Raphael Montañez Ortiz: Taking an Axe and Hole Punch to Celluloid + Filming Destructions

Introduction by Chon Noriega, Distinguished Professor, UCLA School of Theater Film and Television. Video introduction by artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz.

Part 1: Taking an Axe and Hole Punch to Celluloid

In the late 1950s, Raphael Montañez Ortiz purchased 16mm one-reel shorts sold at local drug stores and camera shops for home viewing. Most came from Castle Films, which marketed excerpted scenes or re-edited sequences from newsreels, documentaries and Hollywood feature films. For Ortiz, who grew up listening to radio programs, these one-reel films not only brought mass media into the home, as did radio and television, they were also physical objects one could appropriate, break down and remake into something else. In this regard, he was very influenced by Dada, Duchamp and the Readymade. But he also added his own evolving interest in non-Western ritual, the unconscious and destruction within art practice. Note: to provide historical context, the source will be screened before Ortiz’s film.

Special thanks to our community partner: Los Angeles Filmforum.