This is a slide-show reduction of the longer version of Jack Smith’s No President, as opposed to the 45 minute version in circulation. Of course this is in no way meant as a substitute for either the original or the extant feature. It’s just a bare little fragment of what was once a masterwork. It should be noted that I’ve also included frames from other works not nominally directed by Jack, but that is something he would do himself from time to time. He was, after all, an anarchist and presumably an adherent of the dictum: Property is Theft.
Arte Barrato
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SUNDAY NIGHT POSING SESSIONS
These are some of those photographs from Jack Smith’s Sunday Night Posing Sessions, which went on from around 1958 to 1962, and which led directly to the production of his first filmic masterpiece, Flaming Creatures. The principle models for these sessions were Mario Montez, Frances Francine, Irving Rosenthal, Joel Markman, Ronald Tavel and Marian Zazeela.
One of the pleasures in viewing the work of a particular artist one admires is the discovery of something strange and unexpected, if only in spirit. The other night I checked around to see which of Jack Smith’s photographs were available on Tumblr and decided to present some which hitherto haven’t been shown in this venue. These, I believe, are some of those from the late fifties shot on two and a quarter inch chrome (transparency) stock. I have a camera similar to the one used by Jack, but shoot on reversal stock when working in color, which is a hell of a lot cheaper. Certainly, much of the quality of these pictures (the rich intensity of the color) depends on Smith’s use of chrome film, but I maintain that the most important element in these works is the community he was able to gather around him at that time.
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