Paul Jeffrey Sharits (February 7, 1943,

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

—July 8, 1993, Buffalo,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

) was a visual artist, best known for his work in experimental, or avant-garde filmmaking, particularly what became known as the

structural film Structural film was an avant-garde experimental film movement prominent in the United States in the 1960s and which developed into the Structural/materialist films in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. Overview The term was coined by P. Adams Sitn ...

movement, along with other artists such as

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both d ...

Hollis Frampton Hollis William Frampton, Jr. (March 11, 1936 – March 30, 1984) was an American avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer, theoretician, and pioneer of digital art. He was best known for his innovative and non-linear structural films that defin ...

, and

Michael Snow Michael Snow (born December 10, 1928) is a Canadian artist working in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are ''Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Région Centrale'' (1971), with the f ...

. Paul Sharits' film work primarily focused on installations incorporating endless film loops, multiple projectors, and experimental soundtracks (prominently used in his 1975 film ''Shutter Interface'').

Life

Sharits was born in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, and earned a B.F.A. in painting at the University of Denver's School of Art where he was a protégé of

Stan Brakhage James Stanley Brakhage ( ; January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003) was an American filmmaker. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century experimental film. Over the course of five decades, Brakhage created a large ...

. He also attended Indiana University in

Bloomington, Indiana Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County, Indiana, Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the List of municipalities in Indiana, seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside ...

where he received an M.F.A. in Visual Design. In July 1960, he married Frances Trujillo Niekerk, and in 1965 they had a son, Christopher. They divorced in 1970. He was subsequently a teacher at the

Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the oldest art colleges in the U ...

Antioch College Antioch College is a private liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1852 as a non-sectarian institution; politician and education reformer Horace Mann was its f ...

, and

SUNY Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

(where he was hired by Gerald O'Grady along with Tony Conrad and Hollis Frampton). Son Christopher Sharits suggests on the memorial website that Sharits suffered from

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...

Works

Sharits' works of the 1960s, when he received the widest acclaim, included influential "flicker" films such as ''Ray Gun Virus'', ''Piece Mandala/End War'', ''N:O:T:H:I:N:G'', ''

T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G ''T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G'' is a 12-minute short film directed by Paul Sharits in 1968. It uses many of the strategies characteristic of the structural film movement, including a static frame, flicker effects, flash frames and continual audio and visual r ...

'' (featuring poet David Franks), and ''S:TREAM:S:S:ECTION:S:ECTION:S:S:ECTIONED''. His works of the 70s were among the forerunners of contemporary

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

. Themes of violence permeate his work. His work has been preserved by

Anthology Film Archives Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental, and avant-garde cinema.The Film-Makers' Cooperative The Film-Makers' Cooperative a.k.a. legal name The New American Cinema Group, Inc. is an artist-run, non-profit organization incorporated in July 1961 in New York City by Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, Stan Brakhage, Lionel Rogosin, Gregory Markopoul ...

and

Canyon Cinema Canyon Cinema is an American nonprofit organization for distributing independent, avant-garde, and artist-made films. After starting in the 1960s as an exhibition program, it grew to include a nationwide newsletter and a distribution cooperative. ...

Death

In the late 1980s, Sharits was shot in his stomach at a local bar. He claimed the incident to have been an accident, for he was mistaken for someone else. He later experienced bouts of depression trying to recuperate from his wound, as well as having broken up with a designer named Laurie. Sharits later died silently in 1993, in Buffalo,

, noted to be the same death place as his film colleagues,

James Blue James Blue (October 10, 1930 in Tulsa, Oklahoma – June 14, 1980 in Buffalo, New York) was a filmmaker. His most notable films were ''Les oliviers de la justice'' (literal English title ''The Olive Trees of Justice'') (1962, US), ''A Few Notes ...

and Hollis Frampton, in a eulogy by former director of

George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

Anthony Bannon Anthony Bannon (born December 6, 1943) is an arts administrator in Western New York. He served as the director of the George Eastman Museum from 1996 to 2012 as well as the executive director of the Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State ...

Filmography

* ''Wintercourse'' (1962) * ''Ray Gun Virus'' (1966) * ''Unrolling Event (Fluxfilm)'' (1966) * ''Wristtrick (Fluxfilm)'' (1966) * ''Dots 1 & 2 (Fluxfilm)'' (1966) * ''Sears Catalogue (Fluxfilm)'' (1966) * ''Word Movie (Fluxfilm 29)'' (1966) * ''Piece Mandala/End War'' (1966) * ''Razor Blades'' (1965–68) * ''N:O:T:H:I:N:G'' (1968) * ''

'' (1968) * ''S:TREAM:S:S:ECTION:S:ECTION:S:S:ECTIONED'' (1968–71) * ''Inferential Current'' (1971) * ''Sound Strip/Film Strip'' (1971) * ''Axiomatic Granularity '' (1972–73) * ''Damaged Film Loop/The Forgetting of Impressions and Intentions'' (1973–74) * ''Synchronousoundtracks'' (1973–74) * ''Color Sound Frames'' (1974) * ''Vertical Contiguity'' (1974) * ''Analytical Studies III: Color Frame Passages'' (1973–74) * ''Apparent Motion'' (1975) * ''Shutter Interface'' (1975) * ''Analytical Studies I: The Film Frame'' (1971–76) * ''Analytical Studies II: Un-Frame-Lines'' (1971–76) * ''Analytical Studies IV: Blank Color Frames'' (1975–76) * ''Dream Displacement'' (1976) * ''Epileptic Seizure Comparison'' (1976) * ''Tails'' (1976) * ''Declarative Mode'' (1976–77) * ''Episodic Generation'' (1978) * ''3rd Degree'' (1982) * ''Bad Burns'' (1982) * ''Brancusi's Sculpture Ensemble at Tirgu Jiu'' (1977–84) * ''Figment I: Fluxglam Voyage in Search of the Real Maciunas'' (1977–86) * ''Rapture'' (1987)

Incomplete/uncatalogued works

* ''Five Mexican Pyramids'' (c. 1981) * ''Poison'' (c. 1981)

Notes

References

* *

External links

*
Paul Sharits Memorial Gallery

Paul Sharits
at

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Paul Sharits obituary
of ''

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'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Sharits, Paul American experimental filmmakers 1943 births Maryland Institute College of Art faculty 1993 deaths People with bipolar disorder Artists from Denver Indiana University alumni University of Denver alumni Antioch College faculty University at Buffalo faculty