Dear all,
Well firstly, I apologize for posting a provocative, sketchy,
response on the way out the door... Now having returned, I can take
more time.
Secondly, I was commenting predominantly on Myron Ort's comment: "
Not so much an homage to Warhol as an homage to Youtube! LOL",
which seems to reduce the presentation wholly to the teenage homages
of pop stars on Youtube that "produce" a music video created from
photographs related to the song only by the presence of the 'artist',
often wholly disjunct stylistically and temporally. All I wanted to
say was Vexations does have a connection--in the temporal moment of
Sleep and the stylistic shaping of duration. It is quite fair to
point out that I missed you LOL, which I see now, and even quoted
above. I'll confess it is an abbreviation I find particularly
annoying; I overlooked it to in the spirit of friendship/
camaraderie. But it seems we all may be skimming the texts. For my
misreading, I'm Sorry.
Third, there is a question of revisionist history I am
introducing... A number of assertions I make trace the language of
the original post from RK Projects and the Magic Lantern Cinema.
Even so, the link I offered does seem to assert a connection in the
first paragraph referencing it to John Cage, who stated it to: "Emma
Lavigne, curator at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, who wrote in an
essay published in the Warhol Live exhibition catalogue that the
impact made by the Vexations concert "was decisive and inspired the
artist to the unprecedented, repetitive structure of the film Sleep
(1963)". I also recall hearing a John Giorno poetry reading at MoMA
in which he claims a similar connection for Vexations. But on
further reflection, Giorno also added to the significance of Cage's
presentation of Vexations, a story of his discussion about Sleep with
Branden Joseph in which the latter connects the repetition and
editing process to Rosicrucian ideas (and that Satie was a Rosicrucian).
Between Giorno and P. Adams Sitney, there are claims from both ends
of the spectrum (poet to historian) that Warhol shot Sleep with 100'
foot rolls. Giorno even claims in the MoMA interview that Warhol was
even hand winding the camera at the beginning of filming.
However, I still find what Tony Conrad presents compelling. The
Vexations concert was, in fact, during Sept. of 1963, well before VU
public arrival in the latter half of 1964. Yet, Cale's gig-ography
on the internets claims the La Monte Young concert at at Henry
Geldzahler's home took place 3/7/65, a year after the Jan. '64
premier of Sleep. What seems revisionist in the Vexations narrative
is that it seems to reduces Warhol to an acolyte of Rauschenberg/
Johns/Cage, and I believe he was more complicated than that--Contrary
to Warhol's own words. I'd love to hear more of Tony's thoughts
about the La Monte Young influences.
Damon.
On Feb 12, 2012, at 11:46 PM, Tony Conrad wrote:
John Cale performed in the Vexations concert, among others of
course, but that
was well before the VU, as I recall. However, Andy was in contact
with La Monte
Young about sound for his films when they were shown at Lincoln
Center.
I can't accept the idea that Andy got the idea for repetition, or
editing
together long films, from Satie. First, it's far more probable that
he got the
idea from our group with La Monte; we even gave a concert at Henry
Geldzahler's
place. Second, Andy generally used a magazine with 1200 foot reels
so he wouldn't
have to splice or do any editing.
----------t0ny
On Sun 02/12/12 6:11 PM , Eric Theise ericthe...@gmail.com sent:
Hi Fred,
In "Edie" (Stein w/Plimpton, pp 234-235), George Plimpton
recountsriding in a freight elevator with Warhol and mentioning
the Carnegie
Hall concert organized by Cage.
"I mentioned it to Andy only because I thought he might be vaguely
interested--he was doing these eight-hour films of people sleeping.
It never occurred to me that he knew of this concert, or of Satie,
since it wouldn't have surprised me a bit if he'd never heard of
Satie. His reaction startled me. He said, "Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh!"
I'dnever seen his face so animated. It made a distinct impression.
Between ohhh's he told me that he'd actually gone to the concert and
sat through the whole thing. He couldn't have been more delighted to
be telling me about it."
My reading of the announcement is that the Vexations concert in
Providence is 45 minutes long, and that it precedes the screening.
--Eric
On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Fred Camper .com> wrote:>
Quoting Damon @gmail.com>:>
While this presentation of Sleep certainly
differs from the original>> Â screenings of the film, it is
also far from a Youtube hommage.>> Vexations played an important
role in
Warhol's conception of the>> film, and he took from Satie a working
method making possible the>> editing of his short reels into a
lengthy
film.>>
Sorry I don't have time at the moment to
unpack this point as I'm>> running out the door, but here is a
link to
some supporting>> literature to this position:
http://www.warholstars.org/news/johncage.html
Is there some aspect of the text on this link
that actually supports> your claim that "Vexations"
specifically influenced "Sleep"? It's not> even clear that Warhol
ever heard
"Vexations.">
But even if the answer is yes, that doesn't
"support" playing one> during a sceening of the other. Would you have
Pound's "Cantos"> recited during a screening of "Dog Star
Man"? Excerpts from the> "Tibetan Book of the Dead" read during
George Landow's "Bardo Follies"?>
Fred Camper
Chicago
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