Jodi Wille

Last updated
Photo of Jodi Wille Photographer: Rachael Pony Sparrow Jodi Wille, Los Angeles, CA, April 2012.JPG
Photo of Jodi Wille Photographer: Rachael Pony Sparrow

Jodi Wille is an American film director, curator, and book publisher known for her work exploring American subcultures.

Contents

Filmmaking and photography

Wille directed and produced The Source Family (2013), her first feature-length documentary, with Maria Demopoulos. The film explores the story of the eponymous Los Angeles utopian commune and its charismatic leader, Father Yod. The Source Family premiered in competition at South by Southwest Film Festival and screened in competition at several major film festivals. The film was released theatrically to 60 cities in May 2013. [1] [2]

Wille is currently directing a feature documentary on The Unarius Academy of Science. [3]

In 1994, R.E.M. gave Wille her first paid directing gig for their "Find the River" music video. [4] Signed to DNA (David Naylor & Associates), she directed a number of music videos in the mid-90s. Wille worked prior to that as assistant to music video and commercial director Samuel Bayer and later as assistant and development consultant to feature film director Roland Joffé. [5]

Throughout the 90s, Wille also worked as a commercial and documentary photographer, shooting billboard campaigns, rock bands and personalities including Sparks (band), Melissa Etheridge, and Vincent Gallo, while also documenting visionary artists and alternative spiritual communities.

Book publishing

In 1998, Wille co-founded Dilettante Press with Steve Nalepa, Nick Rubenstein, and Hedi El Kholti, a publishing house with a focus on self-taught, visionary, and vernacular art and photography. [4] Dilettante published only three titles, but "their impact was considerable." [6] Dilettante produced exhibitions, symposiums, and parties related to their books in galleries and museums in multiple cities in the U.S. and in Europe.

In 2005, Wille founded Process Media with her then-partner (later, husband) Adam Parfrey of Feral House. The imprint focuses on non-fiction, literary memoirs, and illustrated books exploring subcultures and groundbreaking artists such as Andy Kaufman, Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, John Sinclair and MC5, Father Yod and Ya Ho Wha 13, and Moondog. [7] Process has also created a "Self-Reliance Series" of illustrated guide books that promote sustainable and self-sufficient living.

Curating

In 2000, Wille, Hedi El Kholti, and Cheryl Dunn co-curated the first exhibition of the work of amateur photographer Gary Lee Boas, "Starstruck: Photographs from Fan", at Deitch Projects. [8] [9] This led to exhibitions at galleries and museums in the U.S. and throughout Europe including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, The Photographers' Gallery in London, and Galerie Kamel Mennour in Paris.

In 2013, Wille was named as co-curator with Rebecca Alban Hoffberger of the American Visionary Art Museum exhibition The Visionary Experience: St. Francis to Finster, a 44-artist, 244-works exhibition which ran 2014-2015. [10]

Since 2014, Wille has curated several exhibitions of photographs, art, costumes, and ephemera produced by the extraterrestrial-channeling spiritual school Unarius Academy of Science, including a 2016 exhibition at the London arts venue The Horse Hospital, [11] works in The Visionary Experience exhibition at American Visionary Art Museum, a 2016 exhibition at The Standard Hotel Hollywood, and at the 2017 Basilisk exhibition at Nicodim Gallery in Los Angeles. [12] [13]

Film programming and cultural events

Over the years, Wille has programmed films and curated cultural events in several cities. [14] [15] [16] From 2007-2017, Wille served as a regular guest programmer at The Cinefamily cinematheque in Los Angeles, hosting the popular "Occult LA" series and other programs including an eclectic range of guests from Kris Kristofferson, Tony Clifton, Rocky Erickson, and Tom Laughlin to white witches, Hare Krishnas, and Bigfoot researchers, as well as live music, ritual performance, panels, and art exhibitions. [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]

In 2015, Wille presented a retrospective of the films of the Unarius Academy of Science at Cinefamily, which included a Unariun art and artifact exhibition and Unariun workshops. [22] This led to invitations to present Unarius films at the 2015 San Francisco International Film Festival and the Horse Hospital arts center in London. [23] [24]

Selected works

Film

The Source Family (2012, 98 mins.), directed with Maria Demopoulos

We Are Not Alone (2016, 11 mins.)

Music videos (Selected Works)

Publishing and editing (select works)

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diane Arbus</span> American photographer (1923–1971)

Diane Arbus was an American photographer. She photographed a wide range of subjects including strippers, carnival performers, nudists, people with dwarfism, children, mothers, couples, elderly people, and middle-class families. She photographed her subjects in familiar settings: their homes, on the street, in the workplace, in the park. "She is noted for expanding notions of acceptable subject matter and violates canons of the appropriate distance between photographer and subject. By befriending, not objectifying her subjects, she was able to capture in her work a rare psychological intensity." In his 2003 New York Times Magazine article, "Arbus Reconsidered", Arthur Lubow states, "She was fascinated by people who were visibly creating their own identities—cross-dressers, nudists, sideshow performers, tattooed men, the nouveaux riches, the movie-star fans—and by those who were trapped in a uniform that no longer provided any security or comfort." Michael Kimmelman writes in his review of the exhibition Diane Arbus Revelations, that her work "transformed the art of photography ". Arbus's imagery helped to normalize marginalized groups and highlight the importance of proper representation of all people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Science and Media Museum</span> Part of the National Science Museum Group in the UK

The National Science and Media Museum, located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is part of the national Science Museum Group in the UK. The museum has seven floors of galleries with permanent exhibitions focusing on photography, television, animation, videogaming, the Internet and the scientific principles behind light and colour. It also hosts temporary exhibitions and maintains a collection of 3.5 million pieces in its research facility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnès Varda</span> French photographer, artist, film director and screenwriter (1928–2019)

Agnès Varda was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter and photographer.

Frances Bean Cobain is an American visual artist and model. She is the only child of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Hole frontwoman Courtney Love. She controls the publicity rights to her father's name and image.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photograph manipulation</span> Transformation or alteration of a photograph

Photograph manipulation involves the transformation or alteration of a photograph. Some photograph manipulations are considered to be skillful artwork, while others are considered to be unethical practices, especially when used to deceive. Motives for manipulating photographs include political propaganda, altering the appearance of a subject, entertainment and humor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Parfrey</span> American writer and editor(1957–2018)

Adam Parfrey was an American journalist, editor, and the publisher of Feral House books, whose work in all three capacities frequently centered on unusual, extreme, or "forbidden" areas of knowledge. A 2010 Seattle Weekly profile stated that "what Parfrey does is publish books that explore the marginal aspects of culture. And in many cases—at least back when his interests were almost exclusively transgressive—he sheds light on subjects that society prefers to leave unexplored, carving a niche catering to those of us with an unseemly obsession with life's darkest, most depraved sides."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Knight (photographer)</span> British photographer

Nicholas David Gordon Knight is a British fashion photographer and founder and director of SHOWstudio.com. He is an honorary professor at University of the Arts London and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by the same university. He has produced books of his work including retrospectives Nicknight (1994) and Nick Knight (2009). In 2016, Knight's 1992 campaign photograph for fashion brand Jil Sander was sold by Phillips auction house at the record-breaking price of HKD 2,360,000.

Charlie White is an American artist and academic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Rolston</span> American photographer, music video director

Matthew Russell Rolston is an American artist, photographer, director and creative director, known for his lighting techniques and detailed approach to art direction and design. Rolston has been identified throughout his career with the revival and modern expression of Hollywood glamour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Seawright</span> British artist (born 1965)

Paul Seawright is a Northern Irish artist. He is the professor of photography and the Deputy Vice Chancellor at Ulster University in Belfast/Derry/Coleraine. Seawright lives in his birthplace of Belfast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hedi Slimane</span> French photographer and fashion designer (born 1968)

Hedi Slimane is a French photographer and couturier. From 2000 to 2007, he was the creative director for Dior Homme. From 2012 to 2016, he was the creative director for Yves Saint Laurent. From February 2018 to October 2024, Slimane was the creative, artistic and image director of Celine.

Process Media is an independent publishing house started in 2005 in Los Angeles by Adam Parfrey of Feral House and Jodi Wille of Dilettante Press, and headquartered in Port Townsend.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Klein (photographer)</span> Photographer and filmmaker (1928–2022)

William Klein was an American-born French photographer and filmmaker noted for his ironic approach to both media and his extensive use of unusual photographic techniques in the context of photojournalism and fashion photography. He was ranked 25th on Professional Photographer's list of 100 most influential photographers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Kraus (American writer)</span> American writer and filmmaker

Chris Kraus is a writer and critic. Her work includes the novels I Love Dick, Aliens and Anorexia, and Torpor, which form a loose trilogy that navigates between autobiography, fiction, philosophy, and art criticism, and a sequence of novels dealing with American underclass experience that began with Summer of Hate. Her approach to writing has been described as ‘performance art within the medium of writing’ and ‘a bright map of presence’. Her work has drawn controversy through its equalisation of high and low culture, mixing critical theory with colloquial language and graphic representations of sex. Her books often blend intellectual, political, and sexual concerns with wit, oscillating between esoteric referencing and parody. She has written extensively in the fields of art and cultural criticism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Burtynsky</span> Canadian photographer and artist

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer and artist known for his large format photographs of industrial landscapes. His works depict locations from around the world that represent the increasing development of industrialization and its impacts on nature and the human existence. It is most often connected to the philosophical concept of the sublime, a trait established by the grand scale of the work he creates, though they are equally disturbing in the way they reveal the context of rapid industrialization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Father Yod</span> American esoteric spiritual leader and restaurateur (1922–1975)

Father Yod, or YaHoWha, born James Edward Baker, was an American new religious movement founder and owner of one of the country's first health food restaurants, on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. He founded a spiritual commune in the Hollywood Hills known as the Source Family. The Source Family was heavily influenced by the teachings of Yogi Bhajan and the astrological age of Aquarius. The Family practiced communal living in Southern California and later in Hawaii. He was also the frontman of the commune's experimental psychedelic rock band, Ya Ho Wha 13.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ya Ho Wha 13</span> Musical artist

Ya Ho Wha 13, otherwise known as Ya Ho Wa 13 or Yahowha 13, is a psychedelic rock band fronted by Father Yod, spiritual leader of a religious commune called the Source Family, based in Los Angeles.. The band has released nine LPs of psychedelic music, with tribal drums and distorted guitars. Some were unrehearsed jam sessions and others conventional rock music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinefamily</span> Movie theater in Los Angeles, California, US

The Cinefamily was a non-profit cinematheque located in Beverly Grove, Los Angeles, at the historic Silent Movie Theatre. The Cinefamily's mission statement was to "reinvigorate the movie-going experience by fostering a spirit of community and a sense of discovery."

<i>The Source Family</i> 2012 American film

The Source Family is a 2012 feature documentary film directed by Jodi Wille and Maria Demopoulos which recounts the story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 and the Source Family. Much material was gleaned from Isis Aquarian's archives of photos, diary, film, cassette tapes of Father Yod's morning class, lost music tapes, graphics; along with input interviews of Source family members and people who knew Jim Baker and / or went to the Source Restaurant.

Daniel Joel Tull is a contemporary American painter, sculptor and musician who lives and works in Los Angeles.

References

  1. "The Source Family in Theaters May 2013". 5 March 2013.
  2. "The Source Family". thesourcedoc.com. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  3. "Things to do in L.A. This Week: April 29 - May 5". 29 April 2019.
  4. 1 2 Fiore, Kristin (23 June 1999). "The Outsiders". laweekly.com. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  5. "Goodbye Lover (1998)" . Retrieved 13 April 2018 via www.imdb.com.
  6. Harvey, Doug (2 June 2005). "Feral Child". laweekly.com. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  7. Reid, Calvin (September 12, 2005). "Love & Books in L.A.: Parfrey, Wille Start Process". Publishers Weekly . 252 (36): 8.
  8. Johnson, Ken (February 18, 2000). "Art in Review; Gary Lee Boas 'Starstruck'". The New York Times . p. 44.
  9. Gary Lee Boas Starstruck: Photographs from a Fan, Deitch Projects.
  10. O'Sullivan, Michael (6 November 2014). "Art review: 'The Visionary Experience'" . Retrieved 13 April 2018 via www.washingtonpost.com.
  11. "The Horse Hospital / WELCOME, SPACE BROTHERS: THE UNARIUS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE". www.thehorsehospital.com. Archived from the original on 2016-07-30.
  12. Miranda, Carolina A. (12 May 2017). "Aliens, abstraction and Thomas Kinkade: An L.A. exhibition summons the spiritual and the fantastical". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  13. "We Are Not Alone: The Films of the Unarius Academy of Science". L.A. Weekly. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  14. Petrusich, Amanda (25 April 2013). "'The Source Family,' a Concert and Film". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  15. "due process - artforum.com / scene & herd". artforum.com. Archived from the original on 2009-10-16.
  16. "The Process Church of the Final Judgment Sabbath Assembly". seattleweekly.com. 14 October 2009. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  17. "Andy Kaufman Tribute Review - At The Silent Movie Theater - Splash Magazines - Los Angeles". Splash Magazines - Los Angeles. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  18. "PROCESS MEDIA presents: THE MODERN UTOPIAN feat. RAINBOW BRIDGE | Calendar | Film Radar". www.filmradar.com. Archived from the original on 2016-02-13.
  19. "THE PROCESS CHURCH SABBATH ASSEMBLY RITUAL @ CINEFAMILY - L.A. RECORD". larecord.com. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  20. "Occult L.A. Presents: Bigfoot!". L.A. Weekly. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  21. Ryder, Caroline (17 August 2011). "Occult L.A.: Season of the Witch at Cinefamily Reveals L.A.'s Underground Magic Scene". laweekly.com. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  22. Olsen, Mark (31 May 2014). "In session with the Unarius Academy of Science at Cinefamily". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  23. "Presenter of the San Francisco International Film Festival". sffs.org. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  24. "The Horse Hospital / Collective Intention". www.thehorsehospital.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-02.
  25. S.T.A.R. (Self Taught Artist Resource) Collection and Daniel C. Prince Papers: 1960’s - 2002 Archived 2014-03-29 at the Wayback Machine , Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (also for the following).
  26. DP: Terry Stacey, producer: Maria Demopoulos, production company: DNA (Billboard, 6/11/94).
  27. DP: Robert Randall Moss, editor: Eric Zumbrunnen, production company: Fuzzyland Films/DNA.
  28. DP: Robert Randall Moss, producer: Chris Kraft, production company: DNA.
  29. Production company: DNA (Billboard, 7/8/95).
  30. DP: Chris Meyer, editor: Chad Misner.