DOI issue:
Zwrot kinematograficzny w praktyce i teorii sztuki / The Cinematic Turn in Art Practice and Theory
DOI article:Bovier, François: Tony Morgan's "Performative" cinema in the age of the "cinematic turn": "relational films" (1996-1970), "structural films" (1969-1971) and produkt cinema (1971)
Citation link:https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/artium_quaestiones2020/0078
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François Bovier
wet flooded the public with light projections and Lutz Mommartz screened
films and slides; 24 monitors also displayed live images. Performers such
as Beuys started to appear in 1968. Creamcheese, a space for a total work
of art, with sessions of expanded cinema and rock concerts, epitomised the
celebratory nature of counterculture. Resurrection was created under the
influence of this oppositional and transgressive public space. It should be
remembered that this film (shot in 1968, in Krefeld, in Germany) traces
the trajectory of a steak in reverse motion from the toilet seat, to the fin-
ished meal, to cows grazing in a meadow, not forgetting the abattoir22. Fur-
thermore, and this is a telling story, when Tony Morgan and Daniel Spoerri
first met in 1967 in Paris, Spoerri criticised the "sensible", clean look of the
sculptures that Morgan had displayed at Junge Englishe Bildhauer, the exhi-
bition curated by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle Bern, contrasting his
work with the "aesthetics of shit", which characterised French art23. Conse-
quently, Resurrection can be found at the intersection between an "aesthet-
ics of shit" and the Creamcheese nightclub. On the one hand, the aim is to
make art "dirty" - the materiality of faecal matter and meat is contrasted
with the formal purity of young British sculpture. The film is processual in
the sense that it reveals a production and consumption process and traces
it back. On the other hand, it is arguably a performance much more akin
to a "happening" than to a traditional exhibition (as when it was screened
at 4. documenta, in 1968). Resurrection was first screened in October 1968
at Creamcheese, alongside Hot Apple (1968) and Hello Goodbye (1968) by
Tony Morgan. In this context, the film was clearly considered to be a perfor-
mance24. In May-June 1969, when Tony Morgan participated in Intermedia
‘69 in Heidelberg, he showed the film again alongside a number of actions,
particularly Fifteen Hung Red, a performance consisting of hanging paint to
harden, which had already been shown at the Indica Gallery in 1967; Four
Hung Grass-, and Block of People, with Morgan signing the wall of a student
hall of residence25. This film formed part of a series of performance events,
22 In 1982, Tony Morgan described his film, which he had renamed Beefsteak, in these
words: "The Beefsteak Film is a universal Him in that its main subject is something we all
need, food. In 1969 Daniel Spoerri opened his long wished restaurant in Düsseldorf. In
Paris 1967 I had jokingly agreed with Daniel to film the Life Story of a Beefsteak. On seeing
this dim in 1982 again I hope that the public will think twice before eating meat." (Tran-
script by Tony Morgan, March 1982, TM Studio)
23 SeeT. Morgan, "The Media Explosive Years 1960-1980", Mediamatic 1986, 1 ( 1 ), p. 23.
24 Tony Morgan screened Suntan at Creamcheese in 1969. See Tony Morgan: Some
Films (and Videos) 1969-1973, London 2011, n. p.
25 See Intermedia ’69, eds. J. Goetze, K. Staeck, Heidelberg 1969. The sub-header of
the catalogue, which opened with the afore-mentioned manifesto by Dick Higgins, clearly
François Bovier
wet flooded the public with light projections and Lutz Mommartz screened
films and slides; 24 monitors also displayed live images. Performers such
as Beuys started to appear in 1968. Creamcheese, a space for a total work
of art, with sessions of expanded cinema and rock concerts, epitomised the
celebratory nature of counterculture. Resurrection was created under the
influence of this oppositional and transgressive public space. It should be
remembered that this film (shot in 1968, in Krefeld, in Germany) traces
the trajectory of a steak in reverse motion from the toilet seat, to the fin-
ished meal, to cows grazing in a meadow, not forgetting the abattoir22. Fur-
thermore, and this is a telling story, when Tony Morgan and Daniel Spoerri
first met in 1967 in Paris, Spoerri criticised the "sensible", clean look of the
sculptures that Morgan had displayed at Junge Englishe Bildhauer, the exhi-
bition curated by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle Bern, contrasting his
work with the "aesthetics of shit", which characterised French art23. Conse-
quently, Resurrection can be found at the intersection between an "aesthet-
ics of shit" and the Creamcheese nightclub. On the one hand, the aim is to
make art "dirty" - the materiality of faecal matter and meat is contrasted
with the formal purity of young British sculpture. The film is processual in
the sense that it reveals a production and consumption process and traces
it back. On the other hand, it is arguably a performance much more akin
to a "happening" than to a traditional exhibition (as when it was screened
at 4. documenta, in 1968). Resurrection was first screened in October 1968
at Creamcheese, alongside Hot Apple (1968) and Hello Goodbye (1968) by
Tony Morgan. In this context, the film was clearly considered to be a perfor-
mance24. In May-June 1969, when Tony Morgan participated in Intermedia
‘69 in Heidelberg, he showed the film again alongside a number of actions,
particularly Fifteen Hung Red, a performance consisting of hanging paint to
harden, which had already been shown at the Indica Gallery in 1967; Four
Hung Grass-, and Block of People, with Morgan signing the wall of a student
hall of residence25. This film formed part of a series of performance events,
22 In 1982, Tony Morgan described his film, which he had renamed Beefsteak, in these
words: "The Beefsteak Film is a universal Him in that its main subject is something we all
need, food. In 1969 Daniel Spoerri opened his long wished restaurant in Düsseldorf. In
Paris 1967 I had jokingly agreed with Daniel to film the Life Story of a Beefsteak. On seeing
this dim in 1982 again I hope that the public will think twice before eating meat." (Tran-
script by Tony Morgan, March 1982, TM Studio)
23 SeeT. Morgan, "The Media Explosive Years 1960-1980", Mediamatic 1986, 1 ( 1 ), p. 23.
24 Tony Morgan screened Suntan at Creamcheese in 1969. See Tony Morgan: Some
Films (and Videos) 1969-1973, London 2011, n. p.
25 See Intermedia ’69, eds. J. Goetze, K. Staeck, Heidelberg 1969. The sub-header of
the catalogue, which opened with the afore-mentioned manifesto by Dick Higgins, clearly