317 E. Houston St., New York City, Tuesday, May 5, 7:30 PM, doors open at 7 PM.
Screening of my Writers Series of intimate video portraits. The works include Joe, 2018, with Joe Westmoreland; Kevin and Cedar, 2002, with Kevin Killian and Cedar Sigo; Eileen, 2000, with Eileen Myles; Lesie, 1998, with Leslie Scalapino; and Laurie, 1998, with Laurie Weeks. Total running time is about 45 minutes. I love these writers!
Afterwards, I’m discussing the videos with Lia Gangitano, excellent curator and gallerist at Participant Inc. in NYC, who has been showing my work since 1998, with a several-day screening event at Threadwaxing Space in lower Manhattan.
Lia Gangitano, photo by A. Steiner
Ann Stephenson, who curates the Readings at Parkside series was generous enough to ask about the Writers Series. This is the first time they will have all been screen together. Thank you, Ann!
The Parkside Lounge is a neighborhood bar with music and events venue in the back room. It has a friendly neighborhood vibe. People of all ages and stripes enjoying a pint, enjoying each other’s company, attending readings by contemporary greats, and now, there’s a video screening! I look forward to seeing you there.
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 at 7pmLight Industry, 361 Stagg Street, Suite 407, Brooklyn
German Song, Sadie Benning, 1995, digital projection, 6 mins An Epic: Falling Between the Cracks, Nancy Andrews, 1995, digital projection, 6 minsTrue Confessions of an Artist, Kirsten Stoltmann, 1994, digital projection, 5 mins The Fight, Jeanine Oleson, 1995, digital projection, 3 mins Sapphire and the Slave Girl, L. Franklin Gilliam, 1995, digital projection, 17 mins I, Bear, Hendl Helen Mirra, 1995, digital projection, 6 mins Dear Mom, Tammy Rae Carland, 1995, digital projection, 3 mins aletheia, Tran T. Kim-Trang, 1992, digital projection, 16 mins Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron), Cauleen Smith, 1992, 16mm, 6 mins The Girl’s Nervy, Jennifer Reeves, 1995, 16mm, 5 mins My Failure to Assimilate, Cecilia Dougherty, 1995, digital projection, 20 mins
Video still from My Failure to Assimilate, by Cecilia Dougherty, 1995
The program: In 1995, after the rise of Third Wave feminism but before the social and political realignments of the internet, artistElisabeth Subrin organized a screening of films and videos entitled No More Sweets For You. The program firstshowed at the Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago, then toured to Hallwalls in Buffalo and the MIX festival in NewYork City. Though each lineup differed, many of the core offerings were by American women who, like Subrinherself, were under 30. Seen today, it reveals a rich (and still, in many ways, underappreciated) vein of feministexperimental cinema at the end of the 20th century.
The works concern thwarted connections and, as Subrin put it at the time, “the fantasies, trauma andschizophrenia of solo-ness,” but the program also suggests an intensely collaborative milieu. Its artists wereassociated in numerous ways—as colleagues or lovers or friends—and traces of these relationships can be seenin the credits: Tammy Rae Carland appears as an interviewee in Cecilia Dougherty’s video, Subrin and KirstenStoltmann worked on Franklin Gilliam’s tape; and in turn Gilliam, Stoltmann, and Sadie Benning were involvedwith the production of Subrin’s own Swallow, completed that same year and featured in the original program.
Unlike boomer feminist celebrations of community and sisterhood, the screening is haunted by the specter offailure and figures of isolation. Consider the wandering latchkey kid of Benning’s German Song, the Nauman-eque artiste depicted in Kirsten Stoltmann’s Confessions, or the mop-haired child subject of Hendl Helen Mirra’s I,Bear. Nowhere are film or video employed as simple tools of communication; both celluloid and electronic imagesare likewise approached as malleable, tactile forms, made visually complex through multiple layers ofremediation: documents collaged and animated, videos re-taped off monitors, images scratched, frozen, andpainted-over. The viewer can sense lone psyches wrestling with the crises of their day, in the cellular isolation of alate-night editing suite. Identities are metabolized by, and drift between, a range of audiovisual formats andprocesses, including Super-8, manually-edited 16mm, analog video, Pixelvision, and digital effects.
With a typically Gen-X dialectical ambivalence, these artists collectively argue that isolation can simultaneouslyfoster both mental destabilization and social resistance. “In an era of corporate grunge, queer commodification,empowerment politics and right-wing cyborgs,” Subrin asks in her original program notes, “how do theunassimilated survive without being smashed, named or forced to participate?” The answer provided by No MoreSweets for You: it’s personal, it’s deep, and it’s complicated.
Show of queer work curated by filmmaker Jacob Aguilar
Jacob Ace Aguilar (@jacobaceaglr) tells me that the one-night-only screening of six queer experimental films at Spectacle screening space in Brooklyn on Thursday, Nov. 14, was a crowd-pleaser. Jacob arrived a little late and the crowd was already pushing past him through the finally-unlocked doors to grab the best seats. Seduce. Provoke. Destroy. In that order!
Film Students Patrick Regan & Anthony Flores with Cecilia Dougherty at the CSI 2024 Film Festival
Yesterday’s Film Festival at CSI screened 15 student films from 5 to 15 minutes long in all genres. The intensity and quality of the films screened raised the bar on all of our film students. And as you can see from the smiles all around, it was a fun evening.
Patrick Regan’s film Blanked won an Honorable Mention in both the Writing and Story categories. Anthony Flores’s Les Voix de Paris won Honorable Mention in the Documentary category. Congratulations!
More pics from the blue carpet:
Winner for Best Art Film, Jayden “j1m” Metellus (2nd from left) with competition judge Kenneth L. Clemons, Jr., and Honorable Mention winner Karena Pang and Festival Producer Mitchell Lovell.Karena Pang, winner in the Short Film category for her film, Girl With A Movie Camera, and Keith Clemons, Honorable Mention, with his animated film Boxing Legends. Festival Producer Mitchell Lovell on the left.Robert Lenza, winner in several categories with his film, Will. And Mohamed Alasri, winner in 4 categories including Best Film with his two films, Hear Me Out (comedy) and Part of Me (experimental).
I want to thank Gina Marchetti for organizing this event, and Amanda Mendelsohn for her amazing work, for writing about my videos, and for doing this event with me.
We had a really good time! Thanks to everyone who came and who participated.
This event has been recorded! Here’s a link to the event:
The work of artist Cecilia Dougherty explores the nature of queer women’s relationships to one another, society, and the everyday, as well as a feminist analysis of lesbian sexuality, psychologies, and intimacies inside a culture that is, at best, indifferent and at worst, hostile. She often uses methodologies borrowed from documentary and biography to map contemporary realities over pop-historical icons, creating art that deals with nostalgia, popular culture, and the state of society. Looking to Dougherty’s lasting legacy, we are pleased to present the lecture “Make Believe, It’s Just like the Truth Clings to It”: In Conversation with the Work of Cecilia Dougherty given by Amanda Mendelsohn, Graduate Distribution Assistant at the Video Data Bank, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago M.A. candidate in Modern and Contemporary Art History.
Exploring the earlier video works of Dougherty, this talk will address issues of identity, queerness, and experimentation. The four titles discussed, The Drama of the Gifted Child, My Failure to Assimilate, The dream and the waking, and Gone, range from 1992 to 2001, illuminating a specific time period of Dougherty’s work. Based on their VDBTV essay in part drawn from their interview with Dougherty, Mendelsohn explores their relationship to Dougherty’s experimental practice and catalog, as well as how the pieces fit into the broader picture of analysis. The lecture will be followed by an interview between Mendelsohn and Dougherty, then followed by an audience Q&A session.
“Make Believe, It’s Just like the Truth Clings to It”:
In Conversation with the Work of Cecilia DoughertyMonday, February 27, 2023, 7:00pm (EST)
The work of Cecilia Dougherty explores the nature of queer women’s relationships to one another, society, and the everyday as well as providing a feminist analysis of lesbian sexuality, psychologies, and intimacies inside a culture that is, at best, indifferent and at worst, hostile. She often uses methodologies borrowed from documentary and biography to map contemporary realities over pop-historical icons, creating art that deals with nostalgia, popular culture, and the social realm.
Looking to Dougherty’s lasting legacy, we are pleased to present the lecture “Make Believe, It’s Just Like the Truth Clings to It: In Conversation with the Work of Cecilia Dougherty.” The event is a conversation between Cecilia Doughery and Amanda Mendelsohn of the Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Film-Makers’ Cooperative, NYC New Year New Work 2019 4 programs of experimental and avant-garde films Friday Jan 25 – Sunday Jan 27, 2019
This is the 6th year that the Coop is holding a weekend of screenings to showcase work that’s come in over the previous year. My video portrait of Joe Westmoreland, called Joe, was screened on Friday, Jan 25 as part of the new works event.
Many friends were there. Joe Westmoreland, of course, and Charlie Atlas, with Lori E. Seid. And Elise Gardella, Phyllis Baldino, Amanda Trager, and Jim Hubbard all arrived. Sheila McLaughlin was there as well and introduced herself to me at the end. These people are all amazing!
The other work showcased: KG by Cynthia Madansky; Valeria Street by Janie Geiser, Carmel/Washington Heights/Home by Maia Liebeskind; Yem’s Place by Aaron Kelly-Penso; The Way Home by Erica Sheu; Soul Train by Carolina Mandia; Kendo Monogatari by Fabian Suarez; An Empty Threat by Josh Lewis.
What a fantastic screening! Makes remember why experimental filmvideo work is so important. It’s radical, it shows things in a new light, it asks lots of questions and many of those are visually-oriented.
Altogether, the events featured works by Ken Jacobs, Diana Barrie, Janie Geiser, Jack Waters, Josh Lewis, Cecilia Dougherty, Cynthia Madansky, Marie Losier, and more!!!
Curated by: Emily Apter, Ladya Cheryl, and Devon Narine-Singh.
Community in den Filmen von Peggy Ahwesh, Cecilia Dougherty und Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings DONNERSTAG, 23. AUGUST 2018, 19 Uhr
Circles, an installation at Kunsthalle Bern, Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings
Here’s the description of the complete show, if you’re in Bern mañana:
In the late seventies, the filmmakers Lis Rhodes, Jo Davis, Felicity
Sparrow and Annabel Nicolson founded the feminist film and video
distribution network Circles in London. Circles was
created in response to the need to have a platform for films by women.
Previously, its founders had all been members of the London-based
Film-Maker’s Co-op, and Circles was also a response to the lack of representation of women filmmakers in that co-op. The
screening at the Kunsthalle is part of a series of events and
screenings focusing on filmmakers since the 1970s. The films screened
are by Peggy Ahwesh, Cecilia Dougherty as well as by Hannah Quinlan and
Rosie Hastings. They look in different ways at queer communities,
playing with stereotypes, exploring the autonomy of community spaces and
looking for individual forms of expressions within the communities.
With an introduction by the organizers Ann-Kathrin Eickhoff (Author
& Art Historian, Zurich) & Geraldine Tedder (Assistant Curator
Kunsthalle Bern)
Image: Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, UK Gay Bar Directory, 2016, Still from Film
Mit einer Einleitung von den Organisatorinnen Ann-Kathrin Eickhoff
(Autorin & Kunstwissenschaftlerin, Zürich) & Geraldine Tedder
(Kuratorische Assistenz Kunsthalle Bern)
I’m showing two videos, Eileen, from 2000, and Joe, from 2018 in Circles.
