NYAB Event - Conrad Ventur “Tribute to Mario Montez”

Conrad Ventur “Tribute to Mario Montez”

Participant Inc.

This event has ended.

Sundays, November 10, 17, 24, 7pm

Sunday, November 10
Jose Rodriquez-Soltero, Lupe, 1966, 16mm, 49.5 minutes
Jack Smith, Jungle Island, 1967, 16mm, 15 minutes
Andy Warhol, Mario Banana, 1964, 16mm, 4 minutes
Conrad Ventur, Boca Chica, 2013, video, NY premiere, 3 minutes

Sunday, November 17
Jack Smith, Flaming Creatures, 1962-3, 16mm, 43 minutes
Ron Rice, Chumlum, 1964, 16mm, 23 minutes
Avery Willard, remnant: Flaming 20s, 1968, 16mm on video, 1 minute

Sunday, November 24
Andy Warhol, Hedy, 1966, 16mm, 66 minutes
Takahiko Iimura, Face, 1969, 16mm, 20.5 minutes
Conrad Ventur, Atlantis, 2011, video, 2 minutes

Legendary underground actor Mario Montez was a favorite subject of artists Jack Smith and Andy Warhol, and was a founding member of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company with Charles Ludlam in the 1960s. While researching Warhol’s early films, New York City-based artist Conrad Ventur learned that reclusive Montez had begun to emerge from retirement after 35 years. They began a friendship through Ventur’s re-staging of Warhol’s ‘screen tests’ using the same methods and Factory stars, including Montez. They continued their collaboration for three years, Ventur noting that, “I began to think about people, not just the media in which they were recorded years ago.” Ventur has since produced a series of digital c-prints, videos, and live performances with Montez, which were to culminate in Mario Montez Returns.

Montez was to star in this six-week performance environment staged at PARTICIPANT INC for PERFORMA13. The multi-media project, written and directed by Ventur for Montez, would have reunited actors from the original Ridiculous Theatrical Company and the renowned downtown theater La Mama alongside subsequent generations of performers including Agosto Machado, Everett Quinton, Lola Pashalinski, Marti Domination, Mr. Twinkle, and Brandon Olson. Mario Montez died on September 26, 2013.

To celebrate Montez’s contribution to underground cinema, Ventur has organized Tribute to Mario Montez featuring films that were among Montez’s favorites of the myriad in which he starred by Jose Rodriguez-Soltero, Jack Smith, Andy Warhol, Ron Rice, Avery Willard and Takahiko Iimura. Working within the media of photography and video for the last ten years, and more recently installation, Conrad Ventur is interested in activating moving image archives, whether finding material online or looking at specific underground film archives and repositioning them in exhibition formats. He often brings together pioneers of living theater with a younger generation of performers in live and recorded environments. Born in Seattle, raised in New Haven, and living in New York since 2000, Ventur has chronicled his New York life with photography and the publication USELESS for over a decade. His single-channel and multi-channel video installations have been shown internationally. Ventur recently exhibited at The Andy Warhol Museum; Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College; MoMA PS1; Moscow International Biennial III, and Kunsthalle Winterthur, Switzerland. Recent solo screenings include The High Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and C/O, Berlin. In 2012, Ventur’s 13 Most Beautiful/Screen Tests Revisited (2009-2011) were acquired by The Whitney Museum of American Art.