Larry Jordan & Joseph Cornell

I was very excited when I discovered the animation of Larry Jordan three years ago. Today I noticed a number of his pieces on YouTube including Gymnopedies (1965, with an enigmatic score by Eric Satie) and Hamfat Asar (1965).

And here's another great find, Carousel-Animal Opera filmed by Joseph Cornell in the 1930's and later completed by Larry Jordan in the 1970's.

And speaking of Joseph Cornell, here's a nice slide show of his work, including some altered books which I have never seen before. And here's his strange upside-down, reversed and negative image world of By Night With Torch and Spear with a marvelously haunting sound track!

Here's an interesting bit that I learned on the YouTube site. Made by splicing together stock footage that Cornell had found and collected, the film premiered at the first Surrealist exhibition in New York 1936. Salvador Dalí, present at its first screening, was outraged, claiming he had just had the same idea of applying collage to film. He remarked that Cornell should stick to making boxes and stop making films. Traumatized, Cornell rarely showed his films there after.

Larry Jordan was one of a number of young assistants that Cornell hired to help organize his collections. I wonder if the blue predominating in Gymnopedies is a nod to Cornell's Rose Hobart (1936) which was projected through a sheet of blue glass.

And I can't close without mentioning this superb example of bizarre collage animation dating from 1959: Stan Vanderbeek's Science Friction! There's a bit with a television in there that must have inspired Joanna Priestley.

Illuminating Lawrence Jordan

I was excited to see the article: "Moments of Illumination: P. Adams Sitney on the Films of Lawrence Jordan" in the April 2009 issue of Artforum. I wrote about Jordan twice last December (Larry Jordan's Collage Animation and Spoiled by Technology?).

Jordan, (b. 1934) has just completed his longest film, a twelve-hour "visual autobiography" titled Circus Savage. His earlier work can be seen on a four-disc collection published by Facets Multimedia called The Lawrence Jordan Album.

Jordan worked with the poet Robert Duncan in 1955, and Duncan's partner, the collage artist Jess, introduced Jordan to the collage novels of Max Ernst. The style was an important influence that contributed to the development of Jordan's cutout animation.

Sitney cites this Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art Oral History Interview with Larry Jordan . He is author of the book Eyes Upside Down: Visionary Filmmakers and the Heritage of Emerson (NY: Oxford U. Press, 2008).

Spoiled by Technology?

Yes, I definitely have been spoiled in some areas, though in others maybe not spoiled enough. What I am getting to is a contrast between how beautiful images look when displayed on the computer screen (where you can make them look even better with the help of Photoshop and view them in a slide-show with square corners nicely matted by black) and how annoying they look on a cheap rounded television screen masquerading as a DVD player (where they have been cropped beyond your control and their original recognition) ! Despite this, I look forward to viewing subsequent discs of The Lawrence Jordan Album. My favorite on Volume 1. (even with the annoying buzzer) is Our Lady of the Sphere followed by Duo Concertantes, Gymnopedes, Orb, and Carabosse (in no particular order) . One thing I learned was how interesting these are when viewed in Forward x2! It's easier to study the scene changes when the pace is picked up a bit. My least favorite is the ponderous "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" which was read by Orson Wells, dedicated to Wallace Berman, and funded by a grant from National Endowment of the Arts.

Wallace Berman was known for his verifax collages. Two of my favorites are this one and this one.

Larry Jordan's Collage Animation

My latest Netflick is Disc 1 of The Lawrence Jordan Album. The description mentioned animated collages so I figured it would be right up my alley and so it is! I tried to watch it last night with a friend who is not "into animation" and stopped it before the end. I need to watch it alone. There were a couple that really grabbed me, and a couple of others that seemed too long. So far my preference is for the ones accompanied by soothing classical music. I have found three good sources of information on Jordan: Bright Lights Film Journal has a nice article by Garry Morris, Canyon Cinema has an annotated list of over 40 Jordan films, and Animation World Network has Jackie Leger's illustrated tribute which mentions the numerous artists who have inspired Jordan's "fantastic landscapes of the mind."