Jack Smith | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1932-11-14)November 14, 1932 Columbus, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | September 18, 1989(1989-09-18) (aged 56) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Filmmaker, actor, photographer |
| Known for | Flaming Creatures (1963) |
Jack Smith (November 14, 1932 – September 18, 1989) was an American filmmaker, actor, and pioneer ofunderground cinema. He is generally acclaimed as a founding father of Americanperformance art, and has been critically recognized as a masterphotographer.[1]
Smith was raised inTexas, where he made his first film,Buzzards over Baghdad,[2] in 1952. He moved toNew York City in 1953.[3]
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The most famous of Smith's productions isFlaming Creatures (1963). The film, that first putcamp on the map, is asatire of HollywoodB movies and tribute to actressMaria Montez, who starred in many such productions. However, authorities considered some scenes to be pornographic. Copies of the movie were confiscated at the premiere, and it was subsequently banned from public view. Despite not being viewable, the movie gained some anti-heroic notoriety when footage was screened during Congressional hearings and right-wing politicianStrom Thurmond mentioned it in anti-porn speeches.
Smith's next movieNormal Love (akaNormal Fantasy, Exotic Landlordism of Crab Lagoon, andThe Great Pasty Triumph) (1963–1964) was the only work in Smith's oeuvre with an almost conventional length (120 mins.), and featured multiple underground stars, includingMario Montez,Diane di Prima,Tiny Tim, Francis Francine,Beverly Grant, John Vaccaro, and others. The rest of his productions consists mainly of short movies, many never screened in a cinema, but featured in performances and constantly re-edited to fit the stage needs (includingNormal Love).
After his last completed film,No President (1967), (Smith’s follow-up film,Sinbad In the Rented World (1972–1984) was never completed) he created smallintermedia performance and experimental theatre work until his death on September 18, 1989, fromAIDS-related pneumonia.[4] Smith produced many theatrical mini-productions, often usingslide projectors, in his loft and in art space settings such asArtists Space andColab'sThe Times Square Show. Descriptors oflobsters as greedylandlords dominate, along withcrabs,Atlantis, 1950sexotica music, and camp-glamorousNorth African costumes. A pungent odor of burningincense andmarijuana often perfumed the performances.
Apart from appearing in his own work, Smith worked as anactor. He played the lead inAndy Warhol's unfinished filmBatman Dracula,[5]Ken Jacobs'sBlonde Cobra, and appeared in several theater productions byRobert Wilson.
Smith also worked as aphotographer and founded the Hyperbole Photographic Studio in New York City. In 1962, he releasedThe Beautiful Book, a collection of pictures of New York artists, that was re-published in facsimile by Granary Books in 2001. As adraftsman, hisposters, hand written scripts and drawing-notes superimpose a very eccentric personal imagery onto the traditional language of theater.[6]
In 1978,Sylvère Lotringer conducted a 13-page interview with Smith (with photos) inColumbia University'sphilosophy department publication ofSemiotext(e). It was collected in 2013 inSchizo-Culture: The Event, The Book.[7] In 2014, it was released as a limited-ledition vinyl picture disc by Semiotext(e).
In 1987, Smith was awarded an honoraryDoctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) degree fromWhittier College.[8]
In 1989, New York performance artistPenny Arcade tried to salvage Smith's work from his apartment after his long bout with AIDS and subsequent death. Arcade attempted to preserve the apartment as Smith had transformed it – an elaborate stage set for his never-to-be-filmed epicSinbad in a Rented World – as a museum dedicated to Jack Smith and his work. This effort failed when the landlord decided to evict them.
Until the mid-2000s, Smith's archive was co-managed by Arcade, alongside the film historianJ. Hoberman via their corporation, The Plaster Foundation, Inc. Within ten years of Smith's death, the Foundation, operating largely without funding but through donations and good will, was able to restore all of Smith's films, create a major retrospective curated byEdward Leffingwell[3] atPS 1, the Contemporary Arts Museum, now part ofMoMA, put his films back into international distribution, and publish several books on Jack Smith and his work.
In January 2004, theNew York Surrogate's Court ordered Hoberman and Arcade to return Smith's archive to his legal heir, estranged, surviving sister Sue Slater. Hoberman and Arcade fought to dismiss Slater's claim, arguing that she abandoned Jack's apartment and its contents; the Plaster Foundation created the archive and took possession of the work only after 14 years of repeated, documented attempts at communication with her. In a six-minute trial, Judge Eve Preminger rejected the Foundation's argument and awarded the archive to Slater.
By October 2006, the foundation still refused to surrender Smith's archive to the estate, claiming money owed them for expenses associated with managing the archive—and hoping Smith's work would be bought by an appropriate public institution that could safeguard his legacy and keep the works in the public eye. According to curator Jerry Tartaglia, the dispute was resolved as of 2008, with the purchase of Smith's estate by theGladstone Gallery.
Smith was one of the first proponents of theaesthetics which came to be known as 'camp' and 'trash', usingno-budget means of production (e.g. using discarded color reversal film stock) to create a visual cosmos heavily influenced by Hollywoodkitsch,orientalism and withFlaming Creatures created drag culture as it is currently known. Smith was heavily involved with John Vaccaro, founder of thePlayhouse of the Ridiculous, whose disregard for conventional theater practice deeply influenced Smith's ideas about performance art. In turn, Vaccaro was deeply influenced by Smith's aesthetics. It was Vaccaro who introduced Smith to glitter and in 1966 and 1967, Smith created costumes for Vaccaro's Playhouse of the Ridiculous. Smith's style influenced the film work ofAndy Warhol as well as the early work ofJohn Waters. While Vaccaro and Smith disputed the idea that their sexual orientation was responsible for their art, all three are thought to have been part of the 1960s gay arts movement,[9]
In 1992, performerRon Vawter recreated Smith's performance "What's Underground about Marshmallows" inRoy Cohn/Jack Smith which he presented in a live performance[10] and which was later released as a film directed by Jill Godmilow and produced byJonathan Demme.[11]
PlaywrightRichard Foreman was influenced by Smith.[12]
Tony Conrad produced two CDs from the Jack Smith tape archives subtitled56 Ludlow Street that were recorded at 56Ludlow Street between 1962 and 1964.[13]
In 2017, Jerry Tartaglia directed a documentary calledEscape from Rented Island: The Lost Paradise of Jack Smith which is a film essay concerning the works of Jack Smith, aimed at the artist's most devoted followers.[14]
In 2009, Germany'sArsenal Institute for Film and Video Art [de] in Berlin staged Five Flaming Days in a Rented World, a festival and conference on Smith's work.[15] The event included several commissioned short films in tribute to Smith's films, the most noted of which wasGuy Maddin'sThe Little White Cloud That Cried.[15]
