K I S S  

Screening: Andy Warhol’s Kiss. Date: 14.02.2008 Time: 7pm London; 8pm Rome; 9pm Oporto 

Place: London: Bistroteque, 23-27 Wadeson Street, London

Rome: 1:1projects, Piazza Scipione Ammirato 1/C, Roma

Oporto: Espaço Gesto, Rua Cândido dos Reis 64, Porto

Barcelona: Centre d’Art Santa Monica, La Rambla 7, Barcelona

from: Filipa Ramos

to: “Pablo León de la Barra”, “cecilia canziani”, “Adrienne Drake”, “Carla Cruz”, "Ortega Lopez, Antonio", “Athena Panni”, “Francesco Ventrella”

date: Jan 14, 2008 9:10 PM

subject: Kiss, Andy Warhol, from Filipa

Dear all,

I am thinking of organising a screening of Andy Warhol's film Kiss in several different locations on the same day, the 14th of February, normally known as Saint Valentine's Day. It has become an awful event, crowded with silly red and pink hearts that invade the shops and the streets of almost every Western town. However, it is a beautiful event, celebrating love in its most simple and immediate form.

What I am trying to do is to purpose to some people who I consider dear friends, and with whom I have worked before, to develop this project together with me, in a way that this screening could be done in several different cities on the same day. 

I think it is quite simple to organise and that it can become a really nice event, not only because a lot of people talk a lot about Warhol's films but very few have had the chance to actually see them, but also because it is an incredibly touching piece that analyses the act of kissing in a very conceptual and modern way, without destroying its romantic and emotional side.

Please let me know what do you think of this idea and if you are interested in being part of it.

Hope all of you are well and that the new year has started in the best possible way!

Love (and Kisses!) Filipa

Kiss consists of a series of short, black and white silent films in which 13 couples kiss each other. Andy Warhol took more than a year to shoot the film - between August 1963 and the end of 1964 - in several different locations.

Kiss marks the beginning of several long-term relationships between Warhol and some of the cast members, including Naomi Levine (Warhol’s "first female superstar") and Gerard Malanga (who became the artist’s manager during the second half of the 1960’s); others include art critic Pierre Restany, Ed Sanders (lead singer of the Fugs), Rufus Collins (a member of the experimental group, Living Theatre), Venezuelan artist Marisol and American painter Charlotte Gilbertson.

Several segments of Warhol's Kiss film(s) were shot in Naomi Levine's apartment. In fact, the first Kiss scenes (which included Naomi kissing Ed Sanders, Rufus Collins and Gerard Malanga ) were originally known as the ‘Andy Warhol Serial’ and were first shown at the Gramercy Arts Theater in September 1963. 

According to The Village Voice critic Bob Colacello, the idea for Kiss came about as a reaction to The Production Code (an American regulation, in force from 1930 to 1967, that enumerated the decent general principles for movies), which stated that films could not show actors kissing for more than 3 seconds. 

Independently of its history, Kiss is a fantastic example of Warhol’s early movies, in which he uses his 16mm Bolex camera to create films that explore length and stillness, though a hard process of editing all the short movies. 

At the same time, its minimalist and conceptual depiction of the romantic and deep act of kissing creates a work that gives us a constant tension between a cold perception of a couple’s act of kissing and an unavoidable feeling of involvement.

(first half): Naomi Levine & Ed Sanders; Naomi Levine & Rufus Collins; Naomi Levine & Gerard Malanga (second half): Baby Jane Holzer & John Palmer; Baby Jane Holzer & Gerard Malanga; John Palmer & Andrew Meyer; Freddy Herko, Johnny Dodd, Charlotte Gilbertson, Philip von Rensselaet, Pierre Restany, Marisol.

b&w; USA, 1963, 58”