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Frank Kuenstler

    photo © Kenny Schneider


Note: These five films are made available in collaboration with Anthology Film Archives.

"El Atlantis" (1973, 21 minutes)

from footage from the early or mid-1950s; soundtrack -- a toy piano, played by Kuenstler, "tape slowed, edited, adjusted to fit the images" [Michael O'Brien]


"Paradise" (date unknown, prob. after 1976; 7 min.)

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"Country Su Casa" (date unknown, 3 min.)

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"Color Idioms" (1968, 18 min.)

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Two plays by Serge Gavronsky (1968, 25 min.): "A Gentleman's Friend" and "A Play"

Cast List:

  • A Gentleman -- Martin Smith
  • A Friend -- Roger Towey

  • Man -- Serge Gavronsky
  • Flower -- Gerald Hopman
  • Mr. Gousse -- David Hupert
  • Madame -- Rachel Blau
  • Chronicler -- Michael O'Brien
  • Secretary -- Barbara Holland

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Other flms by Kuenslter:
Our Trip to India, 1970, 6 minutes
Vignette with Scratches, 1970, 6 minutes
Mrs. Aristotle, 1970, mixed media, 40 minutes
Bolero, 1970, 15 minutes
A Pure Film, 1974, 17 minutes
Did Ulysses Bend the Bow?, 1974, 40 minutes (video)



POETRY READINGS

Reading from IN WHICH, published by Cairn Edition, 1984, New York

Complete Reading (22:57): MP3

Reading of "THE CAR0LS AND THE SIMILES #1," New York City, April 1973

An unpublished manuscript by same title exists in at least one version in the Frank Kuenstler Archive; no other part has been located. First line of poem is given in quotes when poem is read without title.

  1. Alba Agon (0:23) : MP3
  2. The Bessie Smith Story (0:40) : MP3
  3. "The kitty ate its ..." (0:18) : MP3
  4. Confusions (0:14) : MP3
  5. Poem Written on Grape Paper (0:44) : MP3
  6. The GBS Story (0:26) : MP3
  7. "Possibly the most prolific. . ." (0:24) : MP3
  8. Poem Etre (0:56) : MP3
  9. "Windmills, zippers..." (0:07) : MP3
  10. Poem for the Warsaw Ghetto (0:32) : MP3
  11. "As green as money..." (0:56) : MP3
  12. "Into the throat of ..." (0:20) : MP3
  13. Jenny, Jenny (0:55) : MP3
  14. Examination (0:53) : MP3
  15. "What did the grasshopper..." (0:37) : MP3
  16. The Right Man in the Wrong Place (After James Joyce) (0:17) : MP3
  17. Opus Posthumous (0:44) : MP3
  18. On the Circus and the Marketplace (0:06) : MP3
  19. Song of the Horn (0:13) : MP3
  20. Line (0:06) : MP3
  21. Poem (0:09) : MP3
  22. Styles (0:31) : MP3
  23. Song (0:27) : MP3
  24. Paragraph by Aristotle (0:09) : MP3
  25. Pie (0:37) : MP3
  26. Anthologies (0:06) : MP3
  27. Song (0:30) : MP3
  28. Song (0:10) : MP3
  29. Wandering (1:05) : MP3
  30. Poem: Mother Gobbligook (0:14) : MP3
  31. Verbs (0:07) : MP3
  32. Poem (0:26) : MP3
  33. St. Marks in the Bowery (1:22) : MP3
  34. Two: The Gambit Book of Children (0:21) : MP3
  35. Hat (0:30) : MP3
  36. Two (0:12) : MP3
  37. "The kola beat is..." (0:32) : MP3
  38. "From him to her..." (0:14) : MP3
  39. The Good Photographer (0:11) : MP3
  40. A Little Poem for Emily (0:13) : MP3
  41. "Be it ever so bumble..." (0:05) : MP3
  42. Make Believe Rag (0:10) : MP3
  43. The Carols and the Similes: Children's Song (0:56) [Kuenstler reads title, poss. for insertion at beg. of recording] : MP3
  44. Song (0:04) : MP3
  45. "Shake it, break it..." (0:30) : MP3
  46. Dear (0:13) : MP3
  47. Syllogism (0:07) : MP3
  48. Dear Eurydice (0:06) : MP3
  49. Family Court (0:40) : MP3
  50. At the Center of Night Tom McKay, (0:43) : MP3
  51. The Pat Ozinfant Song (0:42) : MP3
  52. "Quote tonight tonight..." (0:05) : MP3
  53. Complete Reading (27:45): MP3

Note: Title transcriptions phonetic, and may contain the odd unintended homonym.

Related Resources:

Kuenstler's Lens is available in its entirety at Eclipse.

Charles Bernstein on Kuensler at his EPC page.

John Yau on Kuenstler at Hyperallergic.

From L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E #13 (1981):

AND FOR ANYTHING THAT I COULD CALL MY OWN THINKING

[For example, composing from Frank Kuenstler's Lens (available from Film Culture, GPO Box 1499, NY, NY 10001; $2) -- B.A.]

It is less a draft than the scenario of a monument. "the enormous paste-up job". cap.Italics. fade.Aura. the world is invisible.RR. rr.The image disintegrated before desire. fact.I. lax.Icon. ray gun.Mental. image.Nation. maze.I. mm.Eye. abhor.Original. the girl with a soul is the picture of ideology. i'm.Personal. film.Ilytch. The dialectic is reel. gregarious.Chance. image.Urgency. rr.The man on the train is Lenin. contes.Addiction. harm.Money. My image suffers. myth.Take. lex.Icon. reap.Production. mirror.Clause. reign.Code. the messengers photograph words.RR. horror.Culture. f.Fetter. camera.Suture [sic] vain.Indicative. the man on the train is by definition an image of arrested motion.RR [sic] art.Effect. dire.Critical. fate.Schism. person.Atonality. i'm.Machination. limb.Imitation. lens.Fragment. essay on language.Help. The opium of the public is opinion. reality.I. impute.Tense. sign.Tittilate. lesions.RR. Neoclassicism is pornographic. The anti-image is architecture. the object of alienation is movies.RR. epistle.Millenium. messiah.Semantics. praxis.Light. the shape of the thing pursued is the ultimate metaphor.RR. rr.The world is fragmented into people. camera.Forage. rr.The hero is the carrier of style. speech.Theatre. flicker.Recognition. snow maiden.Photography. rr.Chipped and redundant. the world is the resource of poetry.RR. ..., a function of repression.RR. The cinematographer arranges the terms of the beautiful. trouble spelled backwards is fragment.RR. obstacle.Illusion. there's no arguing with television.RR. error.Edition. The movies taught me loneliness. reef.Lexicon. The first screening of Potempkin in the US was on Gloria Swanson's bedsheet. pointillism.Pilot. my.Optic. cinema.Topography. denude.Moment. image.Entrails. time is of the.RR. rr.The man on the train is a figure of speech. lens.Epistemology. punk.Situation. vamp.Empire. The lens being ground is the axe of theory. rr.The world is a negative image of reality. cinematic.Symptomatic. light was resistance.RR. noose.Thalia. marxism.Oneupmanship. corn.Sequence. corn.Volition. semen.Antics. human.Naziism. postpone.Indoctrination. rr.The language picture is germane. the pyramid of appearances makes man dream.RR. rr.An image of refracted action. labor.Division. picture.Characters. frame.Minerology. negative.Italic. rr.Reproduction is the imitation of alienation. AAA.then.

FRANK KUENSTLER

(Bruce Andrews, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E 13, 1981)

These films and sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the Estate of Frank Kuenster. © 2009-2011 Frank Kuenstler. Used with permission of Emily Kuenstler. Films made availabble in collaboration with Anthology Film Archives. Distributed by PennSound.