Artists Space

Summer Knowledge:
William E. Jones
v.o. + Film Montages (For Peter Roehr)

Film Screening
December 11, 2009, 7:30pm

Based in Los Angeles, William E. Jones creates film, video and publications that investigate pornography and other marginal media as ephemeral archives of queer experience. This evening’s event presents his featurette v.o.(2006, 59 mins), a grubbily austere, conceptually elegant collection of dramatic non-sex scenes from the William Higgins-era golden age of gay porn films, set to a variety of disjunctively highbrow European soundtracks: an interview with Jean Genet, or clips of dialogue from films by the likes of Werner Schroeter and Raul Ruiz. To be shown with Jones’ Film Montages (For Peter Roehr) (2006, 11 mins), a video made in honor of the German artist that takes simple repetition as its first principle.

A man, looking toward the camera, in the midst of pulling his shirt off exposing his torso. A subtitle typed in white at the bottom reads "No, I wasn
William E. Jones. Still from v.o., 2006. [A man, looking toward the camera, in the midst of pulling his shirt off exposing his torso. A subtitle typed in white at the bottom reads "No, I wasn't talking about death."]