Charles Atlas

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is pleased to partner with Metrograph to present a series of programs highlighting our catalogue and its essential role in the history of artists’ moving image work. This program coincides with our ongoing celebration of EAI's 50th anniversary.

Beginning this month with a series of works complimenting Metrograph's Lives of Performers, a program probing titles that move between "the clarifying spectacle of the stage and the complexities of life outside of the spotlight," EAI presents a slate of works for both Metrograph's theater as well as its At Home online platform. Screening at Metrograph, catch theatrical engagements of Ellen Cantor's sprawling Pinochet Porn (2008-16); Charles Atlas's fictionalized profile of dancer Michael Clark, Hail the New Puritan (1987); and Mike Kelley's Mobile Homestead (2012), a documentary of his reconstructed childhood home's journey, as it travels down Michigan Avenue to be installed at Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (MOCAD). On their streaming platform, watch supplemental programs showcasing Ellen Cantor's diaristic appropriations of classic cinema and a collection of ebullient artists' videos by Atlas, Cheryl Donegan, Kalup Linzy, and Jacolby Satterwhite.

In-person theatrical screenings will take place at Metrograph at 7 Ludlow Street. Proof of a COVID-19 vaccine is required for entry, and a face mask or covering is required for all guests at all times. Online screenings are viewable through Metrograph's membership-based At Home streaming platform, with access beginning at $5/month. 

In theaters:

Pinochet Porn
Ellen Cantor, 2008-16, 123 min
Saturday, October 23rd, 7:30 pm
With introduction by John Brattin, the director of photography of the film

Hail the New Puritan
Charles Atlas, 1985-86, 85 min
Friday, October 29th, 8 pm 

Mobile Homestead
Mike Kelley, 2012, 157 min
Saturday, October 30th, 4:30 pm 

At home:

Selected Works by Ellen Cantor
Ellen Cantor, 1996-2002, 46 min
Available October 22 to 27

It's a Jackie Thing Shorts Program
Various artists, 1994-2007, 77 min
Available October 29 to November 3

Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) is pleased to co-present an online video program component of the exhibition DOWNTOWN 2021, featuring works by Peggy Ahwesh, Charles Atlas, K8 Hardy, Sky Hopinka, Kalup Linzy, and Jacob Robichaux.

DOWNTOWN 2021 is presented by LaMaMa Galleria and curated by Sam Gordon. The exhibition takes its name from the film Downtown 81, which portrayed a day in the New York City of 1981 in all its glory. Forty years later, the exhibition acts as a sequel to the film, taking inspiration from downtown as an idea, a state of mind, and a generative space—rather than just a geographic location—and extending its scope beyond Manhattan to galleries in Brooklyn and Queens—and online.

EAI is pleased to announce its first-ever Benefit Art Auction, to be held on Thursday, April 19. This special event will raise essential funding towards our mission of preserving and providing access to media art’s rich legacies, while fostering powerful new voices.

silent auction hosted by P·P·O·W
535 West 22nd Street, 6th floor, New York, NY

cocktail reception & screenings at EAI
535 West 22nd Street, 5th floor, New York, NY

online bidding available on Artsy

EAI is pleased to welcome Charles Atlas, for an evening dedicated to the life and legend of Leigh Bowery. Atlas will present his documentary The Legend of Leigh Bowery, a complex, candid portrait of his friend and collaborator. An artist, performer, fashion designer, model, and club promoter and icon, Bowery made an indelible mark on nightlife, fashion, and artmaking in London, New York, and beyond, in the brief period before his early death from AIDS-related illness in 1994. Through a wealth of archival footage and frank and uncensored interviews with friends, family, and fellow artists, Atlas traces the extraordinary impact Bowery had on culture, recalling his infamous nightclub Taboo, his collaborations with dancer and choreographer Michael Clark, his time as a muse to Lucien Freud, and his notorious, innovative, and influential fashions and performances.

EAI partnered with the Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC) and Times Square Arts to present Charles Atlas and Antony's You Are My Sister (TURNING). Atlas and Antony joined forces to create a special remix, which was shown on Times Square's electronic billboards from 11:57 pm to midnight each night in December leading up to New Year's Eve, as part of Midnight Moment. For Times Square, Atlas created a special remix of his vivid, multi-dimensional video portraits of women, which were originally processed and projected live as part of TURNING, a performance collaboration with Antony. In the live performances, Atlas' video visualization was paired with Antony's song "You Are My Sister," and his images mirror the lyrics' powerful message of strength, sisterhood, and transcendence.

EAI partnered with the Migrating Forms Festival to present a program of works that highlight Merce Cunningham's choreography for camera, featuring his close collaboration with artist and former Cunningham filmmaker-in-residence Charles Atlas, with whom he created a new and influential hybrid art they called "video-dance." The program also included a collaboration with Atlas, Nam June Paik, and Shigeko Kubota, staged for public television. Following the screening, Charles Atlas was in conversation with EAI?s Director of Distribution, Rebecca Cleman.

EAI proudly presented the premiere screening of Exchange (1978/2013, 40:19 min), artist Charles Atlas' newly completed film based on the 1978 dance piece of the same name by legendary dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham (1919-2009). Atlas—one of the foremost interpreters of dance, theater and performance on video and film—created the new film Exchange from never-before-seen footage that he shot in 1978 and that was only recently rediscovered by the Merce Cunningham Trust (MCT). The film captures a performance of Exchange by Cunningham and his company, with costumes and backdrop designed by Jasper Johns and music by David Tudor. Two of Atlas' earliest short films were screened before Exchange: More Joints (1972), featuring Cunningham's ankle in a starring role; and Nevada (1973), in which dancer and choreographer Douglas Dunn performs. Atlas introduced the screening and spoke about his long collaborative relationship with Cunningham.

EAI's 40th Anniversary Benefit included a not-to-be-missed program featuring special live performances by Joan Jonas, Shana moulton, Carolee Schneemann and Michael Smith; video pieces by artists including Charles Atles, Dara Birnbaum, Takeshi Murata, Bruce Nauman and Seth Price, among others; and music selected by Dan Graham.

EAI presented 45 Years of Performance Video from EAI, a survey of four decades of artists' engagement with video and performance. This project is presented in conjunction with 100 Years, an exhibition on the history of performance art organized by P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and Performa 09.

Merce by Merce by Paik is a two-part tribute to visionary choreographer Merce Cunningham. Blue Studio: Five Segments is a stunning work of videodance by Cunningham and his then filmmaker-in-residence, artist Charles Atlas, one of the premier interpreters of dance, theater and performance on video. In Merce and Marcel, Nam June Paik and Shigeko Kubota create a densely textured, transcultural collage that pays tribute to the eponymous artists. In a witty temporal layering that Paik terms a "dance of time," rare interviews with Cunningham and Marcel Duchamp by Russell Connor are intercut and superimposed.

EAI presented a screening of the work of acclaimed video artist Charles Atlas, followed by an in-depth artist talk. The recently restored Hail the New Puritan (1985-86, 85 min.), Atlas' groundbreaking collaboration with choreographer Michael Clark, was screened, along with excerpts from his recent Instant Fame installation series and his live collaborations with Fennesz and Antony and the Johnsons. Atlas also discussed his work with EAI's John Thomson and took questions from the audience.

EAI's program of alternative music-videos and music-based video by artists traveled to Art Basel Miami Beach. Screened at Art Positions' Open Air Cinema, the program included videos by Cory Arcangel, Charles Atlas, Michael Bell-Smith, Johanna Billing, Dara Birnbaum, Meredith Danluck, Devin Flynn, Shana Moulton, Tony Oursler with Sonic Youth, Ara Peterson, Seth Price, and William Wegman.

This special open-air video screening on the Hudson River at Pier 63 Maritime included alternative music-videos and music-based video by artists. The artists in the program included Cory Arcangel, Charles Atlas, Michael Bell-Smith, Johanna Billing, Dara Birnbaum, Meredith Danluck, Devin Flynn, Shana Moulton, Tony Oursler with Sonic Youth, Ara Peterson, Seth Price, and William Wegman.

Dia and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) presented a day-long screening of video works from EAI's collection. The videos screened featured works by artists who participated in collaborative programming presented by Dia and EAI at Dia:Chelsea from the mid-1990s until 2004. Artists included Marina Abramovic , Joan Jonas , Gordon Matta-Clark , Kristin Lucas , Mike Kelley , and Dan Graham , among others. Admission was free.

EAI presents ongoing programs that feature new and historical works from the EAI collection in Dia's rooftop Video Salon and Café. The Spring 2003 program included works by Charles Atlas, Phyllis Baldino, Kristin Lucas, and Leslie Thornton.

As the keystone of EAI's 30th anniversary events, Museum of Modern Art presented First Decade: Video from the EAI Archives, a major retrospective that looked at the early days of video through EAI's historical collection. Featuring 60 works, the twelve-part program explored themes and issues ranging from performance and the body; narrative; cultural essays; activism, and poetics.