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Draft:Carla Liss

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Carla Liss (1944–2012) was an American visual and performance artist, and film actor. She was known for her associations with Fluxus and the London Film-Makers' Co-op.

Early life

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She was the daughter of the screenwriter and executive Abe Liss,[1] who worked as a creative director for United Productions of America and later owned Elektra Film Production who made TV commercials[2][3] Elektra was credited with "squeeze motion" technique of animation.[4] Abe Liss was the producer for Elektra of Flavio (short, 1963) directed by Gordon Parks.[5] He died on December 1, 1963, aged 47.[6]

Carla Liss was born in Hollywood, California. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Wisconsin, and the Film School of Boston University.[7]

Underground films

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In 1966 Liss appeared in the George Kuchar short film Leisure.[8] She took part in work by Andy Meyer, and Tom Chomont's Ophelia.[9] She was an actor in The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World (1970).[10] She was in Normalsatz / Ordinary Sentence (1978–81) by Heinz Emigholz.[11] Reynolds wrote:

There is little written on her ephemeral and responsive film practice, yet Liss's name can be traced through other, more feminist-inflected art networks from 1972 onwards.[12]

Nathaniel Dorsky, a friend of both, documented Kuchar and Liss in his short memorial film August and After (2012).[13] He knew Liss in New York, and later when she had a San Francisco apartment, and mentioned an affair she had with Felix Guattari.[14]

The London Film-Makers Coop

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An associate of Jonas Mekas of The Film-Makers' Cooperative in New York, Liss worked at the Film Maker's Cinematheque, in the 41st Street Theater. She traveled with him on European tours of the mid-1960s. She then was instrumental in bringing to London a major collection of New American Cinema works.[15][16][17]

The London Film-Makers Coop (LFMC), founded in 1966, was initially heavily under the influence of Mekas, who asserted some sort of ownership of it as a "branch". From mid-1968 Liss was an intermediary in a deal that acquired for the LFMC much of P. Adams Sitney's traveling film collection, seen at British venues earlier that year.[15][18][19]

Liss became the first full-time hire of the LFMC, in November 1968, her cinematheque experience being significant.[15][17][20] The Sitney collection films arrived in summer 1969. There had been a period of contention, with Birgit Hein in West Germany also strongly interest, with some agreement on sharing of catalogues. In the end London won out, offering a higher price.[21] Summer 1969 also saw the LFMC move into the new Institute for Research in Art and Technology, on Hampstead Road in north London.[22]

The new archive played a major role in the LFMC's library. Among other duties, Liss ran from it LFMC's film loan distribution, with Malcolm Le Grice.[15][23][24] In 1969, too, there was a gift to LFMC of a collection of Fluxus films, given by Liss and Mekas.[25]

In 1970 Liss married Nicholas Albery in London, as a marriage of convenience that allowed her to remain in the UK.[1][26][27] The 1973 exhibition "Three Friends" at Gallery House, London, by Susan Hiller, Liss and Barbara Schwartz, was supposed to be followed by an open exhibition "Women's Work"; but the latter did not take place.[28] "Three Friends" included experimental films.[29]

Fluxus

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In 1968 Liss met George Maciunas in New York.[30] Ken Friedman wrote in 1982:

She does not identify herself solely with Fluxus: she was a friend of Maciunas, and like many sometime Fluxus participants, whose engagement was primarily one of collegial affiliation and affection with one or another of the artists more clearly identified with Fluxus, her Fluxus work was restricted both to several specific projects and to a period of time now gone.[31]

After her London period, Liss had further involvement with Fluxus in the US.[32] She performed at The Kitchen.[33]

Notes

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  1. ^ a b Norton, Michael. "Albery, Nicholas Bronson (1948–2001)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/75949. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ Cohen, Karl F. (October 18, 2013). Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. McFarland. p. 185. ISBN 978-1-4766-0725-2.
  3. ^ Wasko, Janet (December 21, 2009). A Companion to Television. John Wiley & Sons. p. 96 note 40. ISBN 978-1-4051-9877-6.
  4. ^ Beckerman, Howard (September 1, 2003). Animation: The Whole Story. Simon and Schuster. p. 70. ISBN 978-1-58115-301-9.
  5. ^ Cape Librarian: Kaapse Bibliotekaris. 1973. p. 112.
  6. ^ Radio Television Daily. Scheuer Publications Incorporated. December 3, 1963. p. 3.
  7. ^ Friedman, Ken (1982). Young Fluxus: An Exhibition of Works by John Armleder ... [et Al.] : April 10-May 15, 1982, Artists Space. Committee for the Visual Arts. p. 55.
  8. ^ "Leisure". Kuchar Brothers.
  9. ^ MacDonald, Scott (1988). A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. Univ of California Press. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-520-05801-9.
  10. ^ Robertson, Patrick (1985). Guinness Film Facts and Feats. Guinness Books. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-85112-278-6.
  11. ^ "Normalsatz, filmportal.de". www.filmportal.de.
  12. ^ Applin, Jo; Spencer, Catherine; Tobin, Amy (December 14, 2017). London Art Worlds: Mobile, Contingent, and Ephemeral Networks, 1960–1980. Penn State Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-271-08136-6.
  13. ^ "Groupings of the Films". Nathaniel Dorsky.
  14. ^ "Personal photos: Early 1970's, San Francisco". nathanieldorsky.net.
  15. ^ a b c d Malchow, Howard (February 18, 2011). Special Relations: The Americanization of Britain?. Stanford University Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-8047-7399-7.
  16. ^ Curtis, David (November 24, 2020). London's Arts Labs and the 60s Avant-Garde. Indiana University Press. p. 76 note 25. ISBN 978-0-86196-980-7.
  17. ^ a b James, David E. (October 6, 2020). To Free the Cinema: Jonas Mekas and the New York Underground. Princeton University Press. p. 259. ISBN 978-0-691-21955-4.
  18. ^ Studio International. Vol. 190. Studio Trust. 1975. p. 179.
  19. ^ Curtis, David (November 24, 2020). London's Arts Labs and the 60s Avant-Garde. Indiana University Press. pp. 65–66. ISBN 978-0-86196-980-7.
  20. ^ "Luxonline Histories: 1966". www.luxonline.org.uk.
  21. ^ Curtis, David (November 24, 2020). London's Arts Labs and the 60s Avant-Garde. Indiana University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-86196-980-7.
  22. ^ Harper, Sue (January 28, 2013). British Film Culture in the 1970s. Edinburgh University Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-7486-5428-4.
  23. ^ Rees, A. L. (July 25, 2019). A History of Experimental Film and Video. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-83871-419-2.
  24. ^ Harper, Sue (January 28, 2013). British Film Culture in the 1970s. Edinburgh University Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-7486-5428-4.
  25. ^ Gaal-Holmes, Patti (May 2011). "Decade of Diversity: A History of 1970s British Experimental Film" (PDF). pure.port.ac.uk. University of Portsmouth. p. 191.
  26. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
  27. ^ Curtis, David (November 24, 2020). London's Arts Labs and the 60s Avant-Garde. Indiana University Press. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-86196-980-7.
  28. ^ Tobin, Amy (2023). Women Artists Together: Art in the Age of Women's Liberation. Yale University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-300-27004-4.
  29. ^ Gaal-Holmes, Patti (May 2011). "Decade of Diversity: A History of 1970s British Experimental Film" (PDF). pure.port.ac.uk. University of Portsmouth. p. 298 note 875.
  30. ^ Royal College of Art (Great Britain) (1999). From A to B (and Back Again): A Publication to Accompany the Exhibition Go Away : Artists and Travel : Royal College of Art Galleries, 17 April - 9 May 1999. Royal College of Art. p. 61. ISBN 978-1-874175-34-6.
  31. ^ Friedman, Ken (1982). Young Fluxus: An Exhibition of Works by John Armleder ... [et Al.] : April 10-May 15, 1982, Artists Space. Committee for the Visual Arts.
  32. ^ Curtis, David (November 24, 2020). London's Arts Labs and the 60s Avant-Garde. Indiana University Press. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-86196-980-7.
  33. ^ Moscovich, David (October 2018). "How Four Women Performance Artists Launched Emergency INDEX Volume 6 at The Kitchen". Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art.
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