The title of this live filmperformance comes from a piece of graffiti – “The Silence of Marcel Duchamp Is Overrated.” – found on a wall in an abandoned pier on the West Side Highway in New York City. The piers were a meeting ground for gay sexual encounters in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Partly in ruins, with long hallways, open rooms, broken windows, all surrounded by water, the piers were photographed, written about and filmed before they were torn down by the ’90s. The piers no longer occupy a physical space but they have since evolved into a historic artistic presence, becoming a metaphor for a shared past.
The performance includes music by John Zorn: Beuysblock, a portrait of the late artist Joseph Beuys. It begins with images of the pier, male torsos, cave-like drawings, urinals, the Hudson River, a spectacle memorializes the creatures that inhabited the piers. Toy soldiers seen through broken shards of glass are a playful take on the “Uzi” machine gun, referencing his expatriate Israeli and Jewish upbringing. His torn Barbie dolls and drag divas are superimposed on Troyano’s projections: a burst of fireworks and ballerina shadow play. What appears to be an image of a graphic fence is a projected fragment of a small mesh evening bag, one of the few things her mother was able to bring from her native La Habana, Cuba.
Uzi Parnes and Ela Troyano have a long history of collaboration and recently presented a live film performance at the Arsenal in Berlin for LIVE FILM! JACK SMITH!, Five Flaming Days in a Rented World. John Zorn composed the music for Troyano’s debut feature Latin Boys Go to Hell. He commissioned an expanded cinema performance for his portrait of Jean Genet, Elegy, which toured several countries for his record company Tzadik.
Uzi Parnes is a filmmaker, photographer, actor and writer working in New York’s art and performance scene since 1980. He worked with Jack Smith, shooting countless photos of him from 1982-1989 as well as writing on Smith’s theater. Parnes was the founder and co-director with Ela Troyano of the 1980s performance club Chandalier and from 2003 to 2005 he ran the Uzi N.Y. Gallery, in the East Village.
Ela Troyano is a Cuban-born filmmaker. Her short, Carmelita Tropicana, won the Teddy at the Berlin International Film Festival. Troyano has also worked as a theater director in a long-standing collaboration with her sister, the performance artist Carmelita Tropicana.
Contact: www.uziny.com
www.elatroyano.com
