LONDON: The Horse Hospital

Thursday 6th April, 2017

7:00pm

Event information

DOORS 7PM

Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present is a non-fiction film examining the pioneering life and works of artist, musician, and educator, Tony Conrad.
Tony Conrad was one the great American artists of our time, yet to the world at large he remains criminally under appreciated. Since the early 1960s, Conrad\'s films and compositions have been the stuff of legend for artists and musicians everywhere. His vast, inter-disciplinary repertoire has single-handedly created and influenced major film and compositional movements. He performed in and recorded the soundtrack to Jack Smith’s legendary Flaming Creatures; he turned the paradigms of cinema upside down with The Flicker, a film composed of only black and white frames; his development and practice of Just Intonation and Minimalism through his work with Stockhausen and La Monte Young still has the music establishment scratching their heads; his pivotal role in the formation of The Velvet Underground has directly or indirectly influenced everyone who has picked up a guitar since; as an early adopter of activist public access television he democratized the emerging medium of portable video. In his later years he continued to perform and make work that pushed the boundaries of reason for which he has finally begun to receive worldwide attention.

Utilizing intimate footage of Conrad and his collaborators shot by the director over the last twenty-two years, as well as Tony’s own archive of recordings and films, Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present mirrors Conrad’s own playfully radical approach to art making. The non-linear structure allows Conrad to wildly free associate his streams of consciousness, revealing an honest and humane way of navigating a remarkable, creative life.

Chronicling Conrad’s life, work and pervasive influence over the years and through multiple mediums, this highly anticipated film is on tour of some the world’s most esteemed museums, galleries and film festivals - the Viennale, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Big Sky Film Festival, The Tate Modern, Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art, Brighton CineCity Film Festival, HOME Manchester, CCA Glasgow, among more than 50 others.

Directed by Tyler Hubby
Produced by Christine Beebe and Paul Williams
Production Co: Burning Bridges
Starring: Tony Conrad, Tony Oursler, Jim O\'Rourke, David Grubbs, Marie Losier, John Cale, Moby, Branden Joseph, Jeff Hunt, Charlemagne Palestine, Jay Sanders, Jennifer Walshe