CHEAP: Cheap People Are Other People / Jack Smith: Flaming Creatures | Screening

In the organizer's words:

As part of Spätschicht x Creamcake, Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art presents the second part of the film Cheap People Are Other People (2020) by Berlin art collective CHEAP and Flaming Creatures (1963) by Jack Smith in the Gropius Bau cinema.

The artist, author and performer Vaginal Davis has been part of the art collective CHEAP since moving to Berlin 20 years ago. In their work, the group of artists deals with questions of uniqueness and authenticity. Their film Cheap People Are Other People 1-5 (2020) attempts to rethink the relationships between model and copy, past and present, one body and the next through samples and repetition. On the occasion of Spätschicht x Creamcake, we are showing the second chapter of Cheap People Are Other People, followed by the 16mm film Flaming Creatures by Jack Smith. Released in early 1963, Flaming Creatures introduced a new idea of cinematic glamor and was banned in large parts of the USA just one year later due to its depiction of sexual content.

Since July, a chapter of the film Cheap People Are Other People has been shown monthly in the Gropius Bau cinema, each time combined with a film from the Arsenal archive, which Miss Davis is very familiar with: from 2007 to 2018, she presented finds from this archive in her event series Rising Stars, Falling Stars.

The art collective CHEAP was founded in Berlin in 2001. Their work includes performances, videos, festivals, concerts, installations and radio broadcasts. In each project, their practice combines theory and pleasure, politics and scurrility, aesthetics and sex.

During the event, photos and videos may be taken in which you may be recognizable. By attending, you consent to these recordings being used to communicate the event or exhibition.