Charles Atlas
Instant Fame!
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Vilma Gold is pleased
to present INSTANT FAME! a solo exhibition of live video portraits
by Charles Atlas. Created and projected simultaneously in the
gallery space, this work will evolve throughout the duration
of the exhibition as performers, sitters and voyeurs pass through
the gallery. For willing attendees, Charles Atlas will be present
for videotaping from 3-7pm daily, utilising a studio set up
in the gallery's project space. Images will be projected live
in the main gallery space during each shoot, and compiled over
the two weeks of the exhibition. Performative identities and
the dynamics of collaboration have distinguished Atlas' work,
evolving from close working relationships, friendships, and
often immodest creative contexts such as the East Village and
London club scenes of the late 80s. Over the years, Atlas has
addressed the portrait in various formats ranging from full-length
biographies for television, to video installations in galleries
and museums. Recently, his work has explored live video processing
— the focus of this solo project for Vilma Gold. Charles
Atlas’ video portraits are rooted in the history of Warhol’s
Screen Tests. However, Atlas’ history of collaboration
alongside the techniques of manipulation of the video in real
time generates a very different result. Participants are filmed
in the gallery’s project space, which affords an immediate
privacy, but with the knowledge that in the adjacent space their
image is being projected and manipulated live. Charles Atlas
has been producing film and television works since the 1970s.
With a strong emphasis on collaboration, and rooted in dance
and performance, Atlas’ has made such significant films
as Hail the New Puritan (1985-6); a fictional day in the life
of dancer Michael Clark, who he continues to work with to this
day, recently on the visual elements of Clark’s production
Mmm... at the Barbican. Atlas has produced such significant
works as documentaries The Legend of Leigh Bowery (2003) and
Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance (2000), a video portrait
of filmmaker/choreographer Yvonne Rainer, Rainer Variations
(2002); and Turning with Anthony and the Johnsons: a live concert
by the band with accompanying live video portraiture projections.
Many of Atlas' films and videos have been made in collaboration
with choreographers/dancers (including Merce Cunningham, Douglas
Dunn, Philippe Découflé, Yvonne Rainer and Michael Clark) and
performers (including John Kelly, Antony and the Johnsons, DANCENOISE,
Marina Abramovic, Diamanda Galas, and Leigh Bowery). He has
also worked with artists Marina Abramovic, Nam June Paik, and
the Judosn Dance Theatre. Atlas has created several large-scale,
mixed media video installations. The Hanged One had as its components
15 channels of video, programmed lighting, and kinetic sculptural
elements, shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1997.
Recent video installations have been exhibited at Participant
Inc, New York; XL Xavier LaBoulbenne, NY; the Aldrich Museum
for Contemporary Art, CT; The Kitchen, NY; Magazin 4, Austria;
Ost-Gut, Berlin; La Criee, France; and Performance Space, Australia.
Atlas is the recipient of three "Bessie" (New York
Dance and Performance) Awards. The most recent (1998) was in
recognition of the video collages made for the monthly event,
"Martha @ Mother.
To take part in INSTANT FAME! email: atlas@vilmagold.com
or call 020 8981 3344.
For further information or images please contact Sarah McCrory:
+44(0) 20 8981 3344 or: sarah@vilmagold.com
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Still from
Turning (Stacey)
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