Films Ecart, 1968–1977

The spirit of the 1970s

While the Ecart group, founded by John Armleder, Patrick Lucchini, and Claude Rychner, goes as far back as their childhood friendship, the opening of the Ecart gallery—which many considered the most important alternative space in Europe during the 1970s—took place in 1969 in Geneva. In the wake of their Fluxus activities, Ecart members produced a dozen or so super 8 films, some directed by Endre Tót or Günther Ruch. All of these are compiled for the first time on this DVD.

Emblematic of the group’s singular collective economy, these films also attest to the intersecting trajectories of different media (performance, film, installation), to aesthetic and conceptual freedom, and to the hybrid nature of artistic movements (from Conceptual art to performance, from individual poetics to the sharing of signatures) characterizing the 1970s.

Contents:
• “One Day Movie Hall,” 1968-1973, 13′ 25”
• “Fluxtheatre,” 1974, 46′
• “Totaljoys” (by Endre Tót), 1976, 11′ 27”
• “Pieds” (by Patrick Lucchini), 1973, 9′ 58”
• “Performance Piece,” 1970, 3 ‘ 29”
• “Film with a Chair,” 1973, 10′ 13”
• “Why not Stop? (Part One),” 1968–1977, 12′ 53”
• “Trace” (by Günther Ruch), 1977, 3′ 6”
• “The Crissier-Walk,” 1974, 3’ 56”