So Dreamy, So Sinister: Animation by Suzan Pitt Thu, May 16 | 7:30pm | TMT Though her artmaking practice began with painting, the American visual artist Suzan Pitt (1943–2019) quickly became frustrated by the medium as she felt it left her images in “a state of arrested movement.” Pitt pivoted to animation in 1968 to create the first of her surreal, exuberant, hand-made animated shorts, and found that through hand-drawn, stop-motion, and multiplane animation, she “could imagine and dramatize their stories” beyond the static canvas. Inspired by Fleischer cartoons, surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, underground comics, and the lush natural world, Pitt’s visual poetry was never confined to one mode of expression: throughout her life, she continued painting, developed stage designs for two operas in Germany, created murals, and decorated one-of-a-kind coats with distinct iconography. As a gesture toward new objects on display in our Inventing Worlds and Characters: Animation gallery, including cels and background paintings from the Suzan Pitt Estate, this program highlights her celebrated film Asparagus , preceded
ROMAN CANDLES
Hag in a Black Leather Jacket and Roman Candles with live commentary by John Waters Sun, Apr 7 | 3pm | TMT The Academy Museum welcomes back John Waters for a live, in-person commentary presentation of his first two short films. These rarely screened early works were shot on a Brownie 8mm camera and display Waters’s lifelong affinity for boundary- pushing material. His first short film, Hag in a Black Leather Jacket , premiered at a beatnik coffeehouse in Baltimore in 1964. Centering on an interracial wedding officiated by a Ku Klux Klan member and featuring erotic dance and classical ballet, Hag showcases Waters’s ongoing fascination with dance and music that reappears in later films like Hairspray (1988) and Cry-Baby (1990). His second short, Roman Candles (1967), premiered at Baltimore’s Emmanuel Episcopal Church and is the first Dreamland production, featuring Divine, David Lochary, Pat Moran, Mary Vivian Pearce, Bob Skidmore, Maelcum Soul, Mink Stole, and other Waters regulars. First shown as a vertical presentation of three separate 8mm films projected simultaneously, Roman Candles was heavily influenced by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey’s split- screen, nonnarrative Chelsea Girls (1966). Presented in newly preserved digital versions, Waters’s first two short films will be accompanied by the filmmaker’s real-time reactions and commentary for this one-time-only, unrecorded performance. Programmed by K.J. Relth-Miller. Note adapted from text featured in the museum’s exhibition JOHN WATERS: POPE OF TRASH by Senior Exhibitions Curator Jenny He and Associate Curator Dara Jaffe. Hag in a Black Leather Jacket DIRECTED/WRITTEN BY: John Waters. WITH: Mona Montgomery, Mary Vivian Pearce, Bobby Chappel. 1964. 17 min. B&W. USA. English, presented silently. Restoration DCP. Restored by the Academy Film Archive. Roman Candles DIRECTED/WRITTEN BY: John Waters. WITH: Divine, Mark Isherwood, David Lochary, Mona Montgomery. 1967. 40 min. Color. USA. English, presented silently. Restoration DCP. Restored by the Academy Film Archive.
by works from throughout her career. Programmed and note by K.J. Relth-Miller.
All films directed by Suzan Pitt. Total program runtime: 76 min. Pinball 2013. 7 min. USA. Color. Digital. Restored by the Academy Film Archive. Jefferson Circus Songs 1975. 19 min. USA. Color. Digital. Restored by the Academy Film Archive. Crocus 1971. 7 min. USA. Color. 16mm. Restored by the Academy Film Archive. Joy Street 1995. 24 min. USA. Color. 35mm. Restored by the Academy Film Archive. Asparagus 1979. 19 min. USA. Color. 35mm. Restored by the Academy Film Archive.
33
Powered by FlippingBook