21 minutes, Super-8mm, asynchronous soundtrack, 1974
This film does not have a synchronous soundtrack, but is accompanied by a recording of jazz pianist Bud Powell. The film is non-narrative, it is composed of a sequence of shots presenting a kind of inventory of objects, works, and places. These shots create a rhythm, while it is the sound that leads, and the music that dictates the cuts.
The choice of music can also be viewed as referencing the act of improvisation, which is identified with the genre of jazz. Garbuz improvises, assembles and disassembles images, uses multiplicity and variation, with items photographed multiple times in different versions. The camera constantly moves from one image to the next, barely scratching the surface of any one image, just hovering over them.
Garbuz performs medium transformations when he examines his drawings, paintings, and photographs in the dimension of time by means of a cinecamera, incorporating them into frames containing movement. He also “resurrects” some of his works by taking them out of the studio; for example, papercuts of hand-drawn pink figures that he implants in the street and various other sites.
Additionally, the film contains shots of handwritten texts in Hebrew and English, which constitute a kind of layer of narration. Some are reflective, and refer to the act of photography, for instance “closeup”, “cut”, “film shoot”, and others seem to come out of Garbuz’s own “Polish” lips, for example, “Why don’t I ever see you?”
In other moments, portraits of his friends appear, including Henry Shelesnyak with his work, and other friends sitting around smoking, and of Garbuz himself. This intermixing is an expression of “life is art-making, and art-making is life”. Thus, too, appearances by Margalit, Garbuz’s wife, who sometimes appears in the nude, and through her he creates an equation between real nudity and a nude in a painting. Margalit’s presence also signifies home, a concept that Garbuz addresses in the film through, among other things, photographs of objects and pieces of furniture, maquettes of houses, and photographs of going into and coming out of their house.
Written by Yael Gesser
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
