Golub: Late Works Are the Catastrophes

Gordon Quinn and Maria Fintzo's journey to Virginia next week was recently covered by the Virginia Tech Collegiate Times. A reminder that both Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes and Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita will be screened during events on campus next week.

Kartemquin's Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes is screening at 7:00pm on Tuesday, April 15th at Virginia Tech University. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with Gordon Quinn and Virginia Tech professors from the Departments of Art and Art History, Communication/Film Studies, and Religious Studies. Get more information about the event.

Kartemquin's recent Golub/Spero DVD release was featured on the Provisions Library "blog for the arts of social change." Check it out.

Kartemquin's Jerry Blumenthal's letter to the editor at The Nation Magazine this past February was quoted, along with several references to Kartemquin's documentary, Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes, in a recent article in Monthly Review magazine.

Kartemquin is excited to announce that Golub: Late Works Are the Catastrophes is screening as a part of the 2007 Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival on October 24th and 26th. Filmmaker Jerry Blumenthal will be in attendance at the screening on the 26th. Get more information.

The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center is showing Kartemquin's 2004 documentary, Golub: Late Works Art the Catastrophes, on Saturday October 27th as a part of their fall film series. Admission is free for museum members, and $5 for the public. Get more information.

Jerry Blumenthal was recently interviewed about Golub: Late Works to coincide with the doc’s screening at the Cucalorous Film Fest. Read the article

Our Golub doc is screening this Friday, November 10, 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM @ Jengo’s Playhouse as part of the Indie fest, Cucalorous in North Carolina. We’d love to see you there!

Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes has been chosen as an early selection into the 12th Annual Cucalorus Film Festival. Cucalorus 12 will be held November 8-11, 2006 in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina.

For more information, please visit the Cucalorus website

Kartemquin is excited about the release of the Golub/Spero_ DVD. Check it out on the store section of our website.

Join us for a screening of Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes with filmmaker Gordon Quinn, on January 31, 2006 in New York. The film begins at 8:00 p.m. followed by a discussion with Gordon. Tickets are $12 at the door.

Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue (and 2nd Street)
New York, NY 10003
212 505-5181

Golub: Late Works Are the Catastrophes will enjoy its New York festival premiere at the New York Jewish Film Festival next week. There will be two screenings of the work on Wednesday January 11th: a matinee at 1:30pm and another showing in the evening at 9:15pm. Both will be at The Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, 165 West 65 Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, plaza level.

Ticket Prices range from $5-$10. For more information please visit here.

The University of Chicago’s Kartemquin Retrospective culminates this weekend with a screening of Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes this evening at the Gene Siskel Film Center at 8pm, a Master Class with Gordon Quinn and Jerry Blumenthal tomorrow morning, Saturday the 12th, at 10am and a panel on Documentary at 1:30 following. Saturday’s events take place on campus. You can get more information here.

This Sunday the 13th, Kartemquin has two presentations at the Chicago Humanities Festival. At noon, “Revisiting The New Americans” with filmmakers Jerry Blumenthal, Steve James and Gordon Quinn, takes place at Depaul University. At 2:30, Gordon and Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune meet with John Callaway to screen a sample from our current production, Prisoner of Her Past and discuss the production at the Merle Reskin Theatre. More information on both events can be found here.

Golub:Late Works are the Catastrophes has been accepted into the New York Jewish Film Festival sponsored by The Jewish Museum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center, January 11-26, 2006. The film will continue its long and successful festival run with three screenings during this festival. More details to come.

The New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF) is a preeminent showcase for world cinema that investigates, records, and celebrates the Jewish experience. Founded in 1992, the annual Festival is a collaboration between The Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The New York Jewish Film Festival presents a diverse exhibition of narrative features, documentaries, and short films, including world, United States, and New York premieres.

Kartemquin Films’ recent documentary on the late artist Leon Golub, Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes is currently airing on Link TV. PBS will also run the feature documentary as part of its “True Lives” programming. Dates and times to be released.

An introduction to Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes delivered at a memorial service for Leon Golub at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, November 23, 2004 by Judy Hoffman:

We first met Leon and Nancy in 1985. We had been making films about labor, racism and sexism, and were exhausted. We were looking for a new project that could more closely articulate the issues we were personally dealing with as filmmakers. How could we, as artists, live in the United States and hope that our work might make a difference? We admired Leon’s work, how it reported on the world, and thought the issues he grappled with were similar to our own. So we went to New York to talk with him. As those of you who knew Leon will recognize, he was the one who interviewed us. We discussed some hard questions about how to make the film. Should Nancy be included, or in a film about Leon, would that portray her as a secondary character? Could we create a film about art that revealed interior processes? Could we make a film that was not dry, but had energy and life, and did justice to the people in front of the lens. Leon challenged us about our idea of art. He was insistent in his questioning. Luckily for us, he decided that we were the right group to make the film, and he gave us his permission.

We began filming over the next three years, following the creation of his canvas, White Squad X, from inception to exhibition. We would shoot footage, run out of money, raise more, and go back to New York to shoot again. Each time, Leon would roll out the canvas, start painting, and we would pick up where we left off. And so this ongoing relationship began.

We learned so much in making this film. Leon gave voice to ideas that we were only just beginning to consider. We filmed him. He taught us. If the film Golub is successful in creating a discourse about the artist, art, and politics, it is because Leon was so intelligent. If the film has humor, it is because Leon was so damn witty. That we made this film was due to Leon and Nancy’s patience, commitment and generosity.

After many lunches in their kitchen, of Grand Union chicken and sunflower seeds, many heated discussions, and much laughter, we completed the film in 1988. We continued to stay in touch with Leon and Nancy. We’d visit them in New York, or see them when they would come to Chicago. Jerry Blumenthal would call Leon weekly to talk about films, books, and exchange jokes. It was clear that we were not done with them yet. A film might conclude, but the people continue and change. That’s what distinguishes documentary film. The audience wants to know what happened to the people in the film. We wanted to know more about Leon.

So 13 years later, we began the follow up film The Late Works are the Catastrophes. Once again, we picked up where we left off. Leon had new work to present, that spoke to things unspeakable.

And we had a new medium in which to work, that allowed us to include topics we couldn’t address in the first film. The DVD Golub: The Late Works are the Catastrophes, presents the first film as well as our update. It includes two pieces about Nancy Spero by New York filmmaker Irene Sosa, and contains a gallery of Leon’s and Nancy’s work.

These later paintings of Leon’s, that you will see in the piece I am presenting, continue to “report” on the world, but with the dissonances and discontinuities that led Theodor Adorno, in his essay on Beethoven to proclaim, “In the history of art, late works are the catastrophes.” What is meant by catastrophe will be revealed in the film.

Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes has been accepted and will screen at this year’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam which takes place from November 18 to 28. Check back later for more details.

Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes will screen at the 27th Starz Denver International Film Festival from October 14-24, 2004.

With Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes (82 minutes) Kartemquin Films completes its chronicle of the work and times of the American artist, Leon Golub. Begun in 1985, the film ends with Golub’s death in 2004. Released in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandals and the 24-hour news barrage of war, fear, and terror, Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes is a powerful look at how we experience images of torture and the abuse of power.

Gordon Quinn and Maria Finitzo's trip to Virginia next week was recently covered in the Virginia Tech Collegiate Times. A reminder that both Golub: Late Works are the Catastrophes and Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita will be screened on campus during events next week.