Berlin: Barbara Hammer Has Won Two Teddy Awards

Longtime visionary filmmaker Barbara Hammer, 70, won two Teddy Award in February 2011, the prizes in the category for best short film, one for her own Maya Deren’s Sink, which “explores Deren’s concepts of space, time and form through visits and projections filmed in her LA and NY homes” and the other for Generations, which Hammer shares with co-director Gina Carducci for “a 30-minute 16mm film about mentoring and passing on the tradition of personal experimental filmmaking.”

Barbara Hammer about her Maya Deren short film, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival

The lesbian-gay film award “TEDDY” (first awarded in 1987) is, as an officially recognized award of the Berlin International Film Festival, the only film award of its kind in the world.

25th TEDDY AWARD 2011 Jury Statement:

“The jury gives the best short film prize to two films: Generations by Barbara Hammer and Gina Carducci, which celebrates the support of experimental film and its form by combining traditional film techniques with digital processing and Ms. Hammer’s Maya Deren’s Sink, a tribute to the avant-garde filmmaker done with Ms. Hammer’s indelible touch, employing Ms. Deren’s clips reprocessed and reimagined into a thoughtful sui generis work of art.”

Barbara Hammer Solo Show in Berlin

at KOW (Koch Oberhuber Wolff)
Brunnenstrasse 9, D-10119 Berlin, Germany
February 12 – April 17, 2011
OPEN WED-SUN 12-18

Gallery KOW tells: “The documentary and experimental films of Barbara Hammer are considered among the earliest and most extensive representations of lesbian identity, love, and sexuality. To date, Hammer’s work has received little attention from the art world. Yet film retrospectives at New York’s MoMA (2010) and the Tate Modern, London, (2012) are now recalling the artist, who was born in Hollywood in 1939, as a pioneer of queer cinema who made decisive contributions to feminism and gay liberation as well as avant-garde cinema and performance art. On the occasion of Hammer’s eighth participation in the Berlin International Film Festival, we are pleased to present the first ever-solo show of her work, with a focus on the 1970s.”

Blue Film No. 6: Love Is Where You Find It by Barbara Hammer, 1998

Barbara Hammer, Blue Film No. 6: Love Is Where You Find It. 1998, 8 mm film transferred to Digibeta, 4:3, Colour, silent, 3 min.

Kow has published a 11 page pdf catalogue with installation views of the show and stills from Barbara Hammer’s videos. The catalogue is awailable for download at the gallery’s website. The illustration above is from this catalogue.

Related links
Barbara Hammer’s website