Talking Landscape

Talking Landscape: Early Media Work, 1974-1984 (2012)
(Dir. Andrea Callard, 2012, 80 min.)
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith, Christy Rupp and Jack Smith were among the artists who filled a ex-massage parlor with artwork from top to bottom for The Times Square Show, a legendary exhibit co-organized by Andrea Callard as part of the 1970s powerhouse collective Colab. (Keith Haring even painted the air conditioner). Callard, whose own work will not long remain one of New York's best-kept secrets, includes her never-before-seen documentation of that event in Talking Landscape, her first feature film. This compendium of short pieces (including 11 thru 12, Fluorescent/Azalea, Flora Funera (for Battery Park City) and Lost Show Blues) here making its world premiere, was culled from a decade of her playful and strikingly innovative cinematic experiments. Dry wit and personal perception infuse Callard's colorful, existential documentary interventions. Whether climbing a seemingly endless series of ladders in her downtown loft apartment; creating quirky, private games to play with the camera; or ruminating on the clover, Ailanthus trees, and azalea bushes sneakily colonizing New York's parks and vacant lots, she casts a thoroughly original gaze on the city around her. Callard even visits New York's U.S. Customs House, now the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, though a series of ten hand-colored print collages overlaid with text.
Q\&A discussion with director Andrea Callard, moderated by curator Livia Bloom, will follow the screenings on Thursday, February 16, and Saturday, February 18.
Callard's original prints will be on exhibit at The Maysles Cinema from February 1-March 1, 2012.
Part of the 'Documentary in Bloom: New Films Presented by Livia Bloom' series. Future Documentary in Bloom programs include: Oki's Movie dir. Hong Sang-soo (April 16-22, 2012) and Tahrir dir. Stefano Savona (June 11-17, 2012).