Humor

Meet local San Francisco artists and the pets of the culturally inclined, as George prepares to take a trip.

"This piece is sort of a prologue to East by Southwest. I prepare for that trip while visiting local artists here in San Francisco. You get to see unique sculpture by Mike Rudnick and meet the offspring and pets of the culturally inclined. There is also a gallery encounter with the late filmmaker, Curt McDowell, who attends an opening of his photomontages."

--George Kuchar

A cactus-strewn desert becomes the backdrop for this series of filmic stopovers that focuses on the living quarters assigned the assignee of this adventurous arrangement. Great natural beauty clashes with manufactured outdoorsmanship, as a tired body and sluggish mind seek the oblivion of hotel hospitality in an arid region of artistic aspirations. The viewer is introduced to a world of prickly plants and satin-skinned succubi who prowl the alleys of western decay to staple their fig leaflets on the vertical shafts that poke unsheathed at the virgin skies of southern Arizona.

The Badger Series has issues and attempts, each episode, to resolve them. Recasting a glove puppet show through his own present day sensibilities, Paul assumes the role of kindly uncle mentor to a household of capersome woodland creatures. Mortality, self-sacrifice, depression, altered states of consciousness and transgressive art practices are all explored as part of their everyday lives together.

The Trick Pony Trilogy is a series of parodic instructional videos hosted by the artist and a talking mechanical hobbyhorse. Human and pony present lessons on a series of rule-based systems including Texas country dancing, the film editing principle known as the “Kuleshov Effect,” and football strategy. The pony serves as sidekick and foil to Coonley’s stuttering pedantic Everyman, disrupting his academic demonstrations with songs, whinnies and frequent requests to be brushed.

Furthering the Animal Charm mission to undermine normality and create new stories from old, the videotapes in this collection seek to reinterpret and/or disrupt the flow of found footage narrative.

"You always have to be careful. You always have to have the shower backward in order to see the water, which means you better watch out, or ou might electrify, or electrocute your stars. You know what I mean, by having the light falling into the tub."

--George Kuchar

This time, the call of the west sends me packing to Oregon, California and Arizona. You too can experience the dizzy delights of a whirlwind tour and witness wonders seen through the savage eye of a Sony camcorder. Actually, the adventure is rather mellow in mood and should spare the viewer a need for the ever looming and inevitable barf bag. See Phoenix in all its rocky royalty! Relish in the student clogged ivy halls of Portland! Immerse yourself in a technicolor rendering of Irvine, California.