Screening and discussion
Beth B
Sex, Power, and Control: The Art of Beth B, in conversation with Nicolas Ballet
08 Feb 2023
08 Feb 2023
The event is over
The career of American artist Beth B, one of the emblematic figures of the no wave scene in the late 1970s, reveals a burgeoning multidisciplinary artistic practice (installations, films, sculptures, videos).
Having trained at the School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC), Beth B made several experimental films and became a pillar of the New York underground scene: "Film seemed much more artistically expansive and inclusive to me. At the time, you could see a film for five dollars. I thought that made it easier to touch a larger, more diverse public." This transition to experimental film enabled Beth B to break free from the standards of the contemporary art domain with an alternative practice that evolved at the intersection of many themes: mind control, serial murders, psychiatry, physical and psychological violence, feminism. So many subjects that run through Beth B's works, at the centre of this evening of projections and discussions.
Works projected:
Beth B, Amnesia, 1992, 1 minutes
Beth B, Ida Applebroog, Belladonna, 1989, 12 minutes
Beth B, Out of Sight / Out of Mind, 1995, 6 minutes
Beth B, Under Lock and Key, 1993, 2 minutes 30 seconds (documentation)
Beth B, Hysteria, 2001, 3 minutes (documentation).
Beth B, The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight, 1983, 3 minutes 38 seconds
Beth B & Scott B, Black Box, 1978, 20 minutes
Beth B & Scott B, Letters to Dad, 1979, 12 minutes
Beth B, Salvation!, 1987, 6 minutes (excerpt)
As part of
"Who You Staring At? Visual Culture and the No Wave Scene in the 1970s and 1980s"
From 1 February to 1 May 2023
Museum, level 4, video collections space, film, sound and digital works
The presentation "Who You Staring At? Visual Culture and the No Wave Scene in the 1970s and 1980s" explores the visual and audio contributions of an alternative artistic scene that came to light in the low-rent districts of Lower Manhattan in New York in 1978. The failure of the hippy cultural and economic model at the tail end of the 1960s, and the commercial transformations of new wave and disco pushed the leading players of the No Wave movement to break with contemporary art and music circles.
Curator: Nicolas Ballet, assistant curator, Centre Pompidou New Media collection.
Beth B
La cinéaste américaine Beth B appartient à une génération d’artistes qui émerge dans le New York des années 1970, en marge des institutions culturelles et à la recherche de nouvelles formes d’expressions artistiques. Beth B est l'une des artistes les plus réputées de la scène new-yorkaise No Wave des années 1970. Elle investit de nombreux domaines de création : cinéma, théâtre, installations multimédias, photographie et sculpture. Son travail se poursuit aujourd'hui avec une carrière artistique prolifique sans compromis.
Nicolas Ballet
Historien de l’art et attaché de conservation au Centre Pompidou, service des nouveaux médias, Nicolas Ballet consacre ses recherches aux cultures visuelles alternatives, à l’art expérimental, aux sound studies et aux avant-gardes artistiques. Il a soutenu sa thèse de doctorat en 2018 à l'Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, où il enseigne l'histoire de l'art contemporain. Il est l'auteur de livres et d'articles explorant les apports visuels et sonores des contre-cultures et des pratiques artistiques expérimentales, notamment Shock Factory. Culture visuelle des musiques industrielles (1969-1995) (Les presses du réel, 2023).
Where
Cinema 2, level –1
When
08 Feb 2023
Beth B sur le plateau de tournage du film Salvation! (1987).
© Photographie Frank Ockenfels III.