Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives
KAREN LAMASSONNE
September 23 – September 30
With this film series Anthology celebrates the work of Colombian-American artist Karen Lamassonne, who will be the subject of a major survey exhibition this fall and winter at Swiss Institute, entitled Ruido / Noise. Lamassonne was a central figure in the male-dominated Cali and Bogotá art and film scenes of the 1970s and 80s, and throughout her career has maintained a focus on self-portraiture and depictions of intimacy. Her practice was initially centered on painting, yet her involvement with cinema led to an engagement with video, photography, animation, storyboarding, and art direction.
In the 1980s, Lamsassonne became involved with a number of filmmakers known as the Grupo de Cali (Cali Group), who often employed popular B-movie genres such as horror or crime to create political allegories that also skewered mainstream Colombian cinema. Lamassonne worked in many capacities on several of these films, notably PURE BLOOD (1982), directed by Luis Ospina, her partner at the time and one of the crucial figures of the Cali Group, who passed away in 2019. The profound influence of these filmmaking projects can be seen in her cinematic paintings such as the Cali series (1989), in which giant, noirishly rendered figures caress one another, dominating the lurid city skyline in scenes reminiscent of ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN (1958).
Anthology’s film series will gather together a selection of films that Lamassonne worked on, including further films by Ospina (the short IN SEARCH OF “MARIA” and the sprawling documentary chronicle IT ALL STARTED AT THE END), works by other key members of the movement, such as Carlos Mayolo (CARNE DE TU CARNE), and rarities such as the infamous but virtually unseen KALT IN KOLUMBIEN, directed by Fassbinder-associate Dieter Schidor and made in collaboration with Lamassonne, Gary Indiana, and others. The series serves both as a focus on Lamassonne’s intersection with the cinema and as a mini-survey of the Cali Group, and will be followed by a larger survey of Ospina’s work later in the fall.
Karen Lamassonne will be here in person to introduce the following screenings:
Fri, Sept 23: PURE BLOOD
Tues, Sept 27: IT ALL STARTED AT THE END
Wed, Sept 28: KALT IN KOLUMBIEN
Fri, Sept 30: BLOODY FLESH
Organized by former Swiss Institute Director Simon Castets, Curator at Large Laura McLean-Ferris, and Senior Curator Alison Coplan, the exhibition “Karen Lamassonne: Ruido / Noise” will be on view at the Swiss Institute (38 St Marks Pl) from September 14, 2022-January 8, 2023 (after which it will travel to the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin and Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín). For more info visit: https://www.swissinstitute.net/exhibition/karen-lamassonne-ruido-noise/
Special thanks to Karen Lamassonne; Lina Gonzalez; Henry Caicedo (Cinemateca de Bogotá); Oscar Alberto Campo Hurtado; Eduardo Carvajal; Alexandra Falla, Ricardo Cuesta, and Rito Torres (Fundación Patrimonio Fílmico Colombiano); Amanda Garay (Zona A); Léon Kruijswijk (KW Institute for Contemporary Art); Camila Loboguerrero; Rory O’Bryen; Thomas Pfeiffer (Kinemathek Hamburg); Claudia Triana de Vargas (Proimagenes Colombia); and Agnès Wildenstein (Doclisboa).
