Warhol's 16mm screen tests

Tonight we'll be showing a selection of Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, which are a fascinating series of moving-image portraits, shot over three years in Warhol's famous New York studio, The Factory. Filmed with Warhol’s 16mm Bolex camera, these silent, black-and-white films capture those whom the artist considered to have star appeal: Factory regulars, friends and other celebrities.

Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Jonas Mekas, etc

Stripped of the social sphere upon which their personas were constructed, Warhol’s subjects – Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Jona Mekas and Edie Sedgwick among them – react with varying degrees of comfort to the camera’s unflinching intimacy. Denied a voice or even editorial manipulation, every gesture is given a purity that is distinctly cinematic.

At once, these films add to and undercut their subjects’ personalities, exploring with a strange intensity the fine line between the public and the private, the authentic and the assumed, the tangible and the hidden…

Programme

Here is the list of people featuring in the screentests that we'll show (each person appears in one screentest of about 3 to 4 minutes):

#1   Ethel Scull  (1964)

#2   Barbara Rose  (1964)

#3   Robin  (1965)

#4   Jane Holzer  (1964)

#5   Lou Reed  (1966)

#6   Edie Sedgwick  (1965)

#7   John Ashbery  (1966)

#8   Jonas Mekas  (1966)

#9   Ann Buchanan  (1964)

#10   Paul Morrissey  (1965)

#11 Bob Dylan

Prints sent from MOMA in New York for the night!

The 16mm prints were sent to us just for the night, all the way from the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) from New York!

You can check out MOMA's website here: http://www.moma.org/

What others have to say about Screen Tests

“The sitter’s star potential is always tested: his or her physical stamina, embarrassment threshold, self-possession, charisma and (this is Warhol, after all) physical attractiveness.” – BRIAN DILLON, ART CRITIC

+ Live Score by Hapsburg Braganza

We're very excited to announce that the great Hapsburg Braganza will be composing the music and playing live to the screening. 

Hapsburg Braganza is a great experimental one-man band. 

He describes himself as a "musicmaker  of several different styles, including electroacoustic composition, solo electric guitar, psychedelia, sound collage, minimal electronics…"

 You can check out his music here:

http://soundcloud.com/hapsburg-braganza

EVENT ON FACEBOOK HERE

http://www.facebook.com/events/576281175734306/?fref=ts

TICKETS

On the door: £5 / £3.50 (concessions)

Or advance tickets online: £4.50 and £3 (concessions) http://www.wegottickets.com/event/204679