Grandpa's Ghost and James Fotopoulos at White Flag Projects 4/1
Phosphorus Recordings
and White Flag Projects presents
Grandpa's Ghost
and James Fotopoulos
The Prairie Drone Refractions
and Christabel
8 pm (doors 7 pm), Sunday, April 1st, 2007
White Flag Projects
4568 Manchester Ave. (at Kingshighway) St. Louis, MO 63110, telephone 314.531.3442, www.whiteflagprojects.org
Free
A unique audio/visual immersion featuring the premier St. Louis screening of Fotopoulos' film Christabel (based on the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and previously seen only has part of his exhibit at the 2004 Whitney Biennial), followed by the first St. Louis performance in 3½ years from Grandpa's Ghost (whose line-up for this event features Bill Emerson, Jack Petracek, and Eric Hall; plus live telephone contributions from Ben Hanna) joined by new video works from Fotopoulos created especially for this event.
In The Prairie Drone Refractions, a performance/installation concept designed by Hall, the group will perform four 15 minute movements. Each will be recorded then played back during the following movements through a different pair of speakers. By the final movement, eight circularly-arranged speakers will broadcast all four layers simultaneously. Ultimately, this will construct an over-dubbed, multi-channel, surround-sound work exploring texture, harmonics, poly-rhythm, and the acoustic character of the space itself.
For further information contact Eric Hall: thirdlip@hotmail.com, 314.288.9585, PO Box 63453 St. Louis, MO 63163
Bios:
Grandpa’s Ghost
Grandpa’s Ghost (formed in 1995 by Ben Hanna and Bill Emerson) have released 7 albums (including 2 double discs), collaborated on 3 DVDs, and contributed to 8 compilations. While Emerson lives in Pocahontas, IL and Hanna currently lives in NYC, both record, either separately or together, as Grandpa's Ghost, and frequently utilize performers from across the country; which in recent years has mostly involved different combinations of New York's Tobi Parks (prolific bassist for the avant-artrock trio The Star Death; currently with Is That You? and a handful of NYC bands), St. Louis' Jack Petracek (esteemed drummer, producer, and engineer), Chicago resident Christopher Dee (guitarist for minimalist-art-punk outfit The Conformists), and St. Louis-based Eric Hall (installation/sound artist and electro-acoustic performer).
While focusing mostly on studio work (the collective has 8 soon-to-be-released albums completed and others nearly ready), there have been numerous sporadic live performances, including touring with Mike Watt (the Minutemen, fIREHOSE) and Andrew Bird (Squirrel Nut Zippers, Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire), co-headlining the 2003 Stockage festival, and collaborating with Fotopoulos at the 2004 Chicago Underground Film Festival; the 2003 New York Underground Film Festival Audio/Visual; and at New York's Knitting Factory and Monkeytown. In 2001, 2002, and 2003 they were chosen by the readers of the St. Louis Riverfront Times as the "Best Eclectic/Uncategorizable Band".
Reviews:
"...Grandpa’s Ghost, a group operating without a safety net whose willfully drawn-out experimentation co-exists with the distorted guitars and lonesome whine of psychedelicised Country rock." -Tom Ridge, The Wire
"The repetition makes you lose track of time and sequence. But its unplacableness, the way it sounds different each time, addicts… One of America’s best bands." -Jon Fine, The Village Voice
"If Grandpa really does have a ghost, he's a changeling who appears without warning, rattles all hell out of his chains (and amps and drums), moans in eternal torture, disappears, then creeps back into your home, whispering sweetly over acoustic strains, as if begging forgiveness for all the racket. You never know what Grandpa's Ghost you'll get, either on disc or in concert. That's in part because the band remains unknown to itself -- and the members like it that way." -Roy Kasten, St. Louis Riverfront Times
"...Feels like the haze and heat of a perpetual Midwestern twilight. The amp buzz sounds like insects; guitar hiss rushes like wind howl. Occasionally, its more raucous and ethereal, hinting at the madness of minds too sophisticated to be stuck in the middle of nowhere, yet deft enough to channel it eloquently..." -Dave Schutz, Rocky Mountain Bull Horn
James Fotopoulos
Chicago-based video-artist James Fotopoulos' works have been exhibited and praised worldwide, including the 2002 Anthology Film Archives, 2004 Whitney Biennial, 2005 Creative Capital Grant, 2005 Belgium Contour Biennial for Video Art, Museum of Modern Art, International Film Festival Rotterdam, London Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Walker Art Center, Andy Warhol Museum, Chicago Underground Film Festival, and New York Underground Film Festival. He is currently working on his first commercial feature.
Reviews:
"...Fotopoulos's sparse, primitive work on 16-millimeter has given way to a green-screen-driven video-compositing style all his own... 'The thing with video is it's so easy that it allows you an almost surgical level of doing things that film never did,' Fotopoulos said. 'With digital, I can work like I draw - it's that free.'" -Paul Cullum, The New York Times
"James Fotopoulos' films tend to be viewed in the same circles as those who embrace Canadian experimental filmmaker Guy Maddin or those macabre wizards of weird, the Brothers Quay... If there's an apt comparison among recognizable names it would be David Lynch -- the David Lynch who made "Eraserhead" on a shoestring and delivered visuals that haunt to this day. Others may see a dash of David Cronenberg at work..." -Wade Major, Boxoffice
"...James Fotopoulos, the massively prolific Chicagoan who at the age of 29 possesses a filmography of features, shorts, installations and indescribables soon to number in the triple digits,...an artist fully embracing digital imaging and photographic technologies in his recent work...he truly does use the technology to control every element himself and compares the process favorably with the freedom he experiences drawing." -Spencer Parsons, Emulsion Magazine
"James Fotopoulos may well be one of the few creative giants of early 21st century cinema." -Maximilian Le Cain, Film Ireland
Phosphorus Recordings
(www.phosphorusrecordings.com)
When heated under the pressure of 10,000 atmospheres it is converted into black powder.
Phosphorus Recordings is the commercial outlet created by Grandpa's Ghost, James Fotopoulos, and Tobi Parks as an umbrella distributor of works by those artists, as well as peripheral projects by artists related to, or revered by, the collective.
Releases thus far:
Grandpa's Ghost
- "Music From The Fotopoulos Projects" CD-001
74 minute, 13 track CD. Selected music from the (soon-to-be-released) triple DVD collaboration with James Fotopoulos.
James Fotopoulos & Tobi Parks as Criminal Intent
- "Criminal Intent" CD-002
47 minute collaborative composition, performance, and recording.
Garrigan, Parks, Hanna
- "Improvisations of the Subterranean Sunset Blues" CD-003
68 minute, 11 track CD. Dynamic improvisations from trio Parks, Hanna, and Tim Garrigan (formerly of Dazzling Killman, Phut, and You Fantastic!).
James Fotopoulos
- "Christabel" DVD-001
74 minute DVD. Based on the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Exhibited at the 2004 Whitney Biennial.
James Fotopoulos
- "The Lime Book" BOOK-001
Over 400 original drawings with an extensive interview by Village Voice critic Ed Halter.
In addition to these, Phosphorus also distributes the Grandpa's Ghost releases "Il Bacio" (CD, Upland 002), "Stardust & Smog/Early Autumn Waltz at the Two/Fourteen" (2-CD, Upland 006), and "(The Tumble/Love Version): Hear Past the Static" (2-CD, Upland 011). Furthermore, numerous CDs, DVDs, LPs, and limited edition CD-Rs are planned for release throughout the year.
White Flag Projects
4568 Manchester Ave. (at Kingshighway) St. Louis, MO 63110, telephone 314.531.3442. Gallery hours: Wednesday noon-7 pm, Saturday noon-5 pm
White Flag Projects is St. Louis' premiere alternative art venue. Located in a spectacularly renovated industrial building in the burgeoning Grove neighborhood, White Flag Projects is a nonprofit alternative art gallery established to improve the quality of contemporary visual arts in St. Louis by facilitating meaningful exhibitions of quality work by progressive local, national, and international artists. White Flag Projects features over 2000 square feet of dramatic exhibition space, ceiling heights from 15 to 22 feet, massive north-facing windows, 12 foot skylights, polished concrete floors and a custom-made spiral staircase leading to a second floor lounge and reading room overlooking the gallery.
Review:
"...Matthew Strauss continues: 'If you look at the commercial galleries, they all have reasonably ambitious programs, but they're not that big, and they really aren't able to do shows that are not particularly saleable. They'll do some progressive unsaleable shows, but at the same time, they all do unthinkably bad shows for whatever mercantile reasons. What I began to realize was that since the Forum for Contemporary Art had evolved into the Contemporary [Art Museum St. Louis] with a new building, a new name and a much bigger budget, suddenly there was nothing above the commercial galleries and below the museums where artists could exhibit their more experimental work.' White Flag is Strauss' response. 'This is a nonprofit with no eye at all towards what we think is saleable,' says Strauss. 'Quality and sales are inversely proportionate: The better a piece of art is, the harder it is to sell in St. Louis, and the worse it is, the easier it is to sell.'" -Malcolm Gay, St. Louis Riverfront Times
contact info: eric hall. pobox63453. stlmo63163. 314.288.9585. thirdlip@hotmail.com.
