Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :

1. This Is Berlin Not New York

BSA Special Feature: This is Berlin, Not New York

“We’re trying to express the poetry of what we are doing in a non-traditional way”

New York collectivist artist stories are still happening thank God, even if the midsummer  bleached out sun of an August day on tenement bricks awakens you now in Ridgewood, Queens or Bedstuy, Brooklyn now instead of the Lower East Side or Williamsburg.

But why experience the creative chaos here only when you can find an equally tilted staircase in a Berlin neighborhood, and even more abandoned possibilities just by climbing on a plane at JFK?  The Antagonists Movement, a self formed crew (or gang) of 10 artists were inspired to pick up their collected works and ideas and transport them to Berlin in ’07 to mount shows and make art and meet people and sell t-shirts.

We’re so drawn to this story because the collective we were part of called “Open Ground” on Grand Street in Williamsburg did an amazingly similar cultural exchange with Wedding in ’05 with an artists group there and they also came to BK to mount a show in our space. We called it a “Williamsburg Wedding” and even then both these sister neighborhoods were beginning to feel the twinkling fingers of gentrification. We all could begin to feel it getting the upper hand; an increased call for the professionalization of art, and dwindling space to experiment and fail and experiment and succeed.

So when we saw the unpolished cacaphony of Ethan Minkers film, comprised of low-fi video and stills and doodles and animation and sound quality that veers from ditch to highway to hallway, we swooned. We knew these poems of discovery were inscribed on his heart as they are on the hearts of many artists still. The film stands on its own as a collection of events and conversations and collaborative craziness, which when stitched together with blunt instruments and colorful yarn creates a comfortable quilt on which to crash on the floor next to your friend who is on the couch.

This is Berlin, but really this state of mind is stateless.

Thanks and congratulations to these folks: Arturo Vega, Ted Riederer, Ethan H. Minsker, Richard Allen, Brett Farkas, James Rubio, Un Lee, and Crispy T.
Screenplay By: Ethan H. Minsker Directed By:Ethan H. Minsker
Produced By: Antagonist Movement.

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