0:58
An innocent bunny is hiding from a hunter in the giant red wood forest. When ultimately found, she denies she is a bunny.
The Red Nurse and the Snowman (Photo by Jim Shaw)
The Red Nurse and the Snowman
2000, Super 8 film to digital, color, sound; 9:02
A red-caped nurse roams through a snowy landscape following a trail of blood and comes upon some forlorn troubled animal characters and an injured snowman.
The Forgotten (Photo by Jim Shaw)
The Forgotten
2001, DV tape with appropriated vintage super 8 home movie footage, color, sound; 7:07
A princess in a tower surveys a group of forlorn, hapless night creatures that are wandering around looking for something magical to save them, and for something to give meaning to their existence.
A Western Song (Photo by Greg Wilkin)
A Western Song
2007, 16mm film to digital, color, sound; 10:21
The second of the Sprit Girls films follows the lead singer as she decides to leave the band and set out on a journey through an abandoned western town. She meets up with some hobo clowns and becomes a sideshow act in their circus as she channels spirits.
The Sea of Silence (Photo by LeeAnn Nickel)
The Sea of Silence
2009, HD video, color, sound; 7:50
The Spirit Girls speak through their ventriloquist dummy doppelgangers. They perform their act in a nightclub full of crude and unruly animal patrons, then seek emancipation in the open sea.
The Campfire Song (Photo by LeeAnn Nickel)
The Campfire Song
2008, 16mm film to digital, color, sound; 7:10
The Spirit Girls gather around a campfire and dance in a dream sequence of a haunted campfire song. The film is highly affected with streaks, stains and scratches to give it a more painterly and dream-like quality.
The Eternal Heart (Photo by LeeAnn Nickel)
The Eternal Heart
2010, Super 8 color & black & white film, & 16 mm hand processed film to digital, sound; 9:30
A fictional silent-film era starlet is grappling with emotional conflicts while living with a stoic, obsessive father. She has a transformative mental breakdown and releases multiple demons and monsters from within her psyche. The story culminates with her death and a parade of creatures from a world beyond. The film is reminiscent of early silent era films with the use of melodramatic acting, poetic film slates and old style camera techniques. The hand processing of the film creates the eerie effects of bleeding colors laced with moments of black flutter. This technique is designed to create a feeling of a filmic collage while remaining true to an overall poetic narrative.
The Day of Forevermore (Photo by LeeAnn Nickel)
The Day of Forevermore
2015, HD Video, 16mm & Super 8 color; 15:00 (select excerpts from feature)
Live Music accompaniment by F for Evermore (Marnie Weber, Doug Harvey, and Daniel Hawkins)
The Day of Forevermore tells the story of an old woman who believes she is a witch and tried to indoctrinate her daughter into a coven of aged witches and misfit monsters. The daughter thinks her mother is merely crazy and would like to get away from her but finds freedom impossible due tot the burdens of responsibility. The crops are failing, her mother is a hoarder and the ranch is falling apart.