My Harry: Magick and Mysticism
Fri, Dec 8, 2023
5:30–9 pm
Harry Smith, Untitled [Zodiacal hexagram sctratchboard], c. 1952. Ink on cardstock, 7 × 5 1/2 in. (17.8 × 14 cm). Lionel Ziprin Archive, New York
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Floor 3, Theater
Magick and Mysticism kicks off a three-day gathering to celebrate Harry Smith’s eclectic life and serpentine pursuits. This evening is devoted to talks and conversations about Smith’s interest in and artistic explorations of spiritual and occult practices alongside listening sessions and screenings.
5:30 pm
Listening Session: Harry Smith’s Field Recordings
6:30 pm
Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: A Presentation by Carol Bove
Followed by a conversation between Bove and Andrew Lampert.
7:30 pm
Screening of Harry Smith's Film No. 14: Late Superimpositions
8 pm
Harry Smith and the Future of Magick: A Presentation by Charles Stein
Followed by a conversation between Stein and Raymond Foye.
Contributors:
Carol Bove is an American artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Since the early 2000s, Bove has focused on the interdependence of artworks and their contexts. Bove is a co-curator of Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith.
Raymond Foye is a writer, curator, editor, and publisher. A consulting editor for The Brooklyn Rail and a regular contributor to Gagosian Quarterly, Foye received the American Book Award in 2020 for editing The Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman (City Lights). In 2001, he organized the first exhibition of Harry Smith’s visual art, and in 2023, he edited Harry Smith Cosmographies: The Naropa Lectures, 1989–1991.
Andrew Lampert is an artist, writer, archivist, and a primary in the firm Chen & Lampert. He recently curated the exhibition Ken Jacobs: Up The Illusion for 80WSE Gallery and is working on forthcoming publications on media hoaxer Alan Abel and photographer/filmmaker Robert Frank.
Charles Stein is an artist, translator, and poet. His work comprises a complexly integrated field of poems, philosophy, art theory, mathematics, translations from ancient Greek, drawings, photographs, lectures, conversations, and music performances.
Film information:
Harry Smith, Film No. 14: Late Superimpositions, 1964. 16mm transferred to digital video, color, sound; 31 min. Courtesy Anthology Film Archives, New York. Restored by Anthology Film Archives and the Film Foundation with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation
This film is presented in part under license from the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. and Heirs of Bertolt Brecht. The film includes Aufstieg und fall der Stadt Mahagonny, an opera in three acts by Kurt Weill, and text by Bertolt Brecht in collaboration with Kurt Weill, Elisabeth Hauptmann, and Caspar Neher.
This program is organized by Andrew Lampert, independent curator and co-author of Paper Airplanes: The Collections of Harry Smith Catalogue Raisonné, Volume I and String Figures: The Collections of Harry Smith Catalogue Raisonné, Volume II.
