Fwd: FINAL

[Frederic Madre]

>User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.01 (1630)
>Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 12:08:33 +0100
>Subject: FINAL
>From: Ian White <ianwhite at lux.org.uk>
>To: <movingforwards at hotmail.com>
>
>Dear All,
>
>this will be the last email I'll issue from the Lux office.
>
>There are 3 announcements:
>
>1.
>new venue for the presentation of LONG KNIVES NIGHT!!!
>Victor Dashuk on a UK tour from Belarus will now present this dark
>documentary about Belarus Pres. Lukashenko's coup at:
>
>THE ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE
>
>39 BELGRAVE SQUARE
>LONDON SW1
>
>on
>
>THURSDAY 18th OCTOBER
>
>starting at 6.30pm
>
>Tube: Hyde Park Corner
>
>ENTRANCE WILL BE FREE
>
>and the screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director.
>
>ALL WELCOME
>
>
>2.
>some of you may have read the piece that I wrote in Saturday's Guardian.
>It's the nature of the beast the the editor removed a degree of syntax and
>eulogy from my text, which I have pasted below in full for your information.
>Please do feel free to disseminate it as you see fit.
>
>
>
>3.
>I now have a new, more optimistic-sounding email address at which I can
>always be contacted:
>
>movingforwards at hotmail.com
>
>
>
>Thanks to everyone's letters of support and shared disappointment, shock and
>disbelief. All your kind thoughts have been sincerely appreciated.
>
>Watch this space for future developments and more programmes to rock the
>world - I'll keep everyone posted by email with our future plans - rest
>assured they'll be worth it.
>
>
>love is all there's left
>
>
>Ian
>
>
>
>
>LUX "CLOSURE"
>
>The Lux Centre specialised in the exhibition, distribution and production of
>artists film and video. It has closed its doors for the last time this
>week...
>
>At 10am on Tuesday 2nd October all members of Lux staff were called to a
>meeting with their Board of Directors with less than 24hours notice.
>
>An ominous sign in itself, it turned out to be the last point of contact
>with anything one might assume to be a working reality.
>
>Staff were greeted in the cinema by Mik Flood, Chairman of the Board, Vice
>Chair Pauline van Mourik Broekman, Secretary Roland Denning and a
>representative of PricewaterhouseCoopers "Business Recovery Services".
>
>What unfolded and its aftermath defies rational thought but not description.
>
>We were informed that after a lengthy period of being included in the Arts
>Council of England's Recovery Programme, the Arts Council had come to a
>decision following meetings and presentations of papers, that they would no
>longer support the organisation - seeing no way through the difficult and
>precarious financial situation we'd been working under for nearly a year
>without having to spend twice as much as they were prepared to.
>
>We were to cease operations with immediate effect.
>
>Lux staff were told to go home, without pay or periods of notice.
>
>A two month cinema programme beginning that evening was to be cancelled in
>its entirety; the current gallery exhibition to be closed immediately;
>artists and editors working mid-edit told to leave; colleges and
>institutions waiting for films from Lux Distribution were to cancel courses;
>the organisation to vacate the building.
>
>Images flashed of eponymous "recent events" as in the time we had to clear
>desks people made frantic attempts to maintain some kind of dignity in a
>state of abject shock and professional collapse.
>
>In the midst of the ensuing farce personal belongings were stuffed into bin
>liners, bulk emails sent across the world and corridors tramped in the
>numbness of disbelief.
>
>The coffee shop had a fleet of vans and local heroes within minutes removing
>their stock. Contract cleaners appeared from nowhere, suddenly turning out
>cupboards full of toilet rolls, bleach and numerous vacuums.
>
>By 2pm the shutter was down and a locksmith had been called. Individuals
>might be invited back to wrap up their departments, but access to the
>building would be by appointment only.
>
>The cinema hoarding still displays a text by the artist Ken Lum (due to talk
>in the cinema that evening):
>HALLELUJAH!
>JESUS NOW WATCHES OVER THE LUX!
>
>It's a ridiculous state of affairs where comedy belies the imminent impact
>of massive cultural loss, the extreme disrespect and utter lack of
>acknowledgement that seem to have been the guiding principals of this
>action.
>
>Cold comfort that closure came 2 days after payday. Little solace that
>Europe's most important archive of artists' film and video is behind bars.
>
>Words failed and there wasn't time anyhow when it came to cancelling a
>programme that included numerous artists and filmmakers from all over the
>world; Canada, America, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Belarus, memorial
>screenings for the much-loved filmmaker Sandra Lahire and a week of the
>London Film Festival.
>
>Little of what I might write now could convey the debt the organisation had
>to the legacies of artists and curators of the London Filmmakers Co-op and
>London Electronic Arts, the obligation to and continuing passionate belief
>in everyone who we worked with.
>
>The Lux is not yet in liquidation - our man at PricewaterhouseCoopers will
>be working to achieve a satisfactory arrangement with creditors that will
>provide the "basis for a future Lux". It¹s just that ³the Lux² has no
>employees, which somehow makes one wonder.
>
>Little to be said but many questions to be asked of our government's
>much-vaunted Film Council building a "strategy for cultural cinema" whilst
>never supporting the only exhibition space dedicated to just that. Many
>questions too for the Arts Council, the bfi and the National Lottery money
>provided to set-up an art centre in a rented building, with increases
>negotiable at open market rates.
>
>This is a nest that through necessity will continue to unravel. Meantime and
>in defiance we will prove unstoppable in our commitment to promote, exhibit,
>make and distribute the work that we believe in.
>
>
>Ian White is the former curator of the Lux Cinema.