GUEST CURATOR: FRANCK GOHIER

To coincide with the solo exhibition of Franck Gohier’s work, we have invited the artist to select a number of documentaries, feature films and short films collections that explore some of the major themes in his work. Stylistically, many of the films share an aesthetic for a raw DIY cut-up style of editing including found footage, sampling media and imagery from popular culture, underground punk pop art and DIY culture. This collection reflects his artistic vision and influences.

1pm – Short film program

FRANCK GOHIER SHORT FILM SELECTION

60 mins | International & Australia | Unclassified

The short program includes a collection of Franck’s own short films shot on cheap digital handi-cam as well as documentaries and short experimental works that reflect his inspirations and core themes including Cyclone Tracy, sample culture, indigenous rights, pop art, and the life of an artist. The films include a tongue-in-cheek, playful tone that reflects Gohier’s own work. The compilation will be edited as a collage experiment in itself, mirroring the style of Gohier’s own composition style, with rough cuts, overlays, pop culture symbolism and non-sequiturs mashed-up into a fast-paced short film anthology.

2pm – Feature Presentation

DOWNTOWN 81

1981 | 72 mins | USA | Unclassified

Starring the legendary American painter, graffiti artist, poet and musician Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), Downtown 81 is both a post-modernist fairytale and a vivid depiction of the downtown New York art and music scene in the early 1980s. The film chronicles a day in the life of a 19 year-old starving artist (Basquiat) who must raise money to reclaim the apartment from which he has been evicted. Hoping to sell a painting to earn the rent, he wanders the downtown streets, painting in hand, encountering painters, models, junkies, graffiti artists, rappers and rockers whose lives and performances provide a slice of life from one of the most exciting periods in American culture. A "lost" film, shot in 1981 but not completed and released until two decades later, Downtown 81 not only captures one of the twentieth century's most interesting and lively artists in Basquiat, but also features music from many of leading musical artists of the era including Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Tuxedomoon, The Plastics, James White and the Blacks, The Lounge Lizards, and DNA.

IMAGE: Downtown (video still), 1981