From: Jerry Tartaglia (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Nov 18 2009 - 05:09:04 PST
U-P formerly at 814 Broadway, 4th floor. Later (1978 or so) became O-P.
This was an Equipment co-op and Screening Room. Jack Smith did several
performance there, including, "I Was A Mekas Collaborator". He also shot
film there, including material for his 'Hamlet."
Rafic Alzouney was the person who kept the place together and also ran a
very small film and supply business. Filmmakerswould show there work,
either in planned one person per evening shows or in open screenings. I
helped Rafique run the open screenings every friday night for a period in
around 1974-5.
I remember Jack, Akiko Iimura, Herbert Jean DeGrasse, Taka, and several
"celebrity" filmmakers as well..
The place was funded by members who used the equipment after joining by
either placing equipment into the pool for everyone to use or by putting in
the exhorbitant amount of $200 cash!!! It was a great place to make films
and be with filmmakers before all the crap started.
By the late 70s the canonizations were beginning and we met one day to
disolve the co-op. At that point, Rafic retained the physical space and
closed the upper portion of the "U" in U-P and it became "O" - O-P.
It continued for awhile as O-P, and Nick Zedd and others continued the
underground work of that unsung, unheralded place.
Rafic went on to incorporate and found RAFIK -
Jerry T
Jerry Tartaglia
http://www.jerry501.com
"This is just what I expected!" (Jack Smith)
----- Original Message -----
From: "redmond entwistle" <email suppressed>
To: <email suppressed>
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 6:22 PM
Subject: History of NY film and video venues
> Dear Frameworkers,
>
> For an exhibition at Art in General in Jan 2010 I'm putting together a
> list of now closed underground/self-organized film and video venues in
> New York, and trying to assemble a cinema with remnants of seating from
> these spaces. The cinema will play host to two series of film screenings
> and a lecture series from Jan through March. My list is rather narrow at
> present:
>
> Anthology Film Archives (Public Theater location & 80 Wooster St.)
> Collective for Living Cinema
> Ocularis
> Four Walls
> Orchard Gallery
>
> Any suggestions would be much appreciated, especially with regards
> earlier periods of film viewing in the city. Spaces could be anything
> from galleries with strong video programs, to microcinemas, flea-pits
> and purpose-built spaces. The common element would be that viewing was
> for a collected, seated audience.
>
> And if you happen to have a chair or chairs from one of these spaces I'd
> like to talk with you about a loan for the 8 week duration of the show,
>
> Redmond
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.