Barbara Rubin "Christmas on Earth"
Boo-Hooray
This event has ended.
Boo-Hooray in co-operation with Jonas Mekas and Anthology Film Archives presents an exhibition of still images and ephemera relating to Barbara Rubin's landmark 1963 underground film Christmas On Earth.
Originally titled Cocks and Cunts, Christmas On Earth is a film of sexual tableaux vivants, gay and straight, where two separate reels of film are superimposed on each other, with additional light effects layered on these images, all accompanied by a contemporary rock radio soundtrack, as specified by Rubin.
The film was projected onto the performing Velvet Underground as a part of Andy Warhol Up-Tight, an early version of Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performance, in February 1966 at the Filmmaker's Cinematheque, in March of the same year at Rutgers University, and in April at the renamed Exploding Plastic Inevitable performances at the Dom in Manhattan.
Barbara Rubin (1945-1980) was a filmmaker, writer and scenester who started working for Jonas Mekas at the Filmmaker's Cinematheque in 1963. This was the year she filmed Christmas On Earth in the Lower East Side apartment of Tony Conrad and John Cale at 56 Ludlow Street. This was also the future home of Sterling Morrison and Lou Reed, and where the first version of "All Tomorrow's Parties" was recorded in the summer of 1965.
Rubin introduced The Velvet Underground to Andy Warhol. A photograph exists of her filming The Velvet Underground performing at the Café Bizarre in December 1965. The footage she shot is lost. As a human link document, Rubin also introduced Bob Dylan to Allen Ginsberg, and according to John Cale, Edie Sedgwick to Andy Warhol. She left New York at the tail end of the 1960's, became heavily involved in Orthodox Judaism, and died in childbirth in 1980 in France.
After a handful of screenings in the mid- to late- 1960's, Christmas On Earth remained unseen for years as per Rubin's instructions for the film to be destroyed. Luckily, Mekas did not follow through on Rubin's request, as she later changed her mind and allowed him to screen and distribute the film. Since 1983, it has been screened regularly, and is slowly but steadily taking its place in the canon of 1960's underground films and cultural milestones that unraveled American censorship law and opened the field for artistic studies of sexual narratives.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a screening of Christmas On Earth and To Barbara Rubin With Love by Jonas Mekas is scheduled for Wednesday, January 9, 2013 at 7:30 PM at Anthology Film Archives.
[Image: Barbara Rubin "Christmas On Earth" (1963) film still]
Media
Schedule
from December 18, 2012 to January 16, 2013
Opening Reception on 2012-12-18 from 18:00 to 21:00