September 6th, 2014
@ grayDUCK Gallery (map)
8:00pm
$5-$10 Suggested Donation
The Street Tapes of Andy Mann are a snapshot of the the early life of video. Their spontaneity and prodding exploration of quotidian life reflect the eagerness that early video practitioners brought to the medium. Mann was among the first groups of video collectives in the early Seventies, and continued making videotapes until shortly before his death in 2001. This program will present several of Mann’s most vital contributions to early video and the Street Tape Genre. Presented by Experimental Response Cinema and grayDUCK Gallery. Curated and presented by Jarrett Hayman. Special thanks to the Aurora Picture Show.
“There is no question that Andy Mann was one of the seminal figures in the early video scene, in particular for his remarkable “street tapes” which continued and amplified a tradition in film history marked by such works as Helen Leavitt’s In the Street.” – Gene Youngblood
“Andy Mann’s videotapes are classic examples of the “street tape” genre- a video equivalent of “cinema verite” drawn directly from life, with a minimum of staging, acting or editing. The direct, candid style of Mann’s tapes reflects the enthusiasm sparked by the new equipment amongst a whole generation of first-time video users; the possibility of capturing subjective experiences and details of the world in which one lived was tremendously exciting at that time, and was reason enough to go out and shoot a video.” – Video Data Bank
NOTES: Andy Mann: The Performative Everyday by Jarrett Hayman.
Program
Washington Square Park
33 min / digital / sound / 1970s
Ostensibly made for a video show taking place “in Germany and Russia”, Mann walks from his front door to Washington Square Park, videotaping his encounters with average New Yorkers.
One-Eyed Bum
8 min / digital / sound / 1974
Andy encounters the titular bum on the Bowery, where the two have a truncated, somewhat philosophical conversation.
Subway Tape
6 min / digital / sound / 1970s
“By night, an ecstatic Andy Mann commandeers an empty subway car–from stem to stern”-Aurora Picture Show
Brooklyn Botanical Gardens
33 min / digital / sound / 1974
Mann focuses on a natural setting, getting lost in the hypnotic patterns in the movement of water, wind through the trees, and the movements of birds.
Video Diary No. 1
33 min / digital / sound / 1978
In the summer of ’72, Mann moved in with video artist Frank Gillette in Southhampton, New York. Part of the arrangement was that Mann would produce a video diary, in which Mann chronicles a love triangle gone wrong.