February screenings and a special Valentine’s Day menu

Join us at Bar Laika for a series of screenings featuring Ken Jacobs; Karl Holmqvist in conversation with Pati Hertling; Martha Rosler; and Bruce and Norman Yonemoto in collaboration with Mike Kelley, presented by Adam Khalil. Also, reserve a place for our special Valentine’s Day nine-course, dessert-only tasting menu!

Bar Laika presents: Ken Jacobs, Blonde Cobra, (1963, 33 minutes)
Thursday, January 31, 9pm

The film features artist Jack Smith in what Jacobs calls “a look in on an exploding life, on a man of imagination suffering pre-fashionable Lower East Side deprivation and consumed with American 1950s, ’40s, ’30s disgust.” Jacobs did little of the shooting himself, instead drawing on two unfinished films shot by Bob Fleischner. With its dissociative editing strategies, wild costumes, and scraps of music and voiceover, this baroque portrait deserves Jonas Mekas’ recommendation as “the masterpiece of Baudelairean cinema.”

Bar Laika presents: Karl Holmqvist, #FLU$$CH (2017, 29 minutes); in conversation with Pati Hertling
Thursday, February 7, 9pm

Holmqvist’s new animation mixes spoken and written language in different patterns and temporalities—a kind of linguistic assault, an actual brainwash perhaps, not to make people subservient or stupid, but to clean their minds and have them be open to new possible meaning.

With an introduction and Q&A with the artist by curator Pati Hertling.

Valentine’s Day set dessert menu
Thursday, February 14, 9:30pm

Join us for a special nine-course, dessert-only tasting menu with drink pairings prepared by chefs Hsiao Chen and Jessica Russ. 

200 USD/pair, limited space. For reservations and more info email laika [​at​] e-flux.com.

First: wind chime / sweet rye crackers with tea infused butter, served with an aperitif cocktail 
Second: colorblind / sweet mochi and sesame soup
Third: roses / simple syrup poached apple, pear and quince, served with clos lentiscus, blanc de noirs brut nature (2013) 
Fourth: the game of nim / tuille cookies
Fifth: eton mess / whipped cream, meringue, berries 
Sixth: meet me on the jetty / chocolate delice, cocoa nib, served with jaques estève cognac hors d’age
Seventh: cold spring / mint and bitter green ice cream in a frozen wine glass 
Eighth: memento / braided halva with dots of honey poached walnuts pistachio and almonds, served with kikori japanese whisky 
Ninth: the green ray / honey lychee agar jelly

Bar Laika presents: Martha Rosler, Pencicle of Praise (2018, 10 minutes, video-in-progress)
Thursday, February 21, 9pm

Vice President Mike Pence, as the smiley face of the Trump Adminstration, also acts as cheerleader-in-chief. In accepting the vice-presidential nomination in 2016, Pence proclaimed, “I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican—in that order,” suggesting how we should understand his statements and behavior. We see him here expressing and eliciting gratitude to his president during various press occasions. This ground-breaking, earth-shaking video begins with moments from a grand televised conference early in 2017 at the White House Rose Garden, showcasing the president’s announced intention to withdraw from the historic Paris Climate Accord. Other moments of pious gratitude are enacted for the press by the president’s minions. The music—the Battle Hymn of the Republic and the national anthem—were part of the Rose Garden broadcast, which also ends the video.

Bar Laika presents: Bruce and Norman Yonemoto in collaboration with Mike Kelley, Kappa (1986, 26 minutes); presented by Adam Khalil
Thursday, February 28, 9pm

Kappa is a boldly provocative and original work. Deconstructing the myth of Oedipus within the framework of an ancient Japanese folk story, the Yonemotos craft a highly charged discourse of loss and desire. Quoting from Buñuel, Freud, pop media, and art, they place the symbology of Western psychosexual analytical theory into a cross-cultural context, juxtaposing the Oedipal and Kappa myths in a delirious collusion of form and content. The Kappa, a malevolent Japanese water imp, is played with eerie intensity by artist Mike Kelley, while actress Mary Woronov plays Jocasta, a vamp from a Hollywood exploitation film. Steeped in perversions and violent longings, both the Kappa and Oedipus legends are presented in highly stylized, purposefully “degraded” forms, reflecting their media-exploitative cultural contexts. In this ironic yet oddly poignant essay of psychosexual compulsion and catharsis, the Yonemotos demonstrate that even in debased forms, cultural archetypes hold the power to move and manipulate.

The evening will be presented by filmmaker Adam Khalil.

For more information, contact laika [​at​] e-flux.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates on upcoming events.