John Smith: Girl Chewing Gum Still frame
Film still from The Girl Chewing Gum, 1976, extracted by John Smith, printed on Hahnemuhle 308 GSM Photo Rag stock, 500mm x 380mm, hand numbered and signed by John Smith (exclusive limited edition of 10) with an engraved plaque showing the title.
Price: 695 € framed / 595 € unframed
Stop. Now, I want the long hand to move at the rate of one revolution every hour, and the short hand to move at the rate of one revolution every twelve hours. Now, two pigeons fly across..
John Smith is one of Britain’s most radical, best-loved and most influential artist filmmakers. Currently celebrating 50 years of 50 films with weekly screenings in the UK at the ICA and East London’s Close-Up Film Centre–with screenings accompanied by Smith joined in conversation by composer Jocelyn Pook, filmmaker Carol Morley and renowned musician Jarvis Cocker, who describes Smith as ‘my favourite British filmmaker’.
John Smith is the quintessential East End filmmaker. Born in Walthamstow in 1952, he has never lived outside East London. Emerging from the Royal College of Art and London Film-Makers’ Cooperative of the mid-1970s, where ‘narrative and illusionism alike were critical targets’, Smith’s films have often found focus in his own neighbourhood, street or even home. ‘The familiarity of place is important,’ he says, contrasting his work with Western colonial modes of documentary filmmaking that can presume to document a place neither known nor understood.
The Girl Chewing Gum (1976) is widely acknowledged as one of the most important avant-garde films of the 20th century. A commanding voice over appears to direct the action in a busy London street. As the instructions become more absurd and fantasised, we realise that the supposed director (not the shot) is fictional; he only describes–not prescribes–the events that take place before him. "Smith takes the piss out of mainstream auteurist ego, but provides proof of the underground ethos: Even with meagre mechanical means, the artist can command the universe." (Ed Halter)