A Cloud in Trousers 1914-1915

Gregg Bordowitz

1995 | 00:32:33 | United States | English | Color | 4:3 |

Collection: Single Titles

Tags: Performance, Poetry

This video is staged as a reading of the great Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky's famous poem A Cloud in Trousers, written 1914-15. It was an attempt to go beyond the autobiographical mode of Fast Trip, Long Drop by appropriating the allegorical potential of another artist's work. Mayakovsky's poem is lyrical and didactic, romantic and materialist. It swings pendulously between two equally passionate commitments: political revolution and romantic love. The dynamic tension in the poem emanates from a conflict. The poet wishes for social transformation with every fiber of his being, but the revolution is a demanding lover: it requires the withdrawal from all other romantic interests. It demands fidelity.

Featuring David Rakoff as Mayakovsky.

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