Jennifer Elster is an American experimental artist, filmmaker, writer, photographer, musician, and performer. She is the founder of The Development, a film and art studio based in New York City. She is best known for her performance artwork, her solo multidisciplinary exhibitions, The Retrospective of an Extroverted Recluse, and The Wake The F*ck Up Show, as well as her artistic collaborations transforming the late David Bowie into different characters and having written lyrics Yoko Ono performed for the online cinematic excursion Elster helmed entitled ITW Pathway featuring Will Oldham and the late Glenn O'Brien. Elster conceived and directed her upcoming fourteen year film project ...In the Woods (and Elsewhere), which features subjects such as Terrence Howard, Debra Winger, Questlove, Rosie Perez, and Dave Matthews, among others. Elster's performance and video art have been exhibited at the New Museum and Central Booking gallery, in group shows with artists, such as Jonas Mekas and the late Kate Millett, and she has performed at such galleries as Signs and Symbols Gallery, Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, and The Development Underground. Her work focuses on the complexities of humanity and the ongoing fight for social justices. She designs under the J. Elster brand.
Jennifer Elster was born and raised in New York City.[1] She began creating art at an early age as a way to deal with the harshness of reality.[1] Elster obsessively wrote as soon as she was able to write. She created sculptures of people and directed plays and wherever else her imagination took her as a child. As a teenager, she began doing performance dance in the underground art scene at clubs such as The Garage, Tunnel, Fun House, and M.K. She attended New York University, majoring in psychology and writing and graduated with honors.[2][3] Elster began her career at Conde Nast, working as a fashion assistant at Mademoiselle to subsidize her college tuition.[2][3] She quickly got promoted to Market Editor and then stylist.[1][3] She then left to pursue her obsession with writing, but was sought after for her unique aesthetic and ended up styling such artists as the late David Bowie for Outside, Chloe Sevigny, Shirley Manson, Trent Reznor, Isabella Rossellini, and Kate Winslet.[4] Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including covers and stories for Rolling Stone, The Face, Dazed, and Time Magazine.[5]
In the late 90s, she began making experimental films. In 2000 she held her first private art show at the Shooting Gallery, exhibiting a series of stencil canvases and screening an experimental film.[6] Elster made her first short films on shoe-string budgets.[7]Dirty and Ill Will were both shown at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2001.[7]
A native New Yorker, Elster was greatly affected by 9/11 and cited the experience as "an inevitable influence" on her work and life.[8]
In 2003 Elster's debut feature, Particles of Truth, which she wrote, produced, directed, and starred in, premiered in the Tribeca Film Festival and aired on the Sundance Channel and Netflix.[8] The small-budget indie was described by Variety as "what Hollywood mightily strives for – a believable romantic comedy."[9]Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "an assured and ambitious first film," noting that, "The images of Particles of Truth are so sharp and cut so deep, it's as if its writer-director and co-star Jennifer Elster made them with a scalpel."[10] Eric Campos of Film Threat described the film as "quite an intense emotional rollercoaster with standout performances, especially from Elster."[11]
In 2010, Elster directed The Being Experience: The Prologue as a precursor to her upcoming film series.[12] A diverse group of people participated, including Moby, Temple Grandin and Yoko Ono.[12]Paste Magazine reported of the episodic release: "The delivery will be as unconventional as the experience itself."[13]The Being Experience had been described by Paste as an "eerie psychological ride",[14] while IndieWire notes the unconventional nature of Into the Woods: "Elster's subjects are both literally and figuratively unaware of their path."[15] In 2013 Elster then directed the interactive online experience ITW Pathways, a haunting glimpse into the labyrinth minds of the filmmaker and her subjects, where pathways always recede and no one can really say where it's going other than "…In the Woods". This interactive experience is of parallax depth, pushing the limits of the medium in unexplored directions. These online experiences explore a new way to tell a story and interact within a cinematic experience through pathways that lead to plot twists and interactivity, bringing the audience deeper into the world of "…In the Woods." This online experience was released while in post production of the upcoming film series"... In the Woods (and Elsewhere)", and features artists such as Terrence Howard, Will Oldham, Jørgen Leth, and Famke Janssen. Elster's upcoming film series "...In the Woods (and Elsewhere)" has been fourteen years in the making and will conclude filming in the summer of 2020.
In 2013, Elster expanded her repertoire by founding the J. Elster brand.[3]The New York Times commented on "the beauty of the handmade pieces."[16]
Elster launched ChannelELSTER.com: A Place for Out of the Ordinary Cinema and Sound[17] and opened The Development, a private underground studio and "living installation",[18] in 2016.[19][20]The Retrospective of an Extroverted Recluse was the first public showing of her work,[6] which was hailed by Michael Tommaseillo of The Huffington Post as "simply magnificent. It dealt with some of my favorite sad topics such as love, love lost, longing, and conflict."[21] The pop-up show featured a multi-disciplinary installation of photography, painting, video, and performances by Jennifer Elster with such musicians as, Trevor Gureckis, Mariko Anruku and Sugar Vendil.[22]
In May 2017, Jennifer Elster performed Amid the Beauty and Cemetery: Is Death? at the New Museum.[23] She also screened her video art titled, Unknown.[23] Elster also performed in shows at West Park, Salon STUX, Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, and The Development Underground.[24]
In 2018, Elster did a solo art exhibition titled "The Wake The F*ck Up Show", featuring a variety of conceptual work, photography, video, performance, paintings and words, that put forth a dialogue for our times in a multimedia exhibition that cut through to the artery to move the American conversation further along.[25]
Elster's political activism can be seen in her protests as well as visual and performative artwork advocating for civil rights and social justice.[26] Additionally she has fought for net neutrality in a written campaign by Elster and Gloria Steinem[27] At a street protest, she stated that she "became incredibly concerned about the way that repealing net neutrality was going to affect the future of our internet freedom...[and that] she had to respond."[26]
Designed as a multi-part series. Featuring Dave Matthews, Terrence Howard, Moby, Temple Grandin, Famke Janssen.[29][30]
Related Research Articles
Terrence Frederick Malick is an American filmmaker. His films include Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998), for which he received Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award nominations, The New World (2005), and The Tree of Life (2011), which garnered him another Best Director Oscar nomination and the Palme d'Or at the 64th Cannes Film Festival.
Edith Falco is an American actress. Known for her roles on stage and screen she has received numerous accolades including four Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and five Screen Actors Guild Awards as well as nomination for a Tony Award.
Debra Lynn Winger is an American actress. She starred in the films An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Terms of Endearment (1983), and Shadowlands (1993), each of which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Winger won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress for Terms of Endearment, and the Tokyo International Film Festival Award for Best Actress for A Dangerous Woman (1993).
Ahmir K. Thompson, known professionally as Questlove, is an American drummer, record producer, disc jockey, filmmaker, music journalist, and actor. He is the drummer and joint frontman for the hip-hop band the Roots. The Roots have been serving as the in-house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon since 2014, after having fulfilled the same role on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Questlove is also one of the producers of the 2015 cast album of the Broadway musical Hamilton. He has also co-founded of the websites Okayplayer and OkayAfrica. He joined Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University as an adjunct professor in 2016, and hosts the podcast Questlove Supreme.
Karyn Kiyoko Kusama is an American filmmaker. She made her feature directorial debut with the sports drama film Girlfight (2000), for which she won Best Director and the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature.
Sooni Taraporevala is an Indian screenwriter, photographer, and filmmaker who is the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay!, all directed by Mira Nair. She also adapted Rohinton Mistry's novel Such A Long Journey and wrote the films Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, her directorial debut Little Zizou, and Yeh Ballet, a Netflix original film that she wrote and directed.
Portrait of Jennie is a 1948 American supernatural film based on the 1940 novella by Robert Nathan. The film was directed by William Dieterle and produced by David O. Selznick. It stars Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten. At the 21st Academy Awards, it won an Oscar for Best Special Effects. Joseph H. August was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography - Black and White.
Gabrielle Mary Antonia Hoffmann is an American actress. She made her film debut in Field of Dreams (1989) and found success as a child actress acting in Uncle Buck (1989), This Is My Life (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and then later as a teenager with Now and Then (1995), Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Volcano (1997), All I Wanna Do (1998), and 200 Cigarettes (1999).
Alex Hedison is an American photographer, director, and actress. She is married to actress and filmmaker Jodie Foster.
Marina Ann Hantzis, known professionally as Sasha Grey, is an American actress, model, writer, musician, and former pornographic film actress. She began her acting career in the pornographic film industry, winning 15 awards for her work between 2007 and 2010, including the AVN Award for Female Performer of the Year in 2008. In 2023, she was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame and the XRCO Hall of Fame.
Point Omega is a short novel by the American author Don DeLillo that was published in hardcover by Scribner's on February 2, 2010. It is DeLillo's fifteenth novel published under his own name and his first published work of fiction since his 2007 novel Falling Man.
Greg Haberny is an American artist and filmmaker based in New York.
Tessa Hughes-Freeland is a British-born experimental film maker, writer living in New York City. Her films have screened internationally in North America, Europe and Australia and in prominent museums and galleries, including the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; and the KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin. She has collaborated on live multi-media projects with musicians like John Zorn and J. G. Thirlwell. She and Ela Troyano co-founded the New York Film Festival Downtown in 1984 and served as its co-directors until 1990. Hughes-Freeland later served as President of the Board of Directors of the Film-Makers Co-Operative in New York City from 1998-2001. She has published articles in numerous books, including “Naked Lens: Beat Cinema” and “No Focus: Punk Film,” and in periodicals including PAPER Magazine, Filmmaker magazine, GQ, the East Village Eye, and Film Threat.
Sophia Wallace is an American conceptual artist and photographer. She is best known for her project "CLITERACY," which addresses citizenship and body sovereignty through the medium of text-based objects, unauthorized street installation, performance and sculptural forms.
Jennifer Reeder is an American artist, filmmaker, and screenwriter. Her short film A Million Miles Away (2014) was nominated for a Tiger Award for Short Films at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and screened at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Short Narrative Films category. In 2003, she had a solo screening at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. She received a Rockefeller Grant for New Media in 2002 and a Creative Capital grant in 2015 to support the production of her first experimental feature-length film, Knives and Skin. She won a 2018–19 SFFILM Rainin Grant for scriptwriting, and was the 2019 recipient of the Alpert Film Award residency at the MacDowell Colony. In 2021, she was awarded a United States Artists (USA) Fellowship.
Catinca Tabacaru Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in New York City opened in May 2014. Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, Harare, the Gallery's second location was founded in August 2017 in partnership with Dzimbanhete Arts Interactions.
Addam Yekutieli a.k.a. Know Hope (1986) is an American-born Israeli artist who creates social practice projects, immersive installations and public artworks. He became known for his work in the streets of Tel Aviv under the pseudonym Know Hope. He is one of the first Israeli street artists to gain international recognition.
The CTG Collective is a not-for-profit art organization.
Elena Näsänen is a Finnish visual artist who works with film and video installations. She studied in the Department of Time and Space-based Art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, receiving a master's degree in 1998. She has also studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and in the first edition of the Feature Expanded training programme.
Ranti Bam is a British-Nigerian artist from London and Lagos known for her colourful and sculptural ceramics works made with a variety of clay techniques.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
