Jesse Beau Richards (born July 17, 1975) is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the international movement Stuckism. and "the father of remodernist cinema."

Early life

Jesse Richards was born in New Haven. which was also the time he started to make films. He directed plays including Hamlet and Look Back In Anger for the New Haven Theatre Company, and made short romance and punk films.

Simultaneously the Stuckism center opened a War on Bush show, including work from Brazil, Australia, Germany and the UK, while the London equivalent staged a War on Blair show. Richards said the original intention of a straightforward art show to an anti-war show had been changed after a phone discussion with Stuckism founder, Charles Thomson. Richards told The Yale Herald, "Duchamp would go over to the Yale University Art Gallery and he would say, 'This is crap,' and he would go paint a picture."

thumb|upright|left|Jesse Richards. Nightlife shown at [[The Stuckists Punk Victorian, 2004]]

Also in 2003, Richards was an exhibitor in the UK show, Stuck in Wednesbury at Wednesbury Museum & Art Gallery, the first Stuckist show in a public gallery, and in The Stuckists Summer Show at the Stuckism International Gallery, London.

In 2004, Richards was one of eight artists in the "International Stuckists" section of The Stuckists Punk Victorian show at the Walker Art Gallery during the Liverpool Biennial. He said of his exhibited work, Nightlife: "This came out of heavy drinking and loneliness. New Haven's social scene is entirely going to bars, so it was my only way to meet new people." He said that Stuckist Photographer Andy Bullock's work was "silly installation photography" which was "trying to be trendy." were offered as a donation to the Tate gallery, but rejected by Sir Nicholas Serota, because "We do not feel that the work is of sufficient quality in terms of accomplishment, innovation or originality of thought to warrant preservation in perpetuity in the national collection".

In 2005, Richards was a co-ordinator of, and participated in, Addressing the Shadow and Making Friends with Wild Dogs: Remodernism, the first Remodernism exhibition in the US to include work from all of the Remodernist groups, including the Stuckists, the Defastenists, Remodernist Film and Photography, and Stuckism Photography. The show took place at the CBGB 313 gallery.

Richards left the Stuckist movement in 2006.

Shows

thumb|[[CBGB, New York: Richards co-organized the show Addressing the Shadow and Making Friends with Wild Dogs: Remodernism in its gallery.]]

Stuckist group shows organized or featuring work by Richards include:

  • 2002 We Just Wanna Show Some Fucking Paintings – New Haven
  • 2003 War on Bush – New Haven
  • 2003 Stuck in Wednesbury – Wednesbury
  • 2003 The Stuckists Summer Show – London
  • 2004 The Stuckists Punk Victorian – Liverpool Biennial
  • 2004 The Stuckists Punk Victorian In the Toilet – New Haven
  • 2005 Addressing the Shadow and Making Friends with Wild Dogs: Remodernism – New York City
  • 2006 The Triumph of Stuckism – Liverpool Biennial

Film and photography

Richards has worked on films with Nicholas Watson since 1996. Their film noir, Blackout, was premiered at the event Stuck Films at the New Haven Stuckism International Center in 2002.

In 2003, Richards co-produced Shooting at the Moon, a short film premiering at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.

In December 2010, Richards joined the Board of Directors of Cine Foundation International.

Richards currently lives in Granby, Massachusetts.

Remodernist film movement

thumb|Jesse Richards and [[Nicholas Watson. Shooting at the Moon. A still from an early Super-8 Remodernist film.]]

In 2004, Richards and fellow filmmaker Harris Smith co-founded Remodernist Film and Photography, a new Remodernist group attempting to introduce Remodernist/Stuckist values into film and photography.

In 2008, Richards published a Remodernist Film Manifesto, calling for a "new spirituality in cinema" and the use of intuition in filmmaking. He described Remodernist film as a "stripped down, minimal, lyrical, punk kind of filmmaking",.

In October 2009, with the intention "to further develop and explain Remodernist film concepts", a series of articles by Richards, Peter Rinaldi and Roy Rezaali were published in the magazine MungBeing In Richards' two essays in the magazine, he explains the development of cinema in terms of modernism, postmodernism and remodernism, and discusses remodernist film craft as involving filmmakers "teaching themselves to paint pictures, to try acting in their own movies and those of others (especially if they are shy), to be nude models for other artists, to meditate, worship if they are religious, to do things that affect their levels of consciousness, try things that make them nervous or uncomfortable, to go out and be involved in life, to find adventure, to jump in the ocean. I think that is the exploration of craft". He also relaxes the criticisms made in the manifesto about digital video, claiming that can "have a place in Remodernist cinema", but with a "new language" and not in the way it is used now, which he says is to "mimic film".

He describes his specific approach to Remodernist filmmaking as well:

<blockquote> ... my own interests are a little more specific. I'm interested in Japanese aesthetics, Tarkovsky's ideas on "sculpting in time", an emphasis on moments. But there's something else I've really been thinking about lately. I believe that the most effective way to really make subjective and authentic work involves an "addressing of the shadow" (as Billy Childish and Charles Thomson have described it). Now what does this mean exactly? It might mean that you are really obsessed with pubic hair, or maybe you are really embarrassed by a physical or mental disability that you try to hide, or like Billy Childish, you were abused as a child.

These things, these "shadows" that we are hiding within ourselves, need to be brought forth into the light of day – in our films, in our work, in our poetry. It's necessary for us to share these parts of ourselves so we and the people we share with can grow into complete, honest human beings. Now, this kind of brutal honesty about ourselves shown through imagery that isn't shy, has been explored to a degree in the work from the Cinema of Transgression, and is advocated by Antonin Artaud in his writings about the Theatre of Cruelty, and his later writings on cinema. But I don't think it's quite as simple as just that. As human beings, we are also full of beauty and love and poetry – we can see this in ourselves and in others and in the world around us. So this beauty must be explored as well, and in combination with the exploration of the shadow. The funny thing is that if we would just be honest as filmmakers, or painters, or as whatever we happen to work with, if we could be this honest, this approach would happen automatically. But we are told again and again- these things don't go together, don't tell people about that thing that you can't get out of your head- that image is inappropriate. We've become very afraid of just expressing ourselves honestly, of removing the desperate attempts to appear clever, we've been afraid of showing our true selves out of fear that others will think us fools. So this is where Artaud, the Cinema of Transgression, and even Andrei Tarkovsky have not gone quite the distance. The cinematic exploration of spirituality and transgression together – pubic hair, blood and shit and love and the green grass and the dying cherry blossoms, falling snow, passing trains – every single fucking beautiful piece of life – that is what my conception of Remodernist film is. (destroyed except for trailer)

  • Blackout, 2000
  • Shooting at the Moon, 1998. Re-edit 2003
  • Yugen, 2009
  • Wonder about Patterns in Your Head, 2009
  • So Tell me Again, 2009
  • Nothing: December 2, 2009, 2009
  • Orphans, 2009

See also

  • Remodernist Film
  • Stuckism in America
  • Stuckist demonstrations
  • Pinhole Photography

Notes and references

  • Richards' essays on Remodernist film philosophy in MungBeing
  • Interview in Turkish film magazine Bakiniz (in Turkish)