John,
Thanks very much; I did not know about this. I first met Saul over 50
years ago, having started as film society in Cambridge that showed
experimental film; he was already an accomplished artist.
From the /Artforum /article linked to:
Last Thursday, MassArt released a “Campus Climate Update” to students
and staff that stressed the school's committment to ensuring a “healthy
living and learning environment.” This campus-wide letter came shortly
after Nicholas Nixon retired, following allegations of sexual harassment
made against him.
/My comment:/
I cannot imagine supporting the sexual harassment of an individual,
though Nixon is a photographer of such long-standing repute that one
would hope that he was offered the chance to make some kind of “I will
not do it again” promise in return for being encouraged to stay. But it
seems evident Levine could not harass by simply showing a film. More
importantly, is not the act of trying to create the very best, and most
original, art often dangerous, sometimes including risks to the “health”
of the artist? Does not the best art often break barriers, challenge,
feel threatening, perhaps even “unhealthy,” whatever that may mean, to
some viewers? I remember Stan Brakhage's fear of some danger to himself,
as he was making his wholly “abstract” (a word he hated) /Romans /and
/Arabics/, from the fact that he felt he was exploring some of the same
mental “strata” that Mark Rothko had explored in his paintings before
committing suicide. Especially in my own first years of viewing
avant-garde film, many of my deepest experiences were of films that I
found genuinely terrifying.
“With each touch I risk my life. ” – Paul Cézanne
Sounds like MassArt has become not so much an art school as a therapy
group – or a kindergarten.
Fred Camper
Chicago
On 4/1/2018 5:42 PM, John Muse wrote:
Surprised that I haven’t read anything here on the recent news that Saul Levine
"was pushed out of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design after
administrators accused him of 'harming students' by showing his film Notes After
Long Silence, 1989, to his senior thesis class.”
Here are a few resources:
Saul’s original post detailing his decision to “[retire] from MassArt,” as he says,
and his
reasons:https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10215932754649479&id=1165322620
The Artforum
article:https://www.artforum.com/news/filmmaker-saul-levine-leaves-massart-following-dispute-over-artwork-74844
Indiewire
article:http://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/saul-levine-mass-art-notes-after-long-silence-1201945678/
Saul’s Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/saullevine
Films mentioned in the Artforum article include "Notes After a Long
Silence"https://vimeo.com/73242778 and “The Big Stick / An Old
Reel”https://vimeo.com/89886468
j/PrM
*************************************************
john muse
visual media scholar
haverford college
he/him/his
http://www.finleymuse.com
http://www.haverford.edu/faculty/jmuse
http://haverford.academia.edu/JohnMuse
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