Conrad Ventur's Screen Test Series

CONRAD VENTUR’S SCREEN TESTS OF CONTEMPORARY NEW YORK SUPERSTARS

The artist Conrad Ventur completed and screened a fresh series of ‘screen tests’ featuring new stars of New York’s vibrant nightlife world. Filmed at St. Jerome’s, the storied bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the videos feature performers and personalities at the heart of New York’s nightlife scene. The 14 portrait subjects are Breedlove, Kelle Calco, Anna Copa Cabanna, Darian Darling, Becka Diamond, Tommy Hottpants, Veronica Ibarra, Richard Kennedy, Ladyfag, Niki M’nray, Brian Newman, Jocelyn Saldana, Tyler Stone, and Kayvon Zand.

SCREENINGS:
Launch event for Andy Warhol’s New York City, July 13, 2011, Yotel, Midtown Manhattan
Launch event for Vitrine: a printed museum, May 14, 2012, Tammany Hall, LES

The videos complement Ventur’s 13 Most Beautiful/Screen Tests Revisited, in which the artist re-staged screen tests of 13 Factory denizens who sat for Warhol’s original 1964-1966 films. Enacting what Ventur describes as “a quotational work of film portraiture,” the 2009-2011 screen tests of Factory members like Taylor Mead, Billy Name, Ultra Violet, Mary Woronov and the legendary Mario Montez have been shown in galleries in New York, London, Rome, and Istanbul as well as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

In March 2011 Ventur participated in MoMA’s “Warhol, On Screen, Off Screen” event, which featured screenings of several of his screen tests and a performance by former Warhol companion John Giorno. The curator of the Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures exhibition, Klaus Biesenbach, joined Ventur and Giorno in a public conversation prior to the screening. In January 2011 MoMA’s PopRally invited Ventur to record and simultaneously project short screen tests of 280 museum visitors in the Marron Atrium, as part of his 60 Seconds of Fame interactive performance event.

The new series was completed with production assistance by Victor P. Corona, Ph.D., a sociologist at NYU, and Thomas Kiedrowski, author of Andy Warhol’s New York City.

Contact: Conrad Ventur, contact@conradventur.com

RELATED PRESS

Screen Tests of Contemporary New York Superstars, Vitrine: a printed museum.

Lily Kwong, Conrad Ventur Screen Tests, The Last Magazine

Victor P. Corona, Star Gazes: Re-performing Warhol’s Screen Tests, New York Art Beat

Victor P. Corona, The Beautiful Memories of Veronica Ibarra, New York Art Beat

Gerry Visco, 15-Minute Walk of Fame, New York Press

Alexander Cavaluzzo, 14 Portraits of Post-Warhol Fame, Hyperallergic

Video Artist Conrad Ventur on Mario Montez, The L Magazine