Raphael Montañez Ortíz

An associative view of the days, nights and characters that enclosed the life of Arthur Janov, which defines in the conclusion "It's never too late to have a happy childhood". Arthur Janov (1924-2017) was a classic instance of being the right charismatic therapist at the right time - the zeitgeist. Dr. Janov first heard about the embryo to the primal scream through one of his patients when he performed conventional psycho dynamic therapy. It was an absurd theatre performance by Raphael Montañez Ortiz called "Mommy, Daddy" presented in London, 1966. The birth of Primal therapy happened when Arthur Janov's book, "The Primal Scream" was published early 1970.

Raphael Montañez Ortiz tells a story about an elderly Jewish couple that didn't watch television or listen to the radio. Instead they used to talk lovingly to each other for every day of their long marriage. And in a sense there was a glow around them. When the couple were young their daughter died from polio. And so this energy or glow, in a kabbalistic sense, was their guardian angel, their daughter. Therefore...

The concept of ritual-theater has been important since the early sixties in its production. It consists of the staging of violence through real acts that appeal to equally real and live emotions with an audience, that is, the action and the reaction that it provokes in the public happen simultaneously. This art of destruction represented by Raphael Montañez Ortiz is the theatricalization of a daily destruction, which we live in day to day.

The same year that Bruce Conner completed his famed A Movie, Montañez Ortiz destroyed a 16mm print of a banal Western, Winchester '73, with a tomahawk. He then placed the scraps of film in a medicine bag "to release the evil," intoned a ritual chant he had learned from his Yaqui grandfather, and spliced together the exorcised fragments in a random order.

A remix film combining elements of found footage and structural filmmaking by combining Humphrey Bogart's quote from Casablanca with found footage of explosions, emphasized by repetition.

In his film work from the early 1980s, the artist used an Apple computer hooked up to a laser disc player. He scratched the laser disc, creating a stammering image, and a disconnection between time and space.

Randomly spliced pieces of a newsreel featuring notable news from 1946.

1991 / U-Matic / b&w / sound / 1S / 3' 00

Raphael Montañez Ortiz tells a story about an elderly Jewish couple that didn't watch television or listen to the radio. Instead they used to talk lovingly to each other for every day of their long marriage. And in a sense there was a glow around them. When the couple were young their daughter died from polio. And so this energy or glow, in a kabbalistic sense, was their guardian angel, their daughter. Therefore...

In his film work from the early 1980s, the artist used an Apple computer hooked up to a laser disc player. He scratched the laser disc, creating a stammering image, and a disconnection between time and space.

Raphael Montañez Ortíz cycles through two clips: footage of a rocket launch and a clip of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon and manipulates and distorts the two clips to create a destructionist viewing experience.

Metaphor on the massacre with the help of diverted images and a very varied soundtrack. The soundtrack was added in 1962.

With the aid of the Computer Department at Rutgers University, Montañez Ortiz devised a software interface that allowed him to digitize a videotape by scratching it forward and backward, completely disrupting its temporality.

One of Ortiz’s final computer-laser-videos, marking a significant point in his career as an interdisciplinary artist and pioneer of the Destructivism movement.—Yesenia Perez

Raphael Montañez Ortíz takes a scene of the birth of Jesus taken from the television miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and distorts and manipulates it to create a destructionist viewing experience.

A several-second passage depicting a woman's agitated face is repeated in a loop that decomposes, distorts and reassembles her expression and gesture into an image of masochistic violence, whipped by gusts of voice synthesizer-induced, destroyed sound. The author appropriates the videotape and, through jerks of fast-forwarding and rewinding, it disintegrates the temporality not only of the original shot but also of the event depicted.

One of Ortiz’s final computer-laser-videos, marking a significant point in his career as an interdisciplinary artist and pioneer of the Destructivism movement.—Yesenia Perez

Raphael Montañez Ortíz manipulates and distorts a scene from the classic film Freaks using digital editing techniques to give the scene a destructive quality.

Raphael Montañez Ortíz distorts scenes from assorted World War II-era newsreels using digital editing technology to create a destructionist film.

Raphael Montañez Ortíz visually manipulates a scene of Spencer Tracy in his role from the classic film San Francisco to create a destructionist viewing experience

In the mesmerizing Beach Umbrella, 1985, a shapely woman in a white bathing suit tears across the sand at a panicked clip, pursued by the Technicolor trio of the Three Caballeros. When the woman at last collapses, the cartoon characters descend, seething in a manic swarm over her body, a scene somewhere between a feeding frenzy and a gangbang. Once satisfied, the trio zoom off, allowing the woman time to stand before they begin the chase anew.

Raphael Montañez Ortíz takes a scene from the film Phantom Lady and manipulates and distorts it using digital video software to create a destructionist experience.

Similar to the work of Martin Arnold, this outré and charged video-work employs footage from a Stroheim vehicle with film of a woman sexually straddling a mechanized pommel horse to suit its own message.

The concept of ritual-theater has been important since the early sixties in its production. It consists of the staging of violence through real acts that appeal to equally real and live emotions with an audience, that is, the action and the reaction that it provokes in the public happen simultaneously. This art of destruction represented by Raphael Montañez Ortiz is the theatricalization of a daily destruction, which we live in day to day.

Starting in 1985, Montañez Ortiz begins a series of what he calls “digital/laser/videos”; he makes a large number of these “arresting, provocative and suggestive” works

A selection of works from the late 1950's - late 1980's which begins with one of a number of piano destruction concerts performed at the DESTRUCTION IN ART SYMPOSIUM held in London England in 1966

by Raphael MONTAÑEZ ORTIZ 1996 / color-b&w / sound / 1S / 11' 15