Category: video

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In Conversation: an online event about the early works (1985-2001) of Cecilia Dougherty.

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:

https://talks.pratt.edu/media/t/1_641c9hqs/269360392

PRATT HUMANITIES AND MEDIA STUDIES PRESENTS
Click to Register:
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)

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Cecilia Dougherty in conversation with Amanda Mendelsohn

Monday, Feb 27, 7PM (EST)

Video still, Gone, 2001

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.

Register here: https://forms.gle/cg3w6S9eNGHM44Dv5

The event will be held in Zoom.

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Chaos Theory (Remembering Dale Hoyt)

Curated by Steve Seid
program online January 12–Febuary 7, 2023

Includes work by Cecilia Dougherty, Azian Nurudin, Leslie Singer, Marshall Weber, Dale Hoyt, Paula Levine, Emjay Wilson, Andy Heustis, and Ivar Smedstad.

Video still from Your World Dies Screaming by Dale Hoyt

SCREENING: Your World Dies Screaming (1981) by Dale Hoyt; Garbage Head (1981) by Marshall Weber; The Madonna Series, Parts 1–5 (1987) by Leslie Singer; Fuck You, Purdue (1987) by Cecilia Dougherty; Jungle Gym (1981) by Andrew Huestis; Mirror, Mirror (1987) by Paula Levine; High Fidelity (1986) by Ivar Smedstad; Funk Is Its Own Reward (1981) by Marshall Weber; Malaysian Series, Parts 1–6 (1987) by Azian Nurudin; My Pal Foot (excerpt) (1981) by Andrew Huestis; Donkey-Skin (1988) by Emjay Wilson.

RELATED: This online screening is presented as accompaniment to the one-time-only screening Dale is Dead presented February 7, 2023, 7:30PM, at The Lab (full details here) and the publication of An Urgent S.O.S through a Sea of Static: Writings by Dale Hoyt and Natalie Welch published by San Francisco Cinematheque a zine compendium of Dale’s writings (details here).

Remember Dale Hoyt! Support video art and artists!

CHAOS THEORY
by Steve Seid

How would you describe a gathering group of unruly artists? A fortuitous anarchism, or just trouble on the way? And if such a faction existed in one particular moment and in one particular place, the SFAI, providing unruly succor for its constituent parts, what would you call that moment? A discordant convergence? 

Just such a thing occurred at the San Francisco Art Institute in the early-and-mid eighties when a gaggle of singular young artists converged on the recently formed Performance/Video Department and all (heaven and) hell broke loose. A moment, such as it was.

With every upheaval, whether aesthetic or political, there are ringleaders, and among them at the P/V Dept. was a bratty pact—Dale Hoyt, along with his pals Marshall Weber (who would go on to found Artists’ Television Access) and Andrew Huestis—and Cecilia Dougherty, leading an insurgent group of women artists that included Leslie Singer, Azian Nurudin, Didi Dunphy, Jill Garellick and others. The creative energy welling from this convergence was enough to overheat nearby North Beach. If you add to that mix a core faculty of Howard Fried, Paul Kos, Sharon Grace, Doug Hall, Kathy Acker and Tony Labat, you had fissionable artistic material.

program notes by Steve Seid

Read the entire program notes here.

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SFAI 150 I A SPIRIT OF DISRUPTION —19 March – 3 July 2021

Video stills from the Writers Series: Laurie (1998), Leslie (1998), Eileen (2000), Kevin & Cedar (2004) and Joe (2018); stills from The Drama of the Gifted Child (1992) and My Failure to Assimilate (1995) – all showing at the San Francisco Art Institute, March – July 2021

Walter & McBean Galleries, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute. Margaret Tedesco & Leila Weefur, Curators

The San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2021 with ​A Spirit of Disruption, ​an exhibition that reflects on the school’s profound and sustained influence on contemporary art and highlights the contributions of generations of diverse artists and individuals often overlooked in the historical narrative of SFAI. ​A Spirit of Disruption​ includes the work of more than thirty alumni and faculty from the 1960s to the present; a dynamic media installation drawn from SFAI’s vast archive; and a section dedicated to artist model Florence “Flo” Wysinger Allen, the subject of countless paintings, sculptures, and drawings made at the school from 1933-1997.

A Spirit of Disruption​ also includes a dynamic media installation drawn from SFAI’s Anne Bremer Library archive featuring artists Rigo 89, Karen Finley, Cliff Hengst, Doug Hall, Debora Iyall, Jun Jalbuena, Jennifer Locke, Paula Levine, Cecilia Dougherty; and George Kuchar in collaboration with Tim Sullivan, among many others.

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New Year New Work 2019 at Film-Makers’ Cooperative, NYC Friday, Jan 25, 7PM

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.

 

Joe, by Cecilia Dougherty, 2019

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This Just In: KUNSTHALLE BERN / KUNSTHALLE BAR PROGRAMM

CIRCLES

Community in den Filmen von
Peggy Ahwesh, Cecilia Dougherty und Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings
DONNERSTAG, 23. AUGUST 2018, 19 Uhr

installation view, Kunsthalle, Bern
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.
 

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Desire as Politics at the Valade Family Gallery in Detroit, Feb-Mar 2018

Exhibition of LGBT Media in Detroit

Gay Tape: Butch and Femme (1985) screened recently at the Valade Family Gallery in Detroit. Many thanks to curators Scott Northrup and Jonathan Rajewsky!

Desire as Politics, gallery installation, Valade Family Gallery, Detroit Feb-Mar 2018
Desire as Politics, gallery installation, Valade Family Gallery, Detroit Feb-Mar 2018

Work by:
Sadie Benning
Cecilia Dougherty
Matt Lambert
Zachary Marsack
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay
Rashaad Newsome
Ira Sachs
Akram Zaatari

Desire as Politics presents a selection of LGBTQ perspectives in contemporary film and video from 1985 to 2017. The exhibition is not meant to summarize this arbitrary span of time, but rather to look at works exploring a range of identities, social constraints and prejudices unique to LGBTQ positions, including representation, fantasy, fear, love and the blurring of binaries, positions that we feel are vital in our current climate.

Scott Northrup & Jonathan Rajewski

video still, gallery installation, Gay Tape: Butch and Femme by Cecilia Dougherty, 1985
Larger than life, a mural-sized installation for my video Gay Tape: Butch and Femme (1985)

From the exhibition catalogue:

Dougherty’s first video, made while she was studying at Berkely:
“I made it just around the time when the term ‘gay’ was for everyone and then ‘lesbian and gay’ become the new term, until we progressed to ‘LGBTQ’.

“Gay Tape is a documentary about some of the regulars at Ollie’s Bar, a lesbian dive on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. The 1970s sartorial statement of flannel shirts, 501s, and Frye boots was passé and at odds with the new eighties aesthetic—tons of makeup, big hair, and complicated lingerie. Along with the new aesthetic came the reemergence of good old fashioned butch-femme role-playing. While the femmes pranced around like Stevie Nicks, their butch girlfriends reverted to an earlier role model, acting out fifties and sixties-style tough girl with brilliant aplomb. I asked some of the women from Ollie’s to talk on camera about role-playing.

“The camera instantly gave me too much control over content, so I tried to balance it by providing a platform for the women to speak on the butch-femme issue without overtly directing them. I relinquished authorship in favor of revelation and avoided coming to conclusions; the speakers were experts as well as subjects and could say whatever occurred to them. They spoke extemporaneously about their lovers, the details of their sexual identities, and their fantasies. My girlfriend at the time was one of the subjects. As her story unfolded I realized from my privileged position behind the lens that the lover she was describing in detail was not me. So much for the power of the gaze!

At a recent screening, the audience was interested in the difference between butch and transgendered, maybe not understanding that there were trans people in the community in 1985. I think there’s a distinction and as always, the people making the distinction are self-identified.”

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Cecilia Dougherty at the Wexner Center for the Arts

This Woman’s Work: Ericka Beckman, Cecilia Dougherty, and Jennifer Reeder

In celebration of the Film/Video Studio Program

Sat, Apr 8, 2017 12:30 PM
 

video still from Gone, 2-channel installation by Cecilia Dougherty
Video still from my 2-channel installation GONE (2001, 37 mins), starring the inimitable Laurie Weeks.

Join the Wexner to celebrate the accomplished work of female filmmakers supported by the studio throughout its 27-year history. Exploring both traditional and experimental approaches to narrative, this program includes Hiatus, Ericka Beckman’s phantasmagoric, analogue exploration of virtual reality (1999, 30 mins., 16mm transferred to video); Gone, Cecilia Dougherty’s split-screen recreation of the PBS docudrama An American Family, here starring artists Laurie Weeks and Amy Sillman and featuring music by Le Tigre and Mike Iveson (2001, 36 mins., video); and the Ohio premiere of Artist Residency Award recipient Jennifer Reeder’s 2016 film Crystal Lake (19 mins., HD video). (program approx. 85 mins.)

Curated by the excellent Jennifer Lange