Craig Baldwin, Still from Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America, 1991. Color, sound, 48 min. Courtesy the artist

Craig Baldwin, Still from Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America, 1991. Color, sound, 48 min. Courtesy the artist

Screening Room

Blazing and Blasted: Post-Punk Pre-Tech Underground Film in 1990s San Francisco

This collection of underground films paints a highly-charged portrait of San Francisco during a unique period in the city’s filmmaking and cultural history.

Image Gallery

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Martha Colburn Spiders in Love: An Arachnorgasmic Musical, 2000 Color, sound, 5 min.
Martha Colburn, Still from Spiders in Love: An Arachnorgasmic Musical, 2000. Color, sound, 5 min. Courtesy the artist.
Valerie Soe Picturing Oriental Girls: A [RE] Educational Videotape, 1992 Black-and-white, sound, 15 min.
Valerie Soe, Still from Picturing Oriental Girls: A [RE] Educational Videotape, 1992. Black-and-white, sound, 15 min. Courtesy the artist.
Cauleen Smith Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron), 1992 Color, sound, 6 min.
Cauleen Smith, Still from Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron), 1992. Color, sound, 6 min. Courtesy the artist.
Chris Johanson, Still from Encinitas Realization, 1999. Color, sound, 3 min. © Chris Johanson. Courtesy the artist and Altman-Siegel, San Francisco
Chris Johanson, Still from Encinitas Realization, 1999. Color, sound, 3 min. © Chris Johanson. Courtesy the artist and Altman-Siegel, San Francisco
Jenni Olson Blue Diary, 1997 Color, sound, 6 min.
Jenni Olson, Still from Blue Diary, 1997. Color, sound, 6 min. Courtesy the artist.
Thad Povey Thine Inward-Looking Eyes, 1993 Color, sound, 2 min.
Thad Povey, Still from Thine Inward-Looking Eyes, 1993. Color, sound, 2 min. Courtesy the artist.
Anne McGuire The Waltons, 1996 Color, sound, 7 min.
Anne McGuire , Still from The Waltons, 1996. Color, sound, 7 min. Courtesy the artist.
Veronica Majano Calle Chula, 1998 Color, sound, 12 min.
Veronica Majano, Still from Calle Chula, 1998. Color, sound, 12 min. Courtesy the artist.
George Kuchar Uncle Evil, 1996 Black-and-white, color, sound, 7 min.
George Kuchar , Still from Uncle Evil, 1996. Black-and-white, color, sound, 7 min. Courtesy the artist.
Sarah Jacobson I Was a Teenage Serial Killer, 1993 Black-and-white, sound, 25 min.
Sarah Jacobson, Still from I Was a Teenage Serial Killer, 1993. Black-and-white, sound, 25 min. Courtesy the artist.
Survival Research Laboratories Crime Wave (excerpt), 1995 Color, sound, 10 min.
Survival Research Laboratories, Still from Crime Wave (excerpt), 1995. Color, sound, 10 min. Courtesy the artist.
Jon Moritsugu, Still from Terminal USA, 1993,. Color, sound, 59 min. Courtesy the artist
Jon Moritsugu, Still from Terminal USA, 1993,. Color, sound, 59 min. Courtesy the artist

The 1990s—after the influx of punk rock but before the apex of socioeconomic stratification resulting from the dot com boom—fostered a period of extraordinary artistic activity in San Francisco. Curated by Joel Shepard, Blazing and Blasted: Post-Punk Pre-Tech Underground Film in 1990s San Francisco presents more than a dozen experimental short films from key filmmakers of the era that reflect the city’s cultural and creative milieu, then and now.

Blazing and Blasted centers on artists drawing inspiration from a vibrant street energy to produce and share work rooted in the physical culture of their surroundings. Independent filmmakers in San Francisco shot, cast, cut, and edited films with whatever and whoever was available, experimenting with narrative, poetic, and collagist approaches to create resonances that transcended their original contexts. These artists irreverently mixed subject matter and style, effectively collapsing the distinctions between the two. A spirit of rebellion is as palpable in Jenni Olson’s Blue Diary (1997), which roams San Francisco’s urban landscape from the perspective of a lesbian pining over a chance encounter with a heterosexual girl as it is in Craig Baldwin’s Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America (1991), an arresting critique of U.S. involvement in post-WWII Latin America.

Though these films were born of a particular moment in the city’s artistic history, the program is no nostalgic time-capsule of a bygone San Francisco and its subcultural artifacts. Reencountering these films today unleashes vital questions of identity, belonging, home, landscape, and privilege in the context of the city’s current cultural moment.

Blazing and Blasted is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Michael Jang’s California.

SCHEDULE

Blazing and Blasted is organized in four sections and runs continuously during gallery hours. An abbreviated schedule is presented on Saturdays.

11am & 3pmCreepy Crawl
Dean Snider, Thad Povey, Anne McGuire, Sarah Jacobson, Survival Research Laboratories, Martha Colburn
12pm & 4pmSubterranean
George Kuchar, Craig Baldwin
1pm & 5pmInside Out
Jenni Olson, Chris Johanson, Cauleen Smith, Valerie Soe, Lourdes Portillo, Veronica Majano, Greta Snider
2pmSludge
Jon Moritsugu
LIST OF ARTISTS

Craig Baldwin
Martha Colburn
Sarah Jacobson
Chris Johanson
George Kuchar
Vero Majano
Anne McGuire
Jon Moritsugu

Jenni Olson
Lourdes Portillo
Thad Povey
Cauleen Smith
Dean Snider
Greta Snider
Valerie Soe
Survival Research Laboratories

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Joel Shepard is a San Francisco-based film curator who has been practicing his adventurous form of programming in the Bay Area for more than two decades. As curator of film and video at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts until 2018, Shepard programmed many influential film series such as New Filipino Cinema, A Crack in the World: Cinema of Chaos and Transcendence, Fearless: Chinese Independent, Go to Hell for the Holidays, and Freaks, Punks, Skanks, and Cranks. Shepard has also organized film programs for San Francisco Cinematheque, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, the Roxie Theater, and others. He received his BA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to the Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for their support of works by George Kuchar and Anne McGuire.