Desert Piece (Outtakes) and Pierre Film screening with live musical accompaniment by Henbane

Susan Kleckner often took to the road. Travelling to the deserts of the Southwest and California offered her solace during troubled times in her life. These film sequences were shot in Joshua Tree, California around the time of the equinox in 1981. They feature performance artists Tyaga and Curtis Ratliff, along with several other women moving through the landscape with their nude bodies painted each in a single hue. At times they resemble the three graces, the classical symbol for beauty. At other times, Lady Godiva, nude on horseback. At still others, the landscape photographs of Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. The footage was apparently screened at 112 Greene Street in 1983 and then re-used in Desert Piece, a live performance and video project Kleckner made in 1987 and then returned to in 1993. This screening features live, improvised accompaniment by Philadelphia folk-psych band Henbane. (Susan Kleckner, USA, 1980, 40…