Friday Night – 09.22.06—On Militarism, Nation-Building, and Propaganda – Lin + Lam with Gregg Bordowitz & Jennifer Montgomery

Contents:
1. About this Friday Night
2. About Lin + Lam
3. About Gregg Bordowitz
4. About Jennifer Montgomery
5. Useful links

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1. About this Friday Night

What: Presentation / Discussion
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor (directions below)
When: Friday Night 09.22.06 @ 7:00 pm
Who: Open To All

On Militarism, Nation-Building and Propaganda

Gregg Bordowitz, H. Lan Thao Lam, Lana Lin, and Jennifer Montgomery will have a conversation that takes as a point of departure Lin + Lam’s exhibition ‘Unidentified Vietnam.’ The exhibition extends from research into an archive of South Vietnamese propaganda films housed at the Library of Congress. Study of these films - their co-production, distribution, and acquisition by the US government - lead to considerations about the history of US interventions and propaganda as a tool for nation-building and democratization.

‘Unidentified Vietnam’ is currently on view at Gallery 456 (456 Broadway, 3rd fl.) until October 12.

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2. About Lin + Lam

Lin + Lam have been collaborating for the past five years. Paying close attention to materiality, site, and the specificities of different medium, their collaboration is a productive integration of their individual strengths and backgrounds. Trained in architecture, H. Lan Thao Lam also uses photography, sculpture, and installation to probe the construction of history and lived places. Informed by experimental and documentary film, Lana Lin’s art projects interpret different cultural contexts, raising questions about translation and the processes of identification. The artists have exhibited internationally at venues including the Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, rum46 in Århus, Denmark, the Economist Gallery in Hong Kong, and have received awards from the Fulbright Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Canada Council for the Arts, among others.

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3. About Gregg Bordowitz

Gregg Bordowitz (Born August 14, 1964, Brooklyn, N.Y.} is a writer, film and video maker. His films, including Fast Trip Long Drop (1993), A Cloud In Trousers (1995), The Suicide (1996), and Habit (2001) have been widely shown in festivals, museums, movie theaters and broadcast internationally. His writings have been published in anthologies such as AIDS: Cultural Analysis, Cultural Activism, Queer Looks, Uncontrollable Bodies, Resolutions; and numerous publications and journals including: The Village Voice, Frieze, Artforum, American Imago, Art Journal, Documents, and October. In Spring 2002, Bordowitz had his first solo museum show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. His book --- titled The AIDS Crisis Is Ridiculous and Other Writings 1986-2003 -- was published by MIT Press in the fall of 2004. For this recent collection, Bordowitz received the 2006 Frank Jewitt Mather Award from the College Art Association. In addition, he has received a Rockefeller Intercultural Arts Fellowship and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, among other grants and awards. Bordowitz is a member of the faculty of the Film/Video/New Media Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and he is on the faculty of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

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4. About Jennifer Montgomery

Jennifer Montgomery’s film titles include Notes on the Death of Kodachrome (2006), Along the Highway (2005), Threads of Belonging (2004), Transitional Objects (2000), Troika, (1998), Art For Teachers of Children (1995), I, a Lamb (1992), Age 12: Love With a Little L (1990), and Home Avenue (1989). These films range from experimental essays to experimental features, and are distributed by Zeitgeist Films, Women Make Movies, Water Bearer Films, and the Video Data Bank. Her work has shown at many international festivals, and at the the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), Gene Siskel Film Center (Chicago), the ICA (London), the Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis), and the Whitney Museum (NYC). She has been the recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Mary Nohl Established Artist Fellowship, the Jerome Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Wisconsin Arts Board, and Art Matters. She lives in Chicago and is an Assistant Professor in the Moving Image area at UIC’s School of Art & Design.

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5. Links

‘Unidentified Vietnam’ press release:
http://www.caacarts.org/

Lecture on the archive:
http://www.aaari.info/lana.htm