Parrish Art Museum And Sag Harbor Cinema Present “Saw” For Their First Collaboration

Sag Harbor Cinema (SHC) and the Parrish Art Museum will co-present “Saw,” a screening of six short films at the Museum, guest curated by filmmaker Micaela Durand on Friday, November 8 at 6 p.m. “Saw” features the work of seven filmmakers and investigates the relationship between seeing and being seen with films that address how individuals present, perform, and reveal in an age of constant documentation.

“I’m thrilled to collaborate with Sag Harbor Cinema to present such an intriguing program by contemporary artists who are also filmmakers,” said Corinne Erni, Senior Curator of ArtsReach and Special Projects. “Their cinematic exploration represents another dimension that allows new insights into their art practice for our audiences.”

The screenings of films by Daniel Chew, Micaela Durand, Simon Liu, Jordan Lord, Laurel Nakadate, Paul Pfeiffer, and Rachel Rose will be followed by a conversation with Durand, Lord and Erni. This first collaboration between SHC and the Parrish highlights the Museum’s mission of bringing together art, artists, and the community for engaging programs that illuminate the creative process; as well as partnering with important arts organizations.

“The fascinating, ever growing relation between cinema and the visual arts was the subject of one of our very first programs. It is something that we will keep exploring which makes this collaboration with the Parrish very exciting. Connecting our audience with the wealth of artists of the East End is part of the Cinema’s mission,” said Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, Founding Artistic Director, Sag Harbor Cinema. “‘Saw’ also gives us a chance to introduce to our community an extremely talented local filmmaker, Micaela Durand, in her capacity both as a director and curator.”

In a world with technology and social media shaping perceptions, these films focus on a variety of methods to critique and observe how people watch. Paul Pfeiffer presents the third of his seminal three-part video installations, “Long Count III” (Thrilla in Manilla) (2001), which shows the fight in 1975 between heavyweight champions Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Pfeiffer digitally erases the boxers from the film so that the viewers’ attention shifts from watching the missing fighters, to the roaring crowd cheering back at them. Navigating the pressures of structures is also explored in Rachel Rose’s “Everything and More” (2017). As an astronaut describes the sensation of leaving earth behind, the viewer falls into a similar void through associative and digital manipulations. Reconstructing memory is examined in “E-Ticket” (2019). Simon Liu recomposes his personal archive of vacation ephemera into a pulsating performance that alludes to the contemporary condition of media exposure. Jordan Lord’s “After….After….” (Access) (2018) proposes a new kind of engagement with accessibility in mind, by rendering what is seen and heard into subtitles as the filmmaker documents their own open heart surgery. Durand and Daniel Chew’s film “First” (2019) follows a teenage girl as she negotiates the interrelationship of online and real world interactions. Laurel Nakadate explores similar entanglements in “Oops!” (2000), in which the artist is invited into the homes of men through chance encounters and asks them to dance with her to Britney Spears’s iconic song “Oops!…I Did It Again.”

“There is something active in all these films that directs us, asks us to be present, engage in some way,” said Durand. “Just like every profile needs an audience in order to be seen, and has been made with someone seeing it in mind.”

Tickets to “Saw” are $15.

Parrish Art Museum is located at 279 Montauk Highway in Water Mill. To reserve your place, visit parrishart.org.