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BLIGHT
complete soundtrack from the film by
JOHN SMITH
music by
JOCELYN POOK
order at purge.xxx











OCTOBER 1
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)

        *SOLD-OUT*
LAUNCH EVENT (1972–2020)
With JOHN SMITH and JOCELYN POOK live in conversation

To celebrate the release of the vinyl LP soundtrack of BLIGHT, JOHN SMITH’s collaboration with composer JOCELYN POOK, the artist filmmaker’s INTROSPECTIVE (50 films from 50 years) launches with a focus on SMITH’s music related works.
Several of these films feature in the chronological programmes that follow the launch (October 6–December 1) with others, commissions made for CHARLES HAYWARD and ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN, screening exclusively at this event.

Triangles (1972)
7P (1978)
Shine So Hard (1981)
Gargantuan (1992)
Blight (1994–96)
Song for Europe (2017)
The Camera, The Actor (2019)
Twice (2020)

(more info)



OCTOBER 6
Close-Up Film Centre

       *SOLD-OUT*
Programme 1 (1972–76)
With JOHN SMITH and STANLEY SCHTINTER live in conversation
Triangles (1972)
Someone Moving (1972)
The Hut (1973)
Words (1973) with Lis Rhodes
Out the Back (1974)
William and the Cows (1974)
Faces (1974)
Associations (1975)
Leading Light (1975)
The Girl Chewing Gum (1976)

(more info)




OCTOBER 13
Close-Up Film Centre

        *SOLD OUT*

Programme 2  (1976–78)
With JOHN SMITH and ERIKA BALSOM live in conversation

Summer Diary (1976–77)
Gardner (1977)
Hackney Marshes (1977 [November 4])
Hackney Marshes (1978, TV version)

(more info)





OCTOBER 20
Close-Up Film Centre

        *SOLD OUT*
                
Programme 3 (1978–84)
With JOHN SMITH and JULIET JACQUES live in conversation

Double Shutter (1978/2018)
7P (1978)
Celestial Navigation (1980)
Light Sleep (1981)
Shepherd’s Delight (an analysis of humour) (1980–84)

(more info)




OCTOBER 27
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)

        *SOLD OUT*
               
Programme 4 (1985–92)
With JOHN SMITH and CAROL MORLEY live in conversation
Om (1986)
The Black Tower (1985–87)
Dungeness (1987)
Slow Glass (1988–91)
Gargantuan (1992)

(more info)




NOVEMBER 3
Close-Up Film Centre

        *SOLD OUT*
             
Programme 5 (1993–96)
With JOHN SMITH and IAN BOURN live in conversation

Home Suite (1993–94)
Blight (1994–96)

(more info)




NOVEMBER 10
Close-Up Film Centre

        *SOLD OUT*
Programme 6 (1998–2003)
With JOHN SMITH and GARETH EVANS live in conversation

The Kiss (1999) with Ian Bourn
The Waste Land (1999)
Regression (1999)
Lost Sound (1998–2001) with Graeme Miller
Worst Case Scenario (2001–03)

(more info)




NOVEMBER 17
Close-Up Film Centre

        *SOLD OUT*
Programme 7 (2001–07)
With JOHN SMITH and ALIA SYED live in conversation

Hotel Diaries (2001–07)

(more info)



NOVEMBER 24
Close-Up Film Centre

       *SOLD OUT*
Programme 8 (2010–12)
With JOHN SMITH and IAIN SINCLAIR live in conversation

Flag Mountain (2010)
Demo Tape (2010)
Unusual Red Cardigan (2011)
The Man Phoning Mum (2011)
Soft Work (2012)

(more info)



DECEMBER 1
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)

       *SOLD OUT*
Programme 9 (2012–21)
(2012-21)
With JOHN SMITH and JARVIS COCKER live in conversation

Dad's Stick (2012)
White Hole (2014)
Steve Hates Fish (2015)
Who Are We? (2016)
Song for Europe (2017)
Jour de Fête (2017)
A State of Grace (2019)
Citadel (2020)
Covid Messages (2020)
Time and Motion (for A L Rees) (2021)
Record (2021)

(more info)



DECEMBER 1–31
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)

    (Screen 3 [online]) 
Coda : REGRESSION
A portrait of the artist as a not so young man. The filmmaker attempts to enter the digital age by making a new video version of his 1978 film 7P.

“John Smith is not afraid of time. His films continuously show his patience in setting up a visual pun, filming certain angles over several days or months in order to develop our sense of place and flux. Regression makes time a focus of his humour. As he recreates a film he made 21 years earlier, he tapes each of the twelve days of Christmas, getting progressively younger as he replays the chorus of the accompanying song.”
    - Chris Kennedy

(more info)




NO L
complete soundtrack from the films
7P + REGRESSION
music by
JOHN SMITH
order at purge.xxx
Mark





In celebration of John Smith’s 50 years of filmmaking, purge.xxx presented the most extensive survey of his work to date: screening 50 films by Smith, organised into 10 weekly programmes, every Thursday from October to December in 2022, at Close-Up Film Centre and Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London.

The weekly programmes were arranged chronologically, combining rarely screened works with well-known favourites.



JOHN SMITH: INTROSPECTIVE (1972–2022) was organised by Stanley Schtinter.

Click the publication titles for coverage from: The Guardian, Artforum, Frieze, Hackney Citizen

For more information and to buy the Blight soundtrack (featuring original music by Jocelyn Pook for John Smith’s film of the same name) visit purge.xxx

For Smith’s work: johnsmithfilms.com



“John Smith is my favourite British filmmaker.”
    - Jarvis Cocker



“His genius is in taking found
material, the most banal situation, the slightest little cue, and imbuing it with a fiction that makes it potent.  It’s as if by choosing as his subject the ordinary everyday things that surround us all, and by scrutinising them closely, turning them over and inside out, he can find all the hidden complexity of the universe.”
    - Cornelia Parker



“My taste in films is the same as in music, or in literature. I cannot reduce myself to one or two or three names. I am interested in all of the different forms, which give me pleasure and inspire me and keep me alive. So that's why I embrace a very wide variety of cinema. I like John Ford, and I like Stan Brakhage and Marie Menken, Barbara Rubin, Jack Smith, Harry Smith. And John Smith, whom I have not seen yet, but I hear everybody says he is very good.”
    - Jonas Mekas
Mark