The Gate Theater and The Black Gate Theater, c1967. Photo by Jesse Fernandez,
Reproduced from arts/canada issue no 113 (Oct 67),
[manuscript in progress]
Aldo Tambellini, The Gate and The Black Gate Theaters:
Venues for Experimental Film and Intermedia Performances, New York City Lower East Side 1965-1968
by Amelia Ishmael
2013 – Current
Until now, a comprehensive written history of Aldo Tambellini's alternative-art venues The Gate and The Black
Gate Cinema has not existed, though increasing mention in arts publications focusing on Tambellini's oeuvre
and those also of the artists who exhibited and performed there has made the need for such a history clear.
Inaugurated with the week-long New Vision Festival, in protest to the elitism and exclusivity of the 4th New
York Film Festival at Lincoln Center in September 1966, The Gate Theater was a leading cinema for
underground and avant-garde film from 1966-1968. Directed by Elsa Tambellini, former artistic producer of The
Bridge, The Gate Theater brought independent films by artists such as George and Mike Kuchar, Jud Yalkut,
Takahiko Iimura, Marie Menken, Jack Smith, Robert Downey Sr., Peter Campus, and Bruce Conner to the
Lower East Side community, providing a venue for international experimental filmmakers who wouldn't
otherwise have a place to share their work, and creating a community that later artists such as the cult film
director John Waters would herald.
In March 1967, Aldo Tambellini and Otto Piene founded The Black Gate Theater as New York City's only
venue for Electromedia performances. Devoted to works in progress, the theater focused on the emerging
fields of expanded cinema, intermedia, and electronic arts. Featuring early performances by artists including
Yayoi Kusama, Joe Jones, Takehisa Kosugi, Takahiko Iimura, USCO, Nam June Paik, and Charlotte
Moorman.
The history of these artist-run venues offers a history of experimental arts of the late 1960s in New York City's
Lower East Side that has been omitted and buried in 50 years of dust. Additionally, this monograph works
towards recapturing an expanded view of the Lower East Side arts community that The Gate and The Black
Gate Theaters acted within--including Umbra, The Bridge Theater, Group Center, New York jazz, and black
off-Broadway theater--as well as the New York years of Aldo Tambellini, a pioneer of intermedia art who has
only within the last five years experienced revived international interest. The monograph "The Black Gate
Theater: Aldo Tambellini and the Early Histories of Intermedia-Performance Art and Independent Film in New
York City in the 1960s, A Historic Revaluation of Experimental-Arts Venues, Including The Bridge Theater and
The Gate Theater" will uncover this underground history and reveal new connections to that which we thought
we knew.
Introduction
In order to talk about The Black Gate Theater, I have to first talk about The Gate Theater. And to talk about The Gate Theater I have to first introduce The Bridge Theater. But, in order to talk about any of these I must first introduce Aldo Tambellini, the artist who ties the histories of these venues together. For history is recovered backwards; in order to start from the beginning, we must often invert our itinerary.
The 1960s was a time of vast experimentations in the arts, and artists were eager to establish alternative-arts venues where they could develop and premier new theater, new cinema, new dance, new music, and all of the hybrids of intermedia arts in between. Anyone with any interest in the arts of New York City in the 1970s knows about the multiple projections and blasting-rock music of Andy Warhol’s Electric Circus, and of Steina and Woody Vasulka’s intermedia venue The Kitchen. If you are interested in dance, you know of the Merce Cunningham Studio and Judson Dance Workshops. If you are interested in film and video you know of the Film-maker’s Coop and Electronic Arts Intermix. We know these names and places because these venues and their reputations have survived through the trials of history.
But what came before these venues? What has been lost or forgotten? When I begun talking with Aldo Tambellini in 2011 his memories included an abundance of places and artists that I had not heard of before. It became clear to me that there was a rich history of independent film and intermedia arts that could be found in the underground-art venues and communities of the Lower East Side that ran parallel to the histories of those which have made it into the dominant art-history cannons of the 1960s. Our conversations provided me with an impetus to bridge together and uncover the lost histories of independent film and intermedia arts. What happened? When? Who participated? It has not been an easy hunt. I began looking into the histories of The Black Gate Theater, yet most of the writings that I found that made passing mention of the events had the wrong dates, the wrong names, and the wrong venues. Within the abundance of false starts though, an accuracy would eventually float to the top, and each time that I found the correct information and searched further I discovered more exciting details and networks.
This publication offers the result of years of writing and research. Part I focuses Aldo Tambellini and his early career following his move to the Lower East Side in 1959. I describe the arts communities that he participated with and among, including his work with the Umbra poets, Group Center, and his curatorial activities. Part II focuses on The Bridge Theater, a venue that opened in 1965 for underground film—as well as experiments in dance, theater, and music—where Aldo Tambellini gave some of the earliest performances of his intermedia performances and screened his films, and where Elsa Tambellini worked as Artistic Coordinator before founding The Gate Theater. Though short lived, the history of The Bridge Theater and the featured exhibitions provide us witha specific background and context within which The Gate Theater and The Black Gate Theater developed. Part III focuses on The Gate Theater, a venue for independent and underground film. I provide here a prehistoric context, a full-program list, and chapters based thematically on pertinent issues and events that occurred. Finally, Part IV provides a detailed history of The Black Gate Theater, an Electromedia performance theater located upstairs from The Gate Theater, which Aldo Tambellini founded in 1967 with Otto Piene. I include here a chapter detailing each of the performative events. Within this publication are the first comprehensive histories of each of these three arts venues, accounting for each of their significance and valuable place within the history of new-media art.
Presentations and Funding
Expanded Cinema and the Black Gate Theater, Invited Lecture and Screening,
Hirshhorn Museum, April 9, 2017
Professional Advancement & Creative Research, Individual Artists Program Grant,
City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, 2018
Only the truth disguised in a dream, Invited Screening Program,
Chicago Underground Film Festival, June 6, 2019
Curatorial Projects &
Public Programming, Individual Artists Program Grant,
City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, 2019
The Gate Film Festival 1966/2019, Screening Program, Filmfront, September 24-30, 2019
Proposed Contents
Part I. Aldo Tambellini and His Community............................................ 8• Aldo Tambellini and the Lower East Side
• 10th Street Galleries
• Aldo Tambellini’s Sculpture Park
• UMBRA
• Spiral Group
• Group Center
• Aldo Tambellini and Black
• A Prehistory of Electromedia Theater, before 1965
• Elaine Summers, “Fantastic Gardens”
• Alwin Nikolais at the Henry Street Playhouse
• Charlotte Moorman’s Festivals of the Avant Garde
• Happenings
• Otto Piene and Group Zero
• Sogestsu Art Center, Japan
• Intermedia Festivals, 1965-1968
• First New York Theater Rally
• New Cinema Festival & Black Zero
• Visioner av Nuet and 9 Evenings
• Kinetic Art, Light Art, Art & Technology, and Psychedelic Art
• Howard Wise Gallery
• Experiments in Art and Technology
• Independent Film, Theaters and Film Clubs
• Museum of Modern Art, Film Library
• Cinema 16, Amos Vogel & Marcia Vogel
• Jonas Mekas, New America Cinema, Film-Makers’ CooperativePart II. The Bridge Theater................................................................ 107
• A Prehistory, and then a History
• The Bridge Theater: Program Listing
• Experiments in Music
• Tone Roads Ensemble
• The Fugs
• New Music at The Bridge
• Improvisations
• Experimental Theater & Performance Art
• Off-off Broadway Theater and Arthur Sainer
• The Bread and Puppet Theater
• Off-off Broadway Theater and Robert Heide
• Happenings: Al Hansen and Claes Oldenburg
• Experiments in Film
• Experimental Film Festivals
• Animations
• Oldies
• Bridge Cinema Group
• Aldo Tambellini, Black Film Series
• Intermedia Events
• Judith Dunn
• Trisha Brown
• Beverly Schmidt
• Carolee Schneemann
• Roberts Blossom & Beverly Blossom Schmidt, Filmstage
• Weegee
• Black 2, Aldo Tambellini
• Film-Sound
• Live Eye Jazz
• Kenneth King
• Jackie Cassen
• Outfall in Washington Square Park
• Night Crawlers at the BridgePart III. The Gate Theater............................................................... 175
• A Prehistory, and then a History
• James McBride’s Gate Film Club
• Steve Pekart and Steve Wangh’s Gate Theater
• Listings
• The New Vision Festival
• Independent Film & Expanded Cinema, 4th NY Film Festival
• Program Listings and Ads
• The Kuchar Brothers & Shameless Slucks
• On Woman Programs
• New Jazz
• Underground Horror Shows
• Quixotes
• Psychedelia Tune In
• Pulses – Radical Underground in Dance
• Japanese Underground Film
• Kenneth King’s m-o-o-n-b-r-a-i-n
• Classics of the Underground Programs
• Robert Downey’s Chafed Elbows
• Black Death & Angry Arts Week
• Bill Vehr’s “Brothel”
• The Theater of the Ridiculous
• Jack Smith’s Performative Film Screenings
• Ed Emshwiller
• The Peak of Shriek
• Lloyd Michael Williams’s Line of Apogee
• Kenneth Anger’s Magic Lantern Cycle
• Underground and Experimental European FilmPart IV. The Black Gate Theater................................................ 370
•The Proliferation of the Sun, Otto Piene; Blackout, Aldo Tambellini
• SUBTERRAINIA, Preston McClanahan
• Mano Dharma, Takehisa Kosugi
• Shelter 9999, Takahiko Iimura and Alvin Lucier
• Openings, USCO
• Music, dance, shadows, light, film, Mary McKay and Calo Scott, with Cassandra Einstein
• Self Obliteration, Yayoi Kusama, with Joe Jones
• Come Go Return, Part 1: Nam June Paik, Takehisa Kosugi, and Charlotte Moorman, with Jud Yalkut
• Come Go Return, Part 2: Scandinavian Avant Garde II
• Black Air, Otto Piene & Aldo Tambellini
• Toshio Matsumoto and Takahiko Iimura
• Black Sound 1, Aldo Tambellini & Michael Sahl; and NOW, Jacques Bekaert, David Behrman, and Charlotte WarrenAppendix: Black Theater at The Gate..................................... 476
Photo by Anna Salamone, 2013.