Mixed Use - Daily Nutmeg FACTORY

Mixed Use - Daily Nutmeg

"Covering nearly two city blocks along Hamilton Street, the massive space, where untold New Haveners produced and assembled timepieces, became the perfect place for those who preferred to fly under the radar. Among them were the Papier Mache Video Institute (PMVI), founded in 1978 by Paul Rutkovsky, an artist and a fellow at Harvard’s Institute for the Study of the Avant-Garde, and later taken up by experimental artist Beverly Richey. She created a legendary one-day exhibition at the factory in 1983 titled 1984, which 700 visitors lined up to see. PMVI took on the issues of the day—issues not likely to be addressed by mainstream galleries and museums—including “feminism, war, capitalism, elitism, Urban Renewal and ‘TV mono-culture.’” Artifacts of the group’s life inside the factory are on view in Factory, including video footage of multimedia installations (made, in part, of papier mâché), a performance piece on “how to draw a sink” and artists at work and in video portrait closeups.

Clock Shop Factory Winds Back, Then Looks Forward

Clock Shop Factory Winds Back, Then Looks Forward

The Reinvention of The New Haven Clock Company Factory -

The Reinvention of The New Haven Clock Comp
any Factory - 

RICHEY PMVI AVANT-GARDE ROOTS Jason Bischoff-Wurstle: FACTORY Weekly ep. 4 - PMVI- The Papier Mache Video Institute

"PMVI- The Papier Mache Video Institute, New Haven’s premier DIY avant-garde artists collective that hosted the legendary “1984” exhibition, the largest Elm City underground art show in the 1980s." The New Haven Museum 2020

New Haven Museum presents a What Were We Thinking Films series: FACTORY weekly A 10-week dive into the underground, postindustrial history of the New Haven Clock Company Factory with “FACTORY” exhibit curator Jason Bischoff-Wurstle. Featuring new archival photos and documentary footage. Can’t make it to the museum? We’re bringing the exhibit to YOU. Find it on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and www.newhavenmuseum.org.

"PMVI- The Papier Mache Video Institute, New Haven’s premier DIY avant-garde artists collective that hosted the legendary “1984” exhibition, the largest Elm City underground art show in the 1980s." New Haven Museum

Special Thanks to Jason Bischoff-Wurstle the curator of this exhibit at the New Haven Museum, with the support of Bill Kraus and Gorman Bechard Director of the soon-to-be-released documentary film "FACTORY" exploring the history of the Hamilton Street Clockworks building.

CURT PARDEE SHARES MEMORIES OF HIS EXPERIENCE AS AN ARTIST IN THE 1984 SHOW 

LIVE FACEBOOK POST OF PHOTOS FROM THE  ORIGINAL EXHIBIT:

Over fifty photos with information links from the One Night Only 1984 Show on FB platform. 

"First Show of 1984" based on George Orwell's novel

Co-Directed by Beverly Richey and Paul Rutkovsky

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS (in reverse alphabetical order as appeared on the Iconic invitation designed by Curt Pardee (seen in this video)

MICHAELVUKSTA  DELIGHTWORTHYN   BENWESTBROCK    ANDREAROSSI    BEVERLYRICHEY    CURTPARDEE   SUSANORANGE    BOBLEHMAN   JANETLEHMANN    DENISELEGTERS    JAMESHERSEY     BETSYHAYNES    JACKHARRIETT   TIMFERESTEN    JOEFEKIETA    MAGGIEENS    BEVERLYELIASOPH     REBECCADOUGHTY    MARQUED'OR    MARIDEPREDO    PHILLIPCHAMBERS    ROBERTACHAMBERS    ANNABRESNICK    DAVIDBRENNAN

Sadly Beverly Eliasoph, Susan Orange, and Ben Westbrock have passed away. 

They are missed. 

Secret "Factory" Life Exposed, Preserved | New Haven Independent

Secret "Factory" Life Exposed, Preserved | New Haven Independent
"Whatever hidden working and living was going on there, in time it became more public. There was the Papier Mache Video Institute (PMVI) was founded in 1978 by Paul Rutkovsky, who was “a fellow at Harvard’s Institute for the Study of the Avant-Garde” (which, sadly, no longer seems to exist). PMVI “was a group that focused on activist art of a transient nature not typically found in museums and galleries. They took on issues of feminism, war, capitalism, elitism, urban renewal, and ‘TV monoculture” with works of music, dance, poetry, visual art, performance, mixed media, and of course papier-mache and video.” TVs were smashed. Videos were made. There was an annual Miss America event in which women and men competed.

As the notes relate, “Rutkovsky and crew established their work and exhibition space on the wide-open fourth floor of the north side of the factory. They had open reign to create freely and host events, gradually spreading and taking over space along the west side (Hamilton Street) as well…. When Rutkovsky became a professor at Florida State University, colleague Beverly Richey took over and did groundbreaking work in feminist art and the subject of food as a political statement.” A one-day-only exhibition in 1984, entitled “1984,” “had a crowd of over 700 visitors lining up around the block.”

Article about the Factory Exhit at New Haven Mixed Use

Mixed Use

"Covering nearly two city blocks along Hamilton Street, the massive space, where untold New Haveners produced and assembled timepieces, became the perfect place for those who preferred to fly under the radar. Among them were the Papier Mache Video Institute (PMVI), founded in 1978 by Paul Rutkovsky, an artist and a fellow at Harvard’s Institute for the Study of the Avant-Garde, and later taken up by experimental artist Beverly Richey. She created a legendary one-day exhibition at the factory in 1983 titled 1984, which 700 visitors lined up to see. PMVI took on the issues of the day—issues not likely to be addressed by mainstream galleries and museums—including “feminism, war, capitalism, elitism, Urban Renewal and ‘TV mono-culture.’” Artifacts of the group’s life inside the factory are on view in Factory, including video footage of multimedia installations (made, in part, of papier mâché), a performance piece on “how to draw a sink” and artists at work and in video portrait closeups.

THE BUILDING; the institute, the gallery, the space

PAPIER MACHE VIDEO INSTITUTE
133 HAMILTON ST., NEW HAVEN, CT 06511, USA



I'm defining THE BUILDING as an alternative space for lack
of a better definition. The Institute is not commercial
but certainly encourages the sale of art work.

The events(performances, visual arts, community meetings
etc.) that will take place in and around THE BUILDING have
no established location in the greater New Haven area. I
know this through first hand experience at the Institute,
presently at 133 Hamilton St. There are individuals in
the region (and around the country) who work, produce, and
even exhibit outside the traditional commercial gallery
context. These people do not represent a sub-culture;
they have become (and in some instances are the status
quo) a viable and substantial part of the contemporary
cultural scene. There are several institutions of this
sort in Hartford (Montevideo, Artspace, Real Art Ways,
Craftery) and in every major, and not so major, city in the
United States. when I exhibit my work I inevitably must
go outside the New Haven area, unless I show at the Institute.

New Haven can support a space such as I'm proposing. Why
it does not exist at this time is a perplexing question.
The artists are here, and the public (audience) certainly
is, but THE BUILDING is not.

                                                              PAUL RUTKOVSKY

FB ARCHIVE LINK:  PMVI HISTORY POST

Paul Rutkovsky; Correspondence February 1984

(estimated date: Feb 1984)

Just thinking about PMVI and 
the 84 Show - Buy and Sell, etc, 
and how exciting it is to realize
that all that activity demands some 
cooperation and attention!

of course - I'm thinking about 
this in Florida -

Love, Paul

I like to think that the New Haven 
pettiness has evaporated ! ?

FB ARCHIVE; PMVI HISTORY POST

1982 ARTS COUNCIL ARTS AWARDS; The New York Times, Sunday, May 2, 1982 Connecticut Journal

1982 ARTS COUNCIL ARTS AWARDS

THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, MAY 2, 1982
CONNECTICUT JOURNAL

Mary Hunter Wolf, Murry Sidlin, right and Paul Rutkovsky, recipients of the 1982 awards from the Arts Council of Greater New Haven.

Annual awards of The Arts Council of Greater New Haven, the these three such awards in state, will be bestowed from 4 P.M. to 6:30 P.M. Saturday in the Yale University Art Gallery. Former Mayor Richard C. Lee will preside for the third year as master of ceremonies and Mayor Biagio DiLieto will make the presentations to the four recipients.
     "The production of art in this region is so spectacular," said a spokesman for the council, "that an event of this kind is warranted."
     The program will begin with a violin solo by Paul Kantor, followed by a one-act play titled "The Switchman," written by J.J. Areola and adapted for the stage by D.W. Faulkner.
     For "achievements, services and artistic accomplishments which serve as an inspiration and standard of excellence to the arts community of South Central Connecticut, " as the presentation will read, hand-calligraphed scrolls will be presented to the 21-year old Creative Arts Workshop of New Haven, and to Murry Sidlin, conductor of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.
     Those to be cited for "exceptional growth and for exploring new forms and ideas," are Paul Rutkovsky, 35 year old performance artist and founder of Papier Mache Video Institute, and Mary Hunter Wolf, theatrical director, producer, television editor, actress and former chairman of the State Commission on the Arts, whose career began in 1927.
     A special Laureate Award will be presented to Laetita Pierson for "continuous exemplary service to the the arts in the region." Mrs. Pierson had a significant role in forming the Arts Council, the Audubon Arts Center in downtown New Haven, the Creative Arts Workshop and the program of public plantings by the New Haven Garden Club. She will have a show of her own drawings and paintings at the Creative Arts Workshop, May 14-19.
     The awards ceremony will end with a reception in the Gallery Sculpture Hall. Tickets at $12 must be reserved in advance by calling 772-2788.
   

EARLY PMVI ARCHIVE POST

LINK TO:  PMVI ARCHIVE POST

ARTICLE 1981: The Paper-Mache Video Institute; Paul Rukovsky

The Paper-Mache Video Institute
by Bud Brenner (a senior at Stillman college; Yale University)
THE NEW JOURNAL VOL. 14 #2 10/24/81 Yale Univ. Publication

The harvest moon shines brightly above the massive hulk of industrial silhouettes in New Haven's warehouse district.  Hamilton Street is silent, lit by persistently pink mercury street lights. Romance pervades every darkened corner of the Bethany Shift Works building. A man in a tuxedo and battered sneakers makes his way up five flights of creaky stairs; a woman's rhinestone tiara glistens in the factory's greasy parking lot. A small crowd gradually congregates upstairs in the studio headquarters of the Paper Mache Video Institute. Tonight a time-honored American tradition finds new meaning, new vitality, in the Institutes's long awaited, sixth annual Miss America Spectacular.

A battery of television sets lined up against one wall of a darkened room assail the viewer. Most are tuned to the Miss America Pageant, and the plastic glory of Atlantic City, New Jersey, is reproduced in Technicolor throughout the room. Many of the sets are wildly mis-tuned, with nearly fluorescent orange and green tones, sound blares loudly across the room in a distorted chorus. 

A young boy plays with a video tennis game, oblivious to a Brooke Sheilds commercial echoed some twenty times in front of him. Grown men manipulate toy tanks with remote-controlled radios. From behind a large wooden cut-out tank, people help themselves to wine and cucumber dip. 

PMVI is no by any means a typical art gallery. Indeed, there are those who would insist that the Institute has absolutely nothing to do with art. 

"I'm dedicated to avoiding art, " muses Paul Rutkovsky, the patron saint of PMVI. Rutkovsky, who founded the Institute teaches at New Haven's Pair School of Art. He keeps a low profile, focusing attention on his work. "We live in a time where museums are cathedrals; they've served their purpose for holding icons of the past. This is why I have a passion for reaching out to a different audience, one that has nothing to do the A.R,T. world. What is vital to our culture is off the picture plane, out of the proscenium and into the department stores and onto the highways." A large sign at the entrance to the Institute (which actually is located on the top floor of an old shirt factory) reads "Dedicated to the Promotion of Transient Culture." The medium? Xerox, of course.

Rutkovsky choose to construct most of his sculptural installations out of transient materials; video tape and papier mache figure prominently. Both decay in a comparatively short time span. Huge houses, built of papier mache and reaching anywhere from floor level to nearly ten feet high, haunt one area of the studio of the Institute. Contained within each one is a flickering video display. As the view peers into the windows of each house, he or she enters into a smaller world. In one house, the video display consists of a child's head, the figure composed of papier mache relief, the video screen comprising a face, which changes from a smile to tears over time.

In a taller house, a man sits in front of a silent TV screen, and the viewer gazes past him through another window to an alleyway and into a video display of a street beyond it. Rutkovsky says the houses represent the forced containment of people in their individual boxes, houses, cars and institutions are rigid enclosures of isolation. The inclusion of video screens serves as a reminder of television's omnipresent impact on our lives. People learn to relate to an inanimate box instead of each other.

There is stark sense of irony in Paul Rutkovsky's work, Confronting the culture's obsession with death machines with a childlike innocence, he combines some rather ugly images with happy colors and buoyant  gesture. A recent exhibit, entitled "Paintings for the Future," consisted of sixty or seventy small paintings lined up on white walls. Rutkovsky remarks that they are representatives of military war machines in very slick fashion, I just wanted to present them in a highly designed mode. It was actually a very cynical presentation. because, because they were so pretty-graduated colors, muted greys. My cynicism hides occasionally, but it was out this month. "Subject matter included airborne missiles gliding past the upturned tails of happily leaping whales, studies of tanks and a detailed mini-series called "Marty Watching TV,"which depicted a young man with vacant face in front of various colored television sets.

Television is a recurring theme in Paul Rutkovsky's work. As a video artist he has created a number of unusual tapes, including one which was presented at a Stillman Sheep's Clothing concert a few years back, a piece entitled "How to Draw" In the videotape, Rutkovsky appears and shows the viewer how to draw various objects (such as a sink, cat, etc.,) and objects and finally shows a filmed demonstration of each object in use. The last lesson demonstrates the drawing of a gun, and the video protagonist is assassinated at the end of the lesson. One reason why Rutkovsky's work is so accessible to those "untrained" in art, and appreciated by those who might normally reject it out-of-hand, is that no abstraction is carried beyond everyday life. If it can be translated into television terms, it can be understood by any modern person.

Needless to say, there are strong political overtones to Rutkovsky's art. However, there is no ideology involved in its presentation, no preaching. He says his creations simply reflect militaristic attitudes rampant in today's world. A show upcoming in Los Angeles, opening on November 14 at Contemporary Exhibitions, is called "Airplane Remnants" and consists of a Korean War bomber control panel, whose switches are operated by Rutkovsky. Portable tape players and hanging lights are placed at different points in the gallery,, scattered among wings, stewardesses cockpits, pilots, wheels, bullets, tail fins, and missiles. Rutkovsky operates the lighting and sound selections at whim: sounds include recordings of an atomic bomb explosion, bullets, and machine guns. The audience wanders about the gallery viewing the changes through plastic opera glasses and filling out order forms for their favorite airplane remnants. the message behind the art, in this case, is gleaned through direct participation.

Participation is what an evening at a Papier Mache Video Institute opening is all about. At any given moment, you, the viewer, might be drafted to zerox [sic] your face in slow motion or assist in the photography of a seltzer bottle being shot at a live electrical wire. Artists are are always willing to discuss their work, and the physical layout of the Institute is intriguing. at times a bit confusing, because the walls are moved periodically. the surrealistic surroundings of a totally industrialized neighborhood offer a vista refreshingly unlike Yale's ivory towers.

Although the Papier Mache Video Institute is held together largely by Paul Rutkovsky's imagination and a little rubber cement, it is the home of numerous exhibits and performances created by other artists whose interest range from the mildly avant-garde to the wildly incomprehensible. Sound sculptures, painting displays, video and film projection and performance pieces are all part of the Institutes's calendar. New York's Carmen Beuchat performed two evenings of modern dance on October 16 and 17. Her performances, according to Paul Rutkovsky, "include works that combine pure dance with mixed media modes that are both mysterious and exhilarating."

Another opening, entitled "Visual Events in Various Rooms" premiered on October 23. A number of artists have collaborated on this one, the Animal Room features a group exhibition containing "The Farm Installation" by Anna Bresnick and Fran Real, paintings by Joan Gardner called "Random Roads to Extinction." In addition Jack Harriett displays imitation backyard (complete with birds and birdbaths). Beverly Richey's graphite and paper works and Ben Westbrock's "Abstract Environmental Sculpture" fill a room each. Rutkovsky's ever-popular Artificial Store is also open, offering "cultural refreshments at discount prices."

One attraction tentatively being planned is the creation of the Hamilton Street Country Club, which will feature a 9-hole miniature golf course, papier mache landscapes, souvenir T-shirts and golf caps and assorted toys. Rutkovsky terms the work "a recreational art piece," viewers will be encouraged to play on the course.

"The Papier Mache Video Institute is located at 133 Hamilton Street, in New Haven. The studio phone number is 777-0906. Paul Rukovsky welcomes inquires about exhibits and is always open to presenting new works at the Institute. Whether you're dedicated to art, dedicated to avoiding art or simply into watching television PMVI is an adventure for the senses.