#ellenzweig

[burtlancster]

In the Lynes portrait, Lancaster sits facing the viewer at a table on the left; occupying the picture's right side is a wooden chair with a curved back. Closed louvres behind Lancaster shut out sunlight and render the interior dim. Lynes shot from a dis-tance, allowing the viewer to see the actor's feet under the table. What gives the image its power is the actor's face receding into shadow, distant from the picture plane. Still visible is the sensual open mouth, ready to take a cigarette, and the actor's steady gaze, with its sense of withholding. Lancaster gives nothing away, making his allure a mystery and a challenge.

— excerpt from George Platt Lynes: The Daring Eye by Allen Ellenzweig, photo by George Platt Lynes taken at his home in West Hollywood, 1947.

[denimbex1986]

'...The sole two inhabitants of a newly-built apartment block in London befriend each other. Adam (Andrew Scott), writing a screenplay alone at night, is at first tentative when Harry (Paul Mescal), rings his bell to introduce himself. Harry’s practiced ease and sly charm disarms Paul, who invites him in. Thus begins a wary breakdown of Adam’s defenses against exposing his vulnerability in the form of admitting the possibility of their romantic love. As their friendship develops, the two loners share emotional and sexual intimacy, testing Adam’s reserve. This delicate “dance” of opposites is written and played in a register of cinematic realism. But when Adam travels to the suburb where he grew up, he seeks out his parents’ snug house to find his long dead parents at home. They invite him in. What would otherwise be a supernatural event is handled in the film as an ordinary visit, although Mum (Claire Foy) and Dad (Jamie Bell), remain the ages they were when they died, when Adam was twelve years old. We follow Adam as he moves between these two worlds—in London, where he and Harry develop a deepening bond, and out of town, where Adam and his parents become cautiously reacquainted, Adam is still haunted by deficits of parental intimacy and tenderness. The performances are pitch-perfect, with all four actors playing in harmony and achieving the delicacy of a string quartet. The story ends in an unexpected, yet quite logical place. Kudos also to the use of “Always on My Mind” by the Pet Shop Boys.'

[millenniumfilmjnl]

Millennium Film Journal No. 42 ”Video: Vintage and Current” (2004) #ellenzweig (cover) #shirleyclarke #paulineoliveros #robertashley #mfjbackissue https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv1dvdfF3CE/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=lwq09ehszpmd

[notesonfilm1]

Some thoughts arising from reading Allen Ellenzweig's GEORGE PLATT LYNES

Some thoughts arising from reading Allen Ellenzweig’s GEORGE PLATT LYNES

[commiepinkofag]

Don’t Ask, Don’t Ask

Artists, particularly in theater, are still plagued by the slur "Gay Commie Jew." But how did it come about? by Allen Ellenzweig, 2012

… To some extent, the status that five Jewish American gay men enjoyed within the arts provided them a kind of cover that rank-and-file gay men and lesbians could barely hope to find. The so-called Lavender Scare of the 1950s was as lethal as the Red Scare, with thousands of civil servants, uniformed service members, and teachers across the country fired from their jobs on the presumption that “perverts”—to use a period term—were national security risks or engaged in moral turpitude. In 1950, the head of the Republican National Committee warned his party that “as dangerous as the actual Communists are the sexual perverts who have infiltrated our Government in recent years.” According to Sherry, “[A]gitation about queers in the arts … intensified in the late 1940s and 1950s amid the Lavender Scare.”

And just as the Red Scare had its bogeymen—the defunct “Comintern,” the Soviet-sponsored Communist International with national representations from around the globe—the Lavender Scare had an equivalent coinage: the “Homintern.” This waggish pun is variously attributed to poet W.H. Auden or other English literati who originally used it in the 1930s to evoke a clandestine link among artist-homosexuals, even if the intention was to mock claims of conspiratorial power. The term could cut both ways—an epithet for those who believed in a gay cabal undermining the Free World or a “camp” jeu de mots that queers might use with irony.

Meanwhile, if the McCarthy-era witch hunts targeted a large number of Jews—who in previous decades made the mistake of being “prematurely” anti-fascist, or signed petitions organized by so-called Communist front or “subversive” organizations, or been too enthusiastic in union organizing—it was not for nothing that Hollywood found itself in the crosshairs. In Victor Navasky’s Naming Names, one commentator claims that the source of “animus against Hollywood” by one of the House Committee’s influential early members, Congressman John Rankin from Mississippi, was “the large number of Jews eminent in the film industry. … In Rankin’s mind, to call a Jew a Communist was a tautology. … He took glee in baiting his Jewish colleagues.” A lawyer for the Anti-Defamation League remembered that “Jews in that period were automatically suspect. … People felt if you scratch a Jew, you can find a Communist.”

The suspicion that gays exerted a similarly malign influence on America produced paranoia in the tabloid press and mass-market magazines, and even in respected political journals, belying today’s popular notion that nobody spoke about homosexuality in the 1950s.

Read More >

Photo Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins, and Leonard Bernstein being photographed during rehearsal for West Side Story, 1957. [Friedman-Abeles/The New York Public Library]

[talbottoimasaka]

Duane Michals – Jen Lee

<Duane Michals – A Storyteller>

Photographer: Duane Michals

Website: https://www.dcmooregallery.com/artists/duane-michals/series

Bodies of Work: 1) Photographs with Text 2) Sequences

Duane Michals is an American photographer who is best known for his work with text, sequences, and multiple exposures. He writes in the margins of his prints, creates sequences of images that explore human dilemmas (death, memory, spirit), emotions, and philosophy. His photographs seem simple and ordinary; however, the accompanying texts and techniques such as double exposure and motion blur produce poetic effects.[1]  

Since the early 1960s, Michals has incorporated his own handwriting into the prints of still images with the series Photographs With Text. His writing grew out of his “frustration with photography. I never believed a photograph is worth a thousand words. If I took a picture of you … it would tell me nothing about you as a person. … 60% of my work is photography and the rest is writing.”[2] He believes that the picture alone cannot convey its deeper meaning. It would be obscured to the viewer without the text.[3]

This Photograph is My Proof, 1967/1974

This Photography Is My Proof (1967/1974) shows a loving couple on a bed. There is nothing complex about this image. Michals captured an intimate moment of the couple when they are in a warm embrace, smiling for the camera. The handwritten text reads: “This photograph is my proof. There was that afternoon, when things were still good between us, and she embraced me, and we were so happy. It had happened, she did love me. Look, see for yourself!”[4] The accompanying text not only enhances the viewers’ experience of the photograph but also shifts their attention. Without the text, viewers would have never known that they loved each other when the photo was taken (“she did love me”), but not anymore. Michals’ text articulates the story and anchors a meaning to the image. The image becomes more intimate with the language, and in the end, viewers are left with a feeling of sadness and nostalgia for love that is lost.

A Letter from My Father (1960/1975)

A Letter from My Father (1960/1975) shows a portrait of a father (hands on hips), a mother (next to her husband), and a son (in profile). The father frowns, the mother gazes off into the distance, and the son looks sullen. I can feel the intensity between the son and his parents. Maybe the son did something wrong, and his parents got angry. They do not seem to understand each other; I can see a lack of understanding in their eyes. The script reads: “As long as I can remember, my father always said to me that he would write me a very special letter … I used to try to guess what secret would be revealed, what mystery and intimacy we would at last share … But then he died and the letter never did arrive. And I never did find that place where he had hidden his love.”[5] This is a true story of Michals’ family. It is a portrait of his father, mother, and brother.[6] The text enriches the relationship between father and son, his father’s hidden paternal love. As the viewers find out that his father is no longer with the family, we feel Michals’ longing for his father and the letter that his father promised to write. His handwritten text works as a personal and intimate message to his audience. It invites the viewers to the story and adds another dimension to the image’s meaning.

In the late 1960s, Michals began creating narratives within a series of images, resulting in his series Sequences, a sequence of staged images that play on metaphysical themes such as death and spirit. Michals once wrote in his book Real Dreams, “I believe in the imagination … What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.”[7] He uses techniques like double exposure or slow shutter speeds to show blurred figures in each frame conveying a movement or communicating emotional states.

The Spirit Leaves the Body (1968)

The Spirit Leaves the Body (1968) shows his interest in the idea of death. We see a naked man lying on a bed in an empty room. Over the course of seven images, a ghostly figure or the “spirit” emerges out of the dead person, sits up, and gradually comes closer toward the viewer. It disappears at the end of the frame. It has been perfectly staged and carefully composed by double exposing the film. The final frame is perfectly identical to the first one, yet everything has changed. It shows the transition from life to death.

Death Comes to the Old Lady (1969)

Death Comes to the Old Lady (1969) shows an old lady sitting in a chair in her dining room, facing the camera. A man in a black suit is approaching her from behind. The fact that he is dressed in all black, is not in focus in any of the frames, and moves closer to the lady emphasizes the closeness of her death. The very last frame heightens the suspense where the man disappears and maybe walks into her body, and then she rises in a blur. Death indeed comes to the old lady.

Michals is a true storyteller with his conceptual photographs. In his Photographs With Text series, he incorporated handwritten text on photographs to tell a story to viewers what the picture alone could not. With Sequences, he employed sequences of staged images that unfold the narrative. Also, his techniques—double exposure or motion blur—make the illusions that Michals creates seem real and make situations mysterious or even theatrical. His works are better with text and in a sequence rather than standing alone. Although both series have distinctly different styles—verbal storytelling vs. a cinematic form of storytelling—both techniques provide color, voice, mood, and meaning to his works. Deep down, Michals reinvented photography as an instrument to express emotion and thought. Each of his images has a profound story.

[1] Benedict-Jones et al., Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals, 49.

[2] Bohnacker, “The Last Sentimentalist: A Q. & A. with Duane Michals.”

[3] Romer, “The Story Deep Inside a Photo.”

[4] DC Moore Gallery, “Duane Michals.”

[5] Ibid.

[6] Boxer, “Nov/Dec 2019: Feature.”

[7] The Met, “Duane Michals, The Spirit Leaves the Body.”

<Works Cited>

Benedict-Jones, Linda, Duane Michals, and Allen Ellenzweig. Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum of Art, 2014.

Bohnacker, Siobhan. “The Last Sentimentalist: A Q. & A. with Duane Michals.” The New Yorker, n.d. https://projects.newyorker.com/portfolio/michals-empty-ny/.

Boxer, Sarah. “Nov/Dec 2019: Feature.” Photograph Magazine, November 20, 2019. https://photographmag.com/issues/novdec-2019/feature/.

DC Moore Gallery. “Duane Michals.” DC Moore Gallery. Accessed November 1, 2020. https://www.dcmooregallery.com/artists/duane-michals/series/photographs-with-text?view=slider.

Romer, Donna. “The Story Deep Inside a Photo.” Medium. Vantage, April 18, 2016. https://medium.com/vantage/the-story-deep-inside-6fa224e89215.

The Met. “Duane Michals, The Spirit Leaves the Body.” metmuseum.org. Accessed November 2, 2020. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/294772.

[uncgarchives]

A scene from the construction of the Sullivan Science Building in 2002. This building, originally called the Science Building, was designed by O’Brien/Atkins Associates of Durham, North Carolina, and Ellenzweig Associates of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was opened in 2003.  On April 10, 2008, the building was named in honor of Patricia A. Sullivan, chancellor from 1995 to 2008. #uncg125 #UNCG #tbt

[charlesccastill]

BSA Gingerbread Design Competition and Exhibition Explores Architectural Styles

BOSTON— BSA Space’s 7th Annual Gingerbread Design Competition and Exhibition is displaying masterful sweet renditions by local architecture firms from Boston and elsewhere in Massachusetts.

This year, nine teams are exploring the theme: “Rep your arch’ style” inspiring participants to create Gingerbread structures interpreting their favorite architectural style.

Visitors can feast their eyes on the whimsical creations from December 10-31, 2018 at BSA Space, and then vote for their favorites at one.bidpal.net/gingerbread/browse/all. The exhibition is free and open Monday through Friday, 10am–6pm, weekends and holidays 10am–5pm.

The Gingerbread Design Competition and Exhibition is sponsored by the Boston CDRC and the BSA Foundation, both 501c(3) nonprofit organizations. An auction takes place throughout the exhibition to raise funds for design-related public programming. Donations of any size are welcome, and all donations count.

A list of the architecture firms participating includes (in alphabetical order):

Aecom, ARC/Architectural Resources Cambridge, Bergmeyer, CannonDesign, Elena Trunfio, Ellenzweig, Fennick | McCredie, Finegold Alexander Architects, Integrated Design Group, Lyons/Zaremba, Margulies Perruzzi Architects, Miller Dyer Spears, Next Phase Studio, Payette, Perkins Eastman Architects, Rider Levett Bucknall, Sasaki, Schwartz/Silver Architects, Silverman Trykowski Associates, TRO, Wessling Architects, Wilson Butler Architects, and Wilson Butler Architects.

The 7th Gingerbread Design Competition and Exhibition Reception, free and open to everyone, will be hosted on December 18, 6:00–8:00 pm. For more details and RSVPs, visit https://www.architects.org/programs-and-events/7th-gingerbread-design-competition-and-exhibition-reception

BSA Space, Boston’s leading cultural institution for architecture and design, is home to the Boston Society of Architects/AIA (BSA/AA) and the BSA Foundation. The BSA/AIA is one of the oldest chapters of the American Institute of Architects. The BSA Foundation, a charitable organization, supports activities that illuminate the ways in which design improves the quality of our lives. All exhibitions at BSA Space are supported by the BSA Foundation. Admission to BSA Space is free and open to the public.

The mission of the BSA Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity, is to build a better Boston by engaging communities, inspiring vision, and provoking positive change. The Foundation’s vision is that by 2030 Boston is a model of a resilient, equitable, and architecturally vibrant city and region. Foundation activities seek to enhance public understanding of the built environment and the processes that shape it, and empower citizens to be active advocates for change in their built environments. The BSA Foundation was established by Boston Society of Architects/AIA in 1971 as the public service sister organization to the BSA/AIA. Since 2014 the BSA Foundation has served more than 120,000 people.

The Community Design Resource Center (CDRC) of Boston is an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit that provides pro bono technical assistance to community groups, nonprofits, and municipalities in projects that involve and benefit underserved communities throughout metropolitan Boston. The CDRC also supports, promotes, and celebrates Boston-area architects and designers doing public interest work.

from boston condos ford realtor https://bostonrealestatetimes.com/bsa-gingerbread-design-competition-and-exhibition-explores-architectural-styles/

[saombu-bioyca]

The Homoerotic Photograph by Allen Ellenzweig Coffee Table Book http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=2&toolid=10044&campid=5337506718&customid=&lgeo=1&vectorid=229466&item=132249279849

[nickkahler]

Ellenzweig, College of Pharmacy at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 2014

[notesonfilm1]

A thought on Glenway Wescott after reading Jerry Rosco's 'Glenway Wescott Personally'.

A thought on Glenway Wescott after reading Jerry Rosco’s ‘Glenway Wescott Personally’.

Now well and truly down a rabbit hole prompted by Allen Ellenzweig’s GEORGE PLATT LYNES. I’ve just finished Jerry Rosco’s book on Glenway Wescott, the often odd-man-out in the Lynes-Wheeler-Wescott trio.  It’s a rich book, benefitting from hours of reminiscences Westcott recorded towards the end of his life, almost a lifetime of diaries, and a well-documented life. Wescott, only vaguely known to…

[millenniumfilmjnl]

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Millennium Film Journal No. 42 “Video: Vintage and Current” (2004). Copies available. Linkinbio #videoart #ellenzweig #shirleyclarke #robertashley #judyalkut https://www.instagram.com/p/B-7CZ9wFaX-/?igshid=1eiktkjb4d11q

[millenniumfilmjnl]

Millennium Film Journal No. 63 “Exchanges and Convergences” (Spring 2016) #mfjbackissue #millenniumfilmjournal . . . . #artistscinema #experimentalfilm #jenniolson #dirkdebruyn #leehangjun #stanbrakhage #venicebiennale2015 #rachelrose #standouglas #ellenzweig #hollisframpton #clintenns #chantalackerman #shigekokubota #bat #cynopterusbrachyotis

[millenniumfilmjnl]

Millennium Film Journal No. 29 "Video /Video Installation" (1996) . . . #mfjbackissue #millenniumfilmjournal #artistsmovingimage #video #videoinstallation #installationart #frankgillette #frankgilletteandiraschneidervibes #paularthur #brucebaillie #ellenzweig #eleanorantin #chrismarker #garyhill #billviola #teijifuruhashi #standouglas #marcelodenbach