Bill Creston

Creston began formally studying fine art at the High School of Music & Art (1946–1950) in Manhattan, New York. He started his professional career as an artist while studying painting at the Art Students League (ASL) (1950–1954) in New York City. Creston gained a reputation as an iconoclastic artist who used the mediums of painting, street art installation, performance art and video art. His avant-garde narrative and autobiographical films have screened at Lincoln Center, The Kitchen, Painting During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Creston was employed part-time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art along with his friend, artist Ed Clark. The Urinals, his 1968, 48-inch by 96-inch oil-on-masonite triptych painting, depict the urinals in the basement Guards' Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where Creston and Clark worked. Creston was an original member of the cooperative Brata Gallery at 89 East 10th Street which was one of the Tenth Street galleries in Manhattan's East Village. Art critic John Canaday reported in the January 17, 1960 New York Times, Creston continued painting professionally throughout his life. The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grantee Image Collection holds four of Bill Creston's 2006 oil paintings. Street art and performance art During the 1960s Creston expanded his art media repertoire to include the emerging mediums of street installation, performance art and filmmaking. Creston was an original contributing artist in the 1969 Street Works with public performance pieces exhibited in March and April 1969 in two different city-block areas between 5th and 6th Avenues and 14th and 13th Streets in New York City. In May 1969, John Perreault reported in The Village Voice, "Bill Creston handed out business cards that said 'Go to 15th Street.'" The following month, June 1969, Perreault wrote in The Village Voice, Creston's Construction Site (1969) gained artistic notoriety when the impromptu installation was so convincing the city of New York put an extra layer of caution flashers around it. ==Experimental filmmaker==

Creston shifted his professional artist focus to experimental filmmaker. In the early to mid 1960s Creston was building his artist's practice as a painter and creating street art and performance art. By 1970 Creston was concentrating his artistic practice on filmmaking. Bill Creston started teaching himself how to use the new video technologies Portapak and Super 8 film camera for his independent filmmaking in the late 1960s. Creston was the director, shot the film, recorded the street sounds, created synthesizer music or background sounds, and occasionally scripted and directed others before editing his films. Creston pioneered the use of video technology as an art medium and brought awareness of its use for avant-garde filmmaking by initiating programs at Cooper Union and The School of Visual Arts. Many of Creston's first film screenings took place at The Kitchen art institution, a 1971 newly established avant-garde arts performance space and gallery in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. His first exhibition screening at The Kitchen was in June 1972. Six months later the Around Town section of The Village Voice announced his second show, "Bill Creston Video Program at The Kitchen, 240 Mercer Street, 9 p. m. Dec 28, 1972". Throughout the 1970s, the Village Voice continued announcing Creston's film screenings at The Kitchen art institution. His videos are of the detached observer and autobiographical. Creston lived his entire life in New York City and worked for decades as a New York City taxi driver. His groundbreaking works as an experimental filmmaker are often focused with his irreverent view and fascination with the street life of his hometown New York City. and his experimental 1972 collage documentary, ''From Grandma's House to Bar Mitzvah'', using original 16mm film clips from his personal family archives. His 1974 experimental performance art and live video recording while screening Here + Now Process Video Revolution was "Shot in 1/2-inch open reel off a TV monitor ... inside of the Channel 13 studio during an actual live broadcast of video pioneers and their students." He was working in Super-8 sound film and operating the only full-service Super-8 sound studio in New York City in 1976. Creston's 1977 Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibit 10 Downtown: 10 Years, Sep 11 – Oct 2, 1977 Creston opened The Bill Creston Total Super-8 Sound Studio NYC in 1980 and did scriptwriting for WCBS-TV's cable commercials in New York City from 1985 to 1992. The following year in April, 1989 Creston had a retrospective, Cineprobe Continues with William Creston on May 8, 1989 at the Museum of Modern Art covering his twenty-five years of filmmaking. During the summer of 1989, Creston had two of his films screened in the Downtown Community Television Center's ''Video History Program: Black and White 1/2-inch Open Reel Tapes from the 70's'' Retrospective, and another screening at the Downtown Community Television Center in 1990. By 1996 Bill Creston had made two dozen films, founded the Bill Creston Super-8 Sound Studio and then founded the eMediaLoft.org with artist-writer Barbara Rosenthal. Lincoln Center recognized Creston's 30-years of avant-garde independent filmmaking focused on New York City's street life and chose Creston's film Taxi, Taxi (1977) for their Seeing the City Avant-Garde Visions of New York Retrospective. Academic teaching Partial list of Bill Creston's academic and community teaching from 1970 to 1992. • 1970–72 The School of Visual Arts (SVA), NYC. Originated first Video Department. Taught Beginning & Advance Video. • 1971–75 Cooper Union, NYC. Originated first Film & Video Department. Taught Beginning & Advanced Video, Beginning & Advanced Filmmaking. • 1972–73 LaGuardia Community College CUNY, NYC. Communications Using Film, Video, Photo, Audio, Slides, Performance & Presentation. • 1974 LA SALA VINCON Barcelona, Spain. Instructor of first Video workshop in Spain. • 1976 (Fall) Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri. Visiting Artist in Video & Avant-Garde Media. • 1977 Cooper Union, NYC. Film Screenings & Lecture Series. • 1978–1985 Hunter College CUNY, NYC. Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art. Community teaching • 1968–1970 The South Bronx Education Center, NYC. Federal Project Art Coordinator. • 1968–1971 The Fiedel School, Glen Cove, NY. Video Instructor. • 1976 SUNY Old Westbury, Visiting Artist, Film & Video. • 1977 Inner City Round-Table For Youth, NYC. Federal Project Director & Instructor of Film & Video. • 1980–1992 The Bill Creston Total Super-8 Sound Studio, NYC. ==Filmography==

Partial list of Bill Creston's original films from 1970 to 2000. • 1970 Cracks • 1970 Cripple (12 minutes) • 1970 Jersey City Tapes (20 minutes) • 1971–1975 Video Journal (Approximately 20 hours, shown as excerpts.) • 1971 Bert Lahr (15 minutes) • 1971 The Monkey Dream (5 minutes) • 1971 Dead Mouse (2 minutes) • 1972 Newsdealer (10 minutes) • 1972 ''From Grandma's House To Bar Mitzvah'' (1 hour) • 1972 Kelsey (45 minutes) • 1972 The Indiana Tapes (1 hour) • 1974 Selections From The European Journal (20 hours) • 1974 Botanica Prayer 24th & 7th • 1974 Urinals (12 minutes) Filmed in front of Creston's 1968 oil-on-masonite Urinals triptych painting. • 1974 S.E.G. (7 minutes) • 1975 The Execution (5 minutes) • 1976 Open 7 Days A Week, 24 Hours a Day (15 minutes) • 1976 Six Short Films • 1977 Leonard Moltz, Sewing Machine • 1977 Taxi, Taxi (14minutes) • 1979 Ola, A Film By Her Father • 1981 Runner (18 minutes) • 1984 I Saw Where You Was Last Night (14 minutes) • 1985 Peanut Butter; Water; Stars; Execution; The Execution (5 minutes) • 1987 You Ever Hear of Wyatt Earp? (10 minutes) • 1989 Coupons (7 minutes) • 1990 ''Don't Roast My Franks'' • 1991 Garbage • 1991 Lunch Hour • 1996 Duets • 1996 He Stole My Gun ==References==