Art Stars: The Children of Jack Smith

The 8-minute micro-documentary, Art Stars: The Children of Jack Smith is, broadly speaking, an investigation into the influence of cinema on New York City performance art and artists. Jack Smith, a performance artist and filmmaker living and working in New York in the 60s, 70s and 80s, is best known for the controversial underground film, Flaming Creatures, which was central to the battle against censorship in NYC in the 1960s. Smith was profoundly influenced by cinema in both his films and live performances especially by the 1940s actress, Maria Montez. My subtitle, The Children of Jack Smith, can be understood as referring to two modes of influence on todays performers. The first is simply the way in which todays artists work are influenced by cinema in general contemporary, period, underground, or mainstream in the same way that Jack Smiths work was influenced by a particular style of film. The second interpretation is the way in which todays artists are specifically influenced by the Jack Smiths work itself his movies, performances, writing and philosophy. As evidenced by the documentary on the artist, Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, Smith had a profound influence on the performance artists of his time, and it was they that laid the foundation on which todays performers build. I interviewed three artists for the film: writer, performer, filmmaker and sex columnist Reverend Jen Miller; filmmaker, former b-movie actor, and proprietor of the underground performance venue Surf Reality, Robert Prichard; and Velocity Chyalld, extreme burlesque performer/producer, and front woman for the band Vulgaras. All 3 have very different relationships to cinema. Reverend Jen has written and directed films, several in collaboration with filmmaker Nick Zedd. She produces a superhero TV show on cable access called Electra Elf and Fluffer featuring her 7-year old Chihuahua, Reverend Jen Junior, as her trusty skateboarding sidekick. Robert Prichard began as an actor in B-movie cinema, starring in the Troma films The Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke Em High. He subsequently made underground films in NYC in the early 90s with filmmaker Matt Mitler, in what they called the Movie of the Month Club. In 1993, he opened the underground performance venue, Surf Reality, where he produced, directed, and performed in hundreds of productions. Velocity Chyalld is not a filmmaker, but a performance artist who takes the art of burlesque as a starting point, from which she leaps to, and dances on, the edges of acceptability. An aficionado of a diverse array of genres from David Lynch to Jean Harlow Velocity appropriates cinematic imagery for her performances whether borrowing the image of Harry Dean Stanton singing into a construction lamp in Blue Velvet for a live performance, or evoking the image of the 1940s Femme Fatale into her music videos.