Friday, June 18, 2010 at 7:30pm
In Collaboration: An Evening with Robert Fiore

177 Livingston Street, Brooklyn

Curated by William Smith

Robert Fiore will introduce his work as a cinematographer from the late 1960s and early 1970s. While perhaps best known today as the director of the bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron (1976), Fiore played a key—if under recognized—role in the New York art scene at a time when many sculptors and dancers were extending their practices into film. He shot and edited such iconic works as Richard Serra’s Hand Catching Lead (1968), Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) and Joan Jonas’ Songdelay (1973). At the same time, Fiore collaborated on numerous documentary and narrative projects that suggest a broader, politically charged context for understanding these artists’ films. He was part of the collective that produced the seminal anti-war film Winter Soldier (1972), and he worked with the Maysles brothers on the Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter (1970). Fiore also shot Brian de Palma’s earliest films, including Greetings (1968), a comedy about resisting the draft that marks Robert de Niro’s feature film debut.

A survey of Fiore’s early career draws together filmmaking practices that have largely been understood separately. By revisiting the projects that Fiore helped to shape, this screening will both foreground the collaborative nature of filmmaking, and also point towards the range of possibilities ascribed to cinema at a pivotal moment in American art and politics. Fiore will discuss a selection of films in conversation with William Smith, a PhD candidate at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and a senior editor of Triple Canopy.

Films to be shown:

Songdelay, Joan Jonas, 1973, 18 mins
Frame, Richard Serra, 1969, 22 mins
Hand Catching Lead, Richard Serra, 1968, 3 mins
Sheds, Robert Fiore and Jane Crawford with Nancy Holt, 2004, 22 mins
Winter Soldier (First Marine Division), Winterfilm Collective, 1971, 17 mins
Gimmer Shelter (excerpts) Albert and David Maysles, 1970
Greetings (excerpts), Brian de Palma, 1968

Tickets - $7, available at door.