STEVEN’S LOVE OF GEORGES MELIES
A still from one of Georges Melies' films.
Steven Arnold first discovered Méliès in the 1960s on a trip to Europe with students from the San Fransisco Art Institute – he was instantly spellbound. Méliès’ influence on Steven’s work can be seen through Arnold’s use of fantastic dream imagery, his intricate, painted cut-out sets, his skill for floating or flying people and objects, and his use of double exposure, for all of which Méliès laid the groundwork.
Steven Arnold's photographs clearly show signs of his admiration for Georges Melies.
And without him, not only would we have been deprived of Méliès’ amazing cinematic visions, but we may have missed out on some of Steven’s contributions as well.
Watch our video portrait, and see Steven talk about his influences, including Méliès, Dalí, and more HERE.
ALTHEA AT 13 WITH KUSKA, WHO ALWAYS WEARS HIS LITTLE CROWN
Steven borrowed the monkey in this photograph from the highly respected window dresser and fashion enthusiast, Simon Doonan, one of Steven's great friends and supporters.
“The images in Steven’s work cover the broadest possible range, from the commonplace to the most arcane. You will find a teaspoon, you will find a skull. There are drag-queens and Gods, fishes and angels, nudes and fools; trivia mingles with idealism, esoterica with kitch. He wants you to have a good time, he wants you to be transformed forever, he wants to trouble and amuse you, poke fun at you and put you in a sweat, he wants you to feel wonderful and we are all invited to the party he’s giving in heaven. Black tie optional: you might prefer yourself in polka dots and globs of golden goo.”
JAMES LEO HERLIHY, WRITER OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY
THE SHRINES OF ZANZIBAR
An excellent example of the intricate shrine scenes that Steven created in every corner of his Los Angeles studio, Zanzibar. This particular image highlights not only Steven’s flare for interior design, but his talent for assembling found and innexpensive items into large, elborate assemblage sculpture.
PRAYER FOR THE CURE
“ Sometimes I’m not sure I like being nailed to the word tableaux, even though it’s the one I myself use most often in referring to these pieces. I also think of them as magical Rorschach tonkas. The word tonka implies a certain usefulness as an object for meditation. I like that. What the hell. Call them tablonkas! Or tongleaux! Whatever they are, I’ve found a great happiness in this form. It uses every part of me.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
DINING AT ZANZIBAR
A shining example of one of the eccentric realities Steven created in the old pretzel factory that he transformed into Zanzibar Studios. This dining room followed a long tradition of elaborate dinner settings, which Steven pulled off with great panache.
Michael Wiese reminisces about a dinner in the early days when the two were making films together in San Fransisco: “I’ll never forget the night he invited me over for dinner. We were both very poor and exhausted from our week’s work together. He said, ‘Come over, dahling, for dinner tonight. I’ll cook for just the two of us.’ I went and the table was set so visually elegant, a’ la Liberace, with beautiful candelabras. Then he proceeded to open up a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and served it with cheap Campari.”
“He’s the only person I’ve ever seen eat a donut with a fork and knife,” recalls Joseph Zacarella, star of Messages, Messages. “He did it with total seriousness. He knew I was breaking up inside. Every move was just so beautiful.”
DRESSED FOR DALI
“Although androgyny is rooted in antiquity, it carries a powerful message for our own time. Spiritual perfection depends precisely on rediscovering one’s androgynous nature. Androgyny knows no boundaries. It leads us beyond the tyranny of convention. Androgyny may indeed be the guiding principle of the new age. It is the incarnation of totality.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
LA GRANDE DAME OF THE UNIVERSAL OPERA
- An original, never-before seen etching from the mid-sixties.
“We are just waking up to the new age and the ancient teachings. We can collect, cross-reference and compute these teachings into one ever-changing structure. Finding the forms to communicate our collections is the key.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
REMINDER: BARCELONA SCREENINGS THIS THURSDAY
A still from Steven's film "The Liberation of Mannique Mechanique."
WHAT: SCREEN FROM BARCELONA FESTIVAL
WHEN: THURSDAY, JANUARY 19
WHERE: Palau de la VirreinaDESCRIPTION:
SESSION 4 : QUEER SURREALISM (I)
Presentation by James Boaden
Screenings: Steven Arnold, The Liberation of Mannique Mecanique, (1967,15 min., mute)
+ Luminous Procuress (1971,74 min., V.O.S.)
Taking as a starting point Cahun’s relation to surrealism, this session explores, what could be called “queer Surrealism” in the films of Steven Arnold. Photographer and filmmaker, Arnold created, in the early 70′s, movies with wild, bizarre and psychedelic worlds, in which the actors blurred the gender boundaries. Protected and influenced by Salvador Dalí (who invited the actors of the film at the opening of his museum in Figueres), his works share with Cahun the use of masquerade and the subversion of gender identities using sharply surreal resources. At the same time, the figure of Arnold links surrealism with the work of renowned contemporary artists like Mike Kelley and Ryan Trecartin. Proposed and conducted by James Boaden, this session meticulously weaves multiple references, materials and time frames.
“MESSAGES, MESSAGES” PART OF DIRTY LOOKS ROADSHOW
Steven’s film Messages, Messages, which won him an invitation to the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival, has been included in the DIRTY LOOKS, NYC Roadshow, as part of the exhibition Female Trouble, which explores gender identity on film using examples spanning 5 decades.
SHOW DATES FOR DIRTY LOOKS’ FEMALE TROUBLE:
2/12/12 SAN FRANCISCO, CA: YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS
2/16/12 LOS ANGELES, CA: HUMAN RESOURCES GALLERY
2/21/12 PORTLAND, OR: PACIFIC NORTHWEST COLLEGE OF ART
2/23/12 PORTLAND, OR: GRAND DETOUR
PANDORA-A-LA-GAGA
This San Franscisco Magazine cover, which could nearly pass for a modern day Lady Gaga article, was taken from Steven’s 1971 full-length surrealistic film Luminous Procuress, and features Pandora, Steven’s life-long friend, muse, and collaborator.
RARE SET OF PHOTOS FROM AFTER DARK MAGAZINE
This rarely seen set of photographs, influenced by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, was created for After Dark magazine April, 1979. After Dark was an entertainment magazine that covered theatre, cinema, stage plays, ballet, performance art, and various artists, including singers, actors, and dancers, among others.
LET THEM EAT CAKE
“[My art] starts with Ludwig the Second of Bavaria meeting Woolworths and Barnum and Bailey over dinner with Louis the 14th in drag, then it just spirals out from there. I’m constructing a new mythology from the shards of the universe.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
COVER OF SCANLAN’S
This cover of Scanlan's Monthly features a still from Steven's film Luminous Procuress.
Scanlan’s Monthly was a short-lived political muckraking publication from 1970-1971. The magazine featured controversial political commentary, and news involving the thriving subculture. Scanlan’s is most well-known for publishing the first piece of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s “Gonzo” journalism, titled “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.” The magazine was also investigated by the FBI for it’s controversial perspective on the hotbed of early ’70s political upheaval. This particular issue featured an article on underground film in San Franscisco, and a cover-image of Pandora from Steven’s full-length film Luminous Procuress.
GESTATION
“I want images to be complicated, not smart, designy little things. I’m bringing back density – pieces that take time to look at.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
KLIMTESQUE
This never-before-seen tableaux-vivant, is styled after the Austrian Symbolist painter, Gustav Klimt.
“In the right atmosphere, your creative dam will burst forth in a beautiful compassionate celebration. This will be the key to your success on all levels.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
HUNGER FOR THE MARVELOUS
“It will be my ability to get each subject, quietly and secretly, to unleash their creative powers, and in so doing, liberate them from their normal inhibitions, and into a state of trust, openness, and creative frenzy.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
THE ADVANTAGES OF MODERN MARRIAGE
Steven’s photograph, The Advantages of Modern Marriage, was chosen and is currently being exhibited as a part of ONE Gay and Lesbian Archive’s current three part exhibition Cruising the Archive: Queer Art and Culture in Los Angeles, 1945-1980.
The first part of the exhibition, titled WINK WINK, which features Steven’s print, is scheduled to show from now until April 1, 2012 at the ONE Archives Gallery and Museum. The show presents artworks that convey a particular emphasis on social scenes, queer humor, playfulness, and abstraction. Artists in Wink Wink include: Steven Arnold, Don Bachardy, Mitch Berman, B. Bow, Sidney Bronstein, Claire Falkenstein, Anthony Friedkin, Sister Corita Kent, Robert Legorreta (Cyclona), McAlister, Kate Millett, Robert Opel, Phranc, John Quitman, Don Sorenson, Anne Stockwell, and Patssi Valdez, and others.
Again, the exhibition can be viewed until April 1, 2012 at:
ONE Archive Gallery and Museum, 626 North Robertson Boulevard, West Hollywood, CaliforniaCruising the Archive is presented in conjunction with the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative. This unprecedented collaboration, initiated by the Getty, brings together more than sixty cultural institutions from across Southern California for six months beginning October 2011 to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene.
If you happen to be in LA, stop by the ONE Archive Gallery in West Hollywood, and show your support for this very influential, often overlooked, piece of art history.
UNTITLED, 1982
“Nowadays, in our cities of steel, we still haven’t lost our need for ancient ritual. Our dances with masks and drum are alive in our bones. We are witch-doctors in designer jeans. The same sexual impulses rule our buying power, claw at our self-illusion. We get high, on whatever, and tune into our instinctual selves. We seek guides, need teachings. As we accumulate, we share, and thus we grow. The more evolved our sharing, the richer our growth.
Oh, beautiful evenings, when we truly share!”
STEVEN ARNOLD
DISPLAY
"Dislplay" is a never-before-seen tableaux-vivant.
“[This is] the reinvention of art in America, free of the vices of ambition – insist on yourself.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
ruth weiss in Messages, Messages
Steven prepares ruth weiss for a scene in "Messages, Messages."
Of Steven’s third film, Messages, Messages, Michael Wiese has said, “It is a journey of the psyche into the world of the unconscious, influenced by Dali, Buñuel, and the German expressionists.” The film was well-received at Cannes Film Festival, being included as a part of the Director’s Fortnight. Pioneering beat poet ruth weiss, a close friend and a favorite subject of Steven’s, appeared in 3 of his 4 films. ruth recently published two masterpiece long-form poems under the title, Can’t Stop the Beat.
Dragonfly: A Collaboration with Kaisik Wong
A never-before-seen still from the play “Dragonfly,” which Steven and Kaisik Wong wrote, directed, designed, and performed in at Steven’s 17th Street studio in San Francisco in the mid 1960s. Steven is on the far-left, Kaisik is second from the right.
INVITATION TO YIN YANG
FUTURESCAPE
Great, extended use of the brain. Powers we can only sense now, will manifest and bring a magnificent age of clarity. The merging of the sexes becomes a force-field of creativity. Utopian satellite planets Food and energy for everyone. An age of humanism more passionate and conscious than we can fathom, If we wake up and listen to the universe.STEVEN ARNOLD
