Jerry Tartaglia
2021It was in that early environment that he formulated a non-narrative film practice, seeking to realize the other potentialities of Cinema using 16mm film, which was the predominant technology of that time.
He was the first to write about “the gay sensibility in American Avant-Garde film” and his 1977 article in The Millennium Film Journal is regarded a seminal statement on the subject. At a time when the LGBT culture was an underground subculture, it served as an inspiration for the founders of several American LGBT Film Festivals.
His work has been screened around the world and was included in the Century-end retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, “The Art of the 20th Century.”
Since 1990, seven of his films have been premiered at the Berlinale – The Berlin International Film Festival. Manfred Salzgeber, the founding force behind the Panorama Section of the festival, helped bring Tartaglia’s work to European audiences through exhibition and distribution.
In 1993 he was one of the twelve artists who created the Red Ribbon as a symbol of A.I.D.S. awareness through the Artists’ Caucus of Visual AIDS in NYC, paving the way for awareness ribbons of all kinds.
By the turn of the 21st Century, Tartaglia had made the transition to Digital Moving Image Production, though he did continue working with 16mm celluloid. He became increasingly interested in producing work that challenged the complacency of the screen/viewer relationship, and developed a series of “Live Film Action” works under the rubric The Way of the World.
In 2013 he completed a video that is a resetting of the 1933 film Das Blaue Licht by Leni Riefenstahl. A Short History of the Future examines the question of artistic neutrality in America today.
He has recently completed a feature length experimental film essay concerning the works of Jack Smith. Using audio tape recordings made by Smith, along with Smith’s film material and previously unseen visual art, Escape From Rented Island: The Lost Paradise of Jack Smith examines Smith’s aesthetic principles and ideas using only his own work. It received its international premiere at the 68th Berlin Film Festival in 2018.
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Mary Jordan
Jack Smith, Nayland Blake
In this entrancing documentary on performance artist, photographer and underground filmmaker Jack Smith, photographs and rare clips of Smith's performances and films punctuate interviews with artists, critics, friends and foes to create an engaging portrait of the artist. Widely known for his banned queer erotica film Flaming Creatures, Smith was an innovator and firebrand who influenced artists such as Andy Warhol and John Waters.
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Escape From Rented Island: The Lost Paradise of Jack Smith
Jerry Tartaglia
Jack Smith, Mario Montez
In his essay film, Jerry Tartaglia, longtime archivist and restorer of the film estate of queer New York underground, experimental film, and performance legend Jack Smith, deals less with Smith’s life than with his work, analyzing Smith’s aesthetic idiosyncrasies in 21 thematic chapters. It's a film essay about the artist’s work, rather than a documentary about his life. An unmediated vision of Jack Smith, an invitation to join him in his lost paradise.
Escape From Rented Island: The Lost Paradise of Jack Smith
A.I.D.S.C.R.E.A.M.
Jerry Tartaglia
A.I.D.S has become a convenient excuse to desexualize gay culture and to terminate the gay liberation movement. This film confronts the viewer to these facts. A.I.D.S.C.R.E.A.M. was selected for the A.I.D.S. Media: Counter - representations program of the Whitney Museum, 1989.
A.I.D.S.C.R.E.A.M.
A Short History of the Future
Jerry Tartaglia
A Short History of the Future is a film essay based upon Jerry Tartaglia's study of Leni Riefenstahl’s 1932 film Das Blaue Licht. Selected sequences from her film have been reedited in order to highlight the interior process of creative focus in the mind of a film artist.
A Short History of the Future
