YOU KILLED ME FIRST
The Cinema of Transgression
19 February–9 April 2012
Opening:
18 February 2012, 5–10pm
Press Preview:
17 February 2012, 11am
Karen Finley, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Richard Kern, Lung Leg, Lydia Lunch, Kembra Pfahler, Casandra Stark, Tommy Turner, David Wojnarowicz, Nick Zedd
There will be blood, shame, pain and ecstasy, the likes of which no one has yet imagined.
—Nick Zedd
Nightmarish scenarios of violence, dramatic states of mind, and perverse sexual abysses—the films of the Cinema of Transgression that were consciously aimed at shock, provocation, and confrontation, bear witness to an extraordinary radicality. In the 1980s a group of filmmakers from the Lower East Side in New York went on a collision course with the conventions of American society. Transcending all moral or aesthetic boundaries, the low budget films reveal social hardship met with sociopolitical indifference. Sometimes shot with stolen camera equipment, the films contain strident analyses of life in the Lower East Side defined by criminality, brutality, drugs, AIDS, sex, and excess.
Even though the movement has remained largely unknown, the Cinema of Transgression has been a significant influence for later generations of artists.
YOU KILLED ME FIRST at KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin is the first exhibition on the Cinema of Transgression.
Entry only over 18 years
With the generous support by the Capital Cultural Fund, Berlin.
The cultural programs of KW Institute for Contemporary Art are made possible with the support of the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs.
Program
Tuesday, February 21, 2012, 7.30 pm
Talk with Nick Zedd
Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 7.30 pm
Talk with Richard Kern
Saturday, March 10, 2012, 7.30 pm
Llik Your Idols, documentary about the Cinema of Transgression by Angélique Bosio
France 2007, 70 min., OV
Film screening in the presence of the director
Thursday, March 15, 2012, 7.30 pm
Lydia Lunch reads from her novel Paradoxia, A Predator’s Diary
Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 7.30 pm
Talk with Tessa Hughes-Freeland
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststr. 69
D-10117 Berlin
Hours: Tue–Sun 12–7pm, Thur 12–9 pm
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Further information:
Denhart v. Harling . T +49. 30. 243459. 42 . press@kw-berlin.de
