Mike Kuchar

This exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day Project, a succession of films and videos in calendar form. Every day as of January 1st, 2007 and for an entire year, as indicated in the title, a large public (the artist's friends, as well as unknowns) were invited to view a diary of short films of various lengths (from one to twenty minutes) on the Internet. A movie was posted each day, adding to the previously posted pieces, resulting altogether in nearly thirty-eight hours of moving images.

The life and times of Baltimore film maker and midnight movie pioneer, John Waters.

It Came from Kuchar is the definitive, feature documentary about the legendary, underground filmmaking twins, the Kuchar brothers. George and Mike Kuchar have inspired two generations of filmmakers, actors, musicians, and artists with their zany, "no budget" films and with their uniquely enchanting spirits.

Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.

An epic tale of love and loss. Made using voicemails the Kuchar brothers left on her home answering machine, the artist reveals George and Mike in all their candid honesty leading up to and following George’s untimely death in 2011. McGuire floats their voices along a river of digital scribbles and her own voice in singer/songwriter mode. The beauty of the piece lies partly in how the voicemails, used as-is and chronologically, contain an entire narrative about love and loss in a DIY style reminiscent of the Kuchars.

A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.

A ritualistic mood piece with colour-rich images

The movie takes a rather negative look at things despite the fact that it was shot in reversal film. It depicts the turbulent relationships of disturbed individuals existing on various levels of an apartment house. Donna Kerness and her husband Hopeton Morris are lurid together and they are also pretty lurid when they're alone.

Return to the House of Pain documents my walking through the turf and sludge of the Big Apple and many worm holes... I chomp my way back west and gnaw on all that sinks stomachward and beyond in vertiginous aching.

A short film by George Kuchar.

"Curt McDowell's NUDES (A Sketchbook) is a paean to the filmmaker's closest friends: a series of portraits (beginning with one of George Kuchar) based on stylized, often graphically sexual interpretations of his or her personality. The portraits also, at times, represent Curt's own sexual interests as he projects them onto the lives of others. My favorites are 'Barbara', a Pre-Raphaelite vision of woman and 'Ainslie', a musical spoof on glamour. The filmmaker's point of view ranges from compulsively erotic to light-hearted and self-debunking. A broad reading of the term 'romantic' would probably best describe the spectrum of extreme, even outrageous, possibilities which Curt embraces in this sketchbook/film." - Karen Cooper, Film Forum

Seadrift is based on a story The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft, and was shot partially in Marblehead Mass. Each section represents a synthesis of the various aspects and moods of the story. The sum total of the fragments expresses the atmosphere of the whole.

The comings and goings of the late underground filmmaker, Curt McDowell—and the people and activities that came and went along with him—are the themes that run through this existential diary of daily life. McDowell was dying from AIDS-related illnesses during the production of the diary. “An elegy for McDowell, the videowork captures Kuchar’s mournful remembrances of his long-lasting friendship with the young filmmaker. But it also has the inquisitive charm, perverse humor, and quirky candor that places Kuchar’s visual expressions in a gritty niche all their own.”

A rare behind-the-scenes view of the exploding New York “underground” in the late sixities, a turbulent time and place that was to change American culture forever. A German TV crew, led by journalist Gideon Bachmann, explores the epicenter of the sixties revolution in art, music, poetry and film and interviews the main players in the “New American Cinema,” that was born on the streets of New York. Against a backdrop of cultural upheaval in all of the arts and growing political agitation against the Vietnam War, Bachman interviews the most prominent figures in “underground film,” including Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, the Kuchar Brothers and Bruce Connor, and visits the most notorious location in the New York art world of the era - Andy Warhol’s Factory - to conduct an interview with the genius of Pop Art himself.

A wide-ranging look at pictures I collect on my walls and in my head. A look at pictures I concoct with my students at the San Francisco Art Institute, and objects d’art collected by those whose picture is taken by my picture-taking machine.

A music-filled tour of Christmas good cheer overtakes this gastronomically oriented excursion through the winter season of discontent and yuletime yearnings craving ignition.

A behind-the-scenes look at the man behind the trophy and the poisons that taint an otherwise jubilant jamboree.

BIRD IN THE SKY is a gritty, poetic tale of a young man’s spiritual struggle on the streets of New York City. Rob has been given a second chance to right the wrongs of his street-wise past; he must perform a miracle to be saved. His fate lies in his love for a young woman, Kay, who is coping with the loss of her child.

Starring George Kuchar as "Hunk", Mrs. Ruby B. Davis as "Aunt Ruth", and introducing Melinda McDowell as the much-abused, sex bomb "Goldenrod".

In March and April of 1966, Markopoulos created this filmic portrait of writers and artists from his New York circle, including Parker Tyler, W. H. Auden, Jasper Johns, Susan Sontag, Storm De Hirsch, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, and George and Mike Kuchar, most observed in their homes or studios. Filmed in vibrant color, Galaxie pulses with life. It is a masterpiece of in-camera composition and editing, and stands as a vibrant response to Andy Warhol's contemporary Screen Tests. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2001.

A visit with the inimitable Mike Kuchar.

Portrait of siblings George and Mike Kuchar, who have made a name for themselves in the US underground scene with low-budget films.

In this dream-portrait, Mike Kuchar floats through his memories as the sea, space and sky drift past. Wrapped in odd costumes, he frolics with the imaginary creatures surrounding him, and recalls the creatures of his own imagination.

A moving tribute to New York icon Mike Kuchar, filmed on his last day before leaving Manhattan to relocate to San Francisco

One million years in the future, the human survivors of a nuclear war are served by robots called "fleshapoids." One day, fleshapoid Xar runs wild, kills its mistress and seeks its mate, a servant of wicked Prince Gianbeno.

One million years in the future, the human survivors of a nuclear war are served by robots called "fleshapoids." One day, fleshapoid Xar runs wild, kills its mistress and seeks its mate, a servant of wicked Prince Gianbeno.

One million years in the future, the human survivors of a nuclear war are served by robots called "fleshapoids." One day, fleshapoid Xar runs wild, kills its mistress and seeks its mate, a servant of wicked Prince Gianbeno.

...What once was for him "real," is now but a "dream," --for the day comes when we find ourselves stranded with memories.

There is a garden in the dark hunger of his psyche where forbidden fruit grows.

Playwright and performance artist Marc Arthur paves a color-saturated path from 'awake consciousness' to sleeping 'dreamscape'.

A ripe lad embarks on a raw correspondence with his mirrored image, and thus: the dialogue is "fleshed out" to its full potential.

Secret number... secret shape... knower of the secret name... God of the realm of night - I summon you, 'Son of Sin'... arise!

When the body's "primal" urges feel deprived in a "modern" age, a debate about "sex" and "love" ensues to resolve the question — perhaps even find some solution that will suffice!

Nymphs and Satyrs are conjured back into activity when poetry is recited and fluffy clouds sail above the contemporary, domestic landscape.

He is mute flesh that the stroking of fingers can bring to sing.

An angry trollop and a self-doubting college kid collide in his cramped apartment for an episode of claustrophobia and self-analysis.

It is believed that Life originated in the Sea, and like the Ocean itself, human existance is thus subject to tides and surging currents of emotions stirred up by memory.

Masked men prowling in the bushes and not touching anything but satin, dandelions and flesh.

This outdoor meditation is drenched with sunlight, carressed by breezes and blessed with a young man who discovers his special "role" in Time's dimention.

Be careful when you go out into the surf in a skimpy thong... the current can be treacherous and turbulent as is the human heart!

Commissioned to be a "promo" for a loud punk rock band, Mr. Kuchar feared that the noise the band made would spoil the mood of his visuals, so he used the sound of a lush orchestra to score the picture and the antics.

A vain, self centered mother competes with her daughter in the world of carnivorous men and sleazy movies.

He hears the whispers of gargoyles in a hall of heavy stone.

A "grand dame's" delirious daydream blooms like a voluptous blossom in spring.

The Vagabond...what does he seek? - ask the River, ask the Wind - but don't ask Him!

A contemplative, static walk in the woods.

A girl with two male companions in a room is a space where the mind's eye wanders!

With lashings of humour and affection, this much-loved filmmaker and his students create a wonderful journey from the chaos of hell to the paradise of poetry, each of them playing a mystical character who helps lead the way. —London Film Festival