SFCINEMATHEQUE

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Friday, March 24, 2017, 7:30 pm

Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present, Program 1

Director Tyler Hubby in person

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS

701 Mission Street (at Third St)

San Francisco, CA 94103





Presented in association with Canyon Cinema Foundation


Admissions: $10 General Admission / $6 Cinematheque members
Advance tickets here
Tyler Hubby in person.


Tony Conrad (1940–2016) was the subject of an NEA-funded Immersive Cinema residency hosted by Cinematheque in 2009. In his memory we are proud to present Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present, Tyler Hubby’s rich and loving portrait of Conrad as well as an evening of his films. A 2009 interview with Conrad by Cinematheque’s Artistic Director Steve Polta will be available here for the very first time.


 Composer, filmmaker, conceptual artist, media activist, radical mathematician and more, Tony Conrad (1940–2016) was one the most influential and inspiring American artists of his time. Completely in the Present—created over Conrad’s twenty-year friendship with director Tyler Hubby—portrays Conrad as arch, impish intellectual, perpetually curious, always learning and questioning. Documenting Conrad’s experiences with filmmaker Jack Smith, composer LaMonte Young and the Theater of Eternal Music and the formation of the Velvet Underground, as well as his own avant-garde filmmaking the film traces the artist’s life and career up to his re-emergence in the 1990s as a central figure in underground music and his profound impact on generations of artists. Combining intimate footage of Tony and his collaborators shot over the last twenty years, his own archive of recordings and films, and interviews with colleagues, the film reveals not only a playful approach to life and art making but one that is motivated by a deep sense of powerful, political radicalism.


"Time, time, time. Life should be abundant enough for each person to feel what it is to have their greatest pleasure in wasting time." — Tony Conrad


The screening opens with Straight and Narrow, a rare 16mm film created by Beverly and Tony Conrad in 1970. A full evening of Tony Conrad’s 16mm films (including the 1966 classic The Flicker) will be presented at The Center for New Music on Sunday, March 26. Full details here


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