The colors spin like a dervish. The sparkling images throb at the back of one’s mind. Everything is appropriately psychedelic. The musical soundtrack matches perfectly: The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, The Byrds. Avant-garde filmmaker Jud Yalkut creates a type of cinema you feel both physically and spiritually. There was a reason why the Yalkut program was called Return of Cool.
The March 4 program would be the first time in 10 years for Cincinnati audiences to experience Yalkut’s “intermedia” films: Diffraction Film (1966), Turn, Turn, Turn (1966), Us Down By the Riverside (1966), Beatles Electroniques (1966-69) and Videotape Study No. 3 (1967). But Return of Cool was a cultural flashback to the spring of 1968.
Back then, Yalkut took part in the University of Cincinnati’s Spring Arts Festival as a visiting filmmaker. He produced film and slide projection environments, including the three-projector film Festival Mix.
Watching Yalkut introduce his films reminded the DAAP auditorium audience of a time when UC brought artists, filmmakers and avant-garde performances to the Clifton campus on a regular basis. It’s an artistic spirit that needs to return.
Yalkut was a key member of the 1960s New York City arts scene and the artist collective, USCO. Last December, New York’s Whitney Museum staged a major retrospective of his films.
But Yalkut has called Dayton, Ohio, home since 1973. He is a southwestern Ohio artist, and sharing his work with local audiences remains a priority.
The 63-year-old Yalkut interacted with students and faculty in the audience on March 4. His bohemian spirit and artistic creativity made an indelible impact on everyone there.
Avant-garde film is more marginal than ever. There’s little talk about emerging filmmakers buying 16mm cameras or saving money for a Bolex — today’s aspiring filmmakers want a Digital Video camera. But you wouldn’t guess that from the way Yalkut connected with the students in the audience. Times change, but the ability of an artist to enrich a student’s life remains constant.
“I’ve been called a beatnik and a hippie over the years,” Yalkut said. “I’ve been called all these things, but I’m still the same person.”
Return of Cool became a reunion for past staff and UC students who were part of the 1968 Spring Arts Festival. The highlight was the multiple projection Festival Mix. Members of the audience watched themselves, 32 years younger, in the film. While the clickety-clack of the three 16mm projectors filled the auditorium, images from the 1968 festival played across the screen.
The Spring Arts alumni reminisced about other 1968 events like the Terminal Experience at Union Terminal and appearances by The Fugs, the Detroit Rock band MC5 and its poet leader John Sinclair and avant-garde filmmakers Peter Kubelka and Stan Brakhage.
Yalkut remembered how Martin Luther King’s assassination, which occurred during the 1968 festival, impacted the event. During a time of riots and police curfews throughout the city, the Spring Arts Festival created a welcome sense of community. It was a difficult time, and the arts provided some answers.
There were one-on-one introductions and post-film discussions on March 4. It was a time to be nostalgic about better times and better support for artists. Return of Cool was an arts reunion that generated true inspiration.
“The energy of that time was utterly amazing,” Yalkut told the audience. “Everybody was going to each other’s events. It was a real community, and we don’t have that sense of community today. There are too many political and financial pressures. But I think we need to get back to that community.”
People reminisced about the “Summer of Love” on this rainy Sunday afternoon. The event became a welcome reunion among Yalkut, UC students and faculty he first met in 1968.
Revisiting the Festival Mix proved to be an unforgettable event. The hope is that the day’s inspiration rekindles that 1960s spirit of collaboration.
This article appears in Mar 7-13, 2001.