August 7, 2011

Last Address (2010, USA, 9 min.)
Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, Norman René, Peter Hujar, Ethyl Eichelberer, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Cookie Mueller, Klaus Nomi … the list of New York artists who died of AIDS over the last 30 years is countless and the loss immeasurable. In Last Address, filmmaker Ira Sachs (The Delta, Married Life, and the 2005 Sundance Grand Jury Prize–winning Forty Shades of Blue) uses images of the exteriors of the houses, apartment buildings, and lofts where these artists were living at the time of their deaths to mark the disappearance of a generation. The elegiac work is both a remembrance of that loss, as well as an evocation of the continued presence of their work in our lives and culture.

Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell (2008, USA, 71 min.)
Wild Combination is director Matt Wolf’s visually absorbing portrait of the seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his untimely death from AIDS in 1992, Russell prolifically created music that spanned both pop and the transcendent possibilities of abstract art. Now, over 15 years since his passing, Russell’s work is finally finding its audience. Wolf incorporates rare archival footage and commentary from Russell's family, friends, and closest collaborators—including Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg—to tell this poignant and important story.

6 pm open seating
6:15 pm screening

Image: courtesty Matt Wolf/Wild Combination