The Brink

Although best known for his photography, Steven Arnold also wrote, designed, and directed several groundbreaking visionary films, The Liberation of Mannique Mechanique being the first. Stuart Comer of the Tate Modern (London) said of Mannique: “a macabre, decadent work presenting mannequins and models that travel through strange universes toward possible self-discovery.” Brooklyn-based artist and writer Kate Wadkins in a recent online article observed: “Arnold’s films are dream-like visions of androgynous beings. Their narratives are modern-day fairy tales and reveries about gender — all through the lens of an acid trip.”

A series of erotic vignettes and sexual imagery (mostly of the gay variety) are presented courtesy of The Cockettes (a gay/drag performance art ensemble of late 60s/early 70s San Francisco).

From Berlin and Vienna in the 1930s; from New York to Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in the '50s, '60s, and '70s; ruth weiss has written, performed, painted, and filmed the fact that for her "one more step west is the sea..." The life of this legendary Beat poet and innovator of Jazz & Poetry is a grand collage that transcends the Beat. She is the cosmic refugee among the ecstatic memories of counter-culture. In his feature-length directorial debut, Beat scholar and award-winning poet Thomas Antonic traces weiss' pioneering art and her world without boundaries.