04/07: Co-Curating in NYC “Forget About That Sweet Fuck Baby: A Tribute to Arleen Schloss”

Some Serious Business in Association with Howl! Happening Present
Arleen Schloss FORGET ABOUT THAT SWEET FUCK BABY
Film/Video Screening, Panel Discussion, T-shirt Benefit
Friday, April 7, 2017 – 7 PM / Free

Some Serious Business and Howl! Happening are pleased to present a tribute to the work of Arleen Schloss, an influential figure in the downtown New York art, video, performance art and music scenes. FORGET ABOUT THAT SWEET FUCK BABY is an evening of film screenings and discussion with director/producer Roberta Friedman, educator and independent filmmaker Stuart Ginsberg, Whitney Museum curator Christiane Paul, and archivist Sur Rodney (Sur).

Schloss gained attention in the 70s as a critically acclaimed performance artist and has gone on to create groundbreaking work in a variety of mediums including film, video, sound poetry, new music, composing, books, and mail art. She co-founded A’s—an interdisciplinary loft space that was a hub for music, exhibitions, performance art, films and videos. A hotbed of experimentation, A’s featured works from Eric Bogosian, Glenn Branca, Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Richard Hambleton, Liquid Liquid, Carolee Schneemann, The Coachmen, Kim Gordon, Phoebe Legere, Mania D, Thurston Moore, Shirin Neshat, Lee Ranaldo, Sur Rodney (Sur), Alan Vega and Ai Weiwei.

Shifting from one genre to another, she has created a finely interwoven body of work. Always on the cutting edge, Schloss fused new forms of creative expression and technology into her film, video, cyber art and performance work.

Schloss’s performances possess a spirit described by Linda Burnham as “a contagious sense of wonder.” These presentations, which could involve Schloss’s cyclical recitation of the alphabet, live painting, closed-circuit video, and music all at once, combine the anti-art whimsy of Fluxus, scientific exploration, Cageian indeterminacy, and a site-specific empathy that makes every act unique.

—New Museum, Schloss film screening, in conjunction with Come Closer: Art Around the Bowery, 1969–1989

In her honor, SSB will reproduce a limited number of FORGET ABOUT THAT SWEET FUCK t-shirts from How She Sees It by Her (1981) as seen in Toyo Tsuchiya’s photo of Arleen. Tees for men and women will be available at the gallery, or bring your own shirt and we’ll silkscreen it for you then and there for $25 a pop. All proceeds the evening of the event go to benefit Arleen. The evening is co-curated by Stuart Ginsberg, and SSB directors Susan Martin and Quintan Ana Wikswo.