Film Program Originally Set for Smithsonian Screening Now Will Be Seen Only in Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- On Feb. 28, the University at Buffalo will present "Portraiture in Queer Experimental Cinema," a program of short films originally developed as part of the scholarly symposium around the groundbreaking Smithsonian Institution exhibition "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture."

Jonathan Katz, PhD, associate professor, UB Department of Visual Studies and curator of the Smithsonian exhibition, says the film program, curated by Ed Halter, one of the foremost authorities on queer experimental film, will be seen only in Buffalo and will offer an opportunity to see films so rare that some exist only in a single copy.

The 10-film, 71-minute program will be screened at 7:30 p.m. in the Screening Room in the Center for the Arts, UB North Campus. It will be open to the public and free of charge.

"We will present a program of short films and videos by queer artists spanning half a century that let us consider how various aspects of portraiture play out within different approaches to experimental cinema," Katz says. "It will include work by Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, Gregory Markopoulos, Su Friedrich, Barbara Hammer, Sadie Benning and others."

The program is sponsored by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and co-sponsored by the UB Department of Visual Studies, the UB Gender Institute, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, the UB Art Gallery, the UB Department of Media Studies and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Films on the program are those by Kenneth Anger, "Puce Moment," 1949, 16mm, sound, 6 min.; Andy Warhol, "Mario Banana #1," 1964, 16mm, silent, 4 min.; Andy Warhol, "Mario Banana #2," 1964, 16mm, silent, 4 min.; Edward Owens, "Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts," 1967, 16mm, silent, 9 min.; Gregory Markopoulos, "Ming Green," 1966, 16mm, sound, 7 min.; Barbara Hammer, "Dyketactics," 1974, 16mm, sound, 4 min.; Su Friedrich, "Cool Hands, Warm Heart," 1979, 16mm, silent, 14 min.; George Kuchar, "I, An Actress," 1977, 16mm, sound, 9 min.; Sadie Benning, "If Every Girl Had a Diary," 1990, video, 8 min.; and Glen Fogel, "Endless Obsession," 2000, 16mm, sound, 6 min.

Halter is a 2009 recipient of the Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and from 1995 to 2005, he programmed and oversaw the New York Underground Film Festival.

He has organized screenings and exhibitions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cinematexas, PS1, Artists Space, Eyebeam, the Flaherty Film Seminar, Participant Inc., and the Museum of Modern Art. He is a visiting assistant professor in the Bard College Department of Film and Electronic Arts.

Halter has lectured at Harvard University, New York University, Yale University and other schools; at Art in General, Aurora Picture Show, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology; the Images Festival, the Impakt Festival and Pacific Film Archive. He is the author of "From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games" (2006) and a founder and director of Light Industry, a venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, N.Y.