HANDS UP
JOHN STURGEON
Hands Up
©1974 B&W 9:18 minutes, sound
Conceptually, this is a video whose imagery unfolds in a series of skits, through a deepening detective-style investigation of the nature of sexuality. From the opening, a humorous, "stick-em-up" wallet sequence, there are no more excuses. Avoidance, inconsistency, and imbalance must be dealt with as we delve deeper into the costume files of the personality. Through alterations in self-definition, balance improves leading to an electronic probing of the more primal nature and a celebration of the positive/negative forces and the male/female aspects.
In Hands Up the stage is prepared for an investigation into the archetypal unconscious of the individual concerned and the tape expresses 'the fury of wanting to know oneself, of desiring to plunge beneath one's conscious culture toward The Interior of Africa of our conscious domain.' * In this work the artist investigates the common denominators shared by internal and external events expressed through a narrative maze of symbolic messages.
Peter Goulds
L.A. Louver Gallery
* Jules Laforgue and Ironic Inheritance
Warren Ramsey, Oxford Univ. Press, 1953
1975 Arts Council of Great Britain,
Serpentine Gallery exhibition
"The Video Show"
Four of John Sturgeon’s early B&W video works from 1974 were curated into The Video Show - 1975 Arts Council of Great Britain, Serpentine Gallery exhibition, London, England. All four of these works from the 1975 The Video Show are included in the collection of the British Film/Video Archives (Steven Ball director).
(waterpiece) ©1974
NOR/MAL CON/VERSE ©1974
Shirt ©1974
HANDS UP ©1974
The Video Show exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, London, was touted at the Tate Modern's 2012 REWIND opening as being a seminal event for British video art. The catalog was inclusive of almost everyone - literally a world snapshot from the first generation of American video artists’ small format activity by the mid-70s, including these works by John Sturgeon.
It was a revolutionary, one-of-a-kind exhibition - with amazing inclusivity and scope. I don't ever recall a similar attempt of such scope in the U.S.
Steven Ball, director – British Film/Video Archives, London
Spin 411 (by: John Sturgeon & Nina Sobel) was a 1974 “installation-event” created for the Experimental Lab Theater of the Mark Taper Forum. Among the following four solo videos by John Sturgeon featured in Spin 411 was one of the first public viewings of Hands Up ©1974.
Although there is no available video or photographic documentation of SPIN 411, historically this event showcased the artist’s early individual works, which became seminal to his career.
These early B&W videos by John Sturgeon, included:
Hands Up
Date Completed: March 1974, Venice, California
Non-Verbal (with sound and image)
Copyright: John Sturgeon, ©1974
Length: 9:18 minutes, black/white, mono
Original Master Format: 1/2" Reel-to-Reel AV
Sub-Master: Beta Cam SP, DVCam NTSC
CREDITS:
Artist / Performer: John Sturgeon
Camera, Sound & Edit: John Sturgeon