A screening of Andy Warhol's Sleep

RK Projects + Magic Lantern Cinema 

40 Rice St, Providence, RI   (view map)

Sleep, a 1963 “anti-film” by Andy Warhol, runs for 321 minutes. What happens? The avant-artist’s then-lover, John Giorno . . . sleeps. Jonas Mekas, writing in The Village Voice after the first public screening, asked, “Is it cinema? . . . An exercise in hypnosis? Test of patience? A Zen joke? . . . Doesn’t it remind us that there is not much sense in rushing?” Almost 50 years later, those questions will be asked again when the rarely-seen work is presented by RK Projects and Magic Lantern Cinema at a vacant warehouse at 40 Rice Street, Providence. They say the film “is not simply a documentary, but an erotic milieu for ruminating the philosophical implications of time and repetition, as well as a physical meditation on the non-narrative materiality of the film itself.” Warhol countered that his films were more interesting to hear about than to see, and that viewers should supply the silent film’s soundtrack. Before the screening, Sakiko Mori, Daryl Seaver, and XSV will perform Erik Satie’s Vexations, a repetitive work that was performed by John Cage — for almost 19 hours — which inspired Warhol while was working on Sleep (tonight’s take will only run 45 minutes). Attendees can come and go at will between 6 pm and 2 am and are “strongly encouraged” to bring sleeping bags | Suggested donation $3-$5 | facebook.com/events/318553874847410/

The 1963 film, featuring John Giorno, is 5 hours and 21 minutes long. A performance of Erik Satie's Vexations by Sakiko Mori, Daryl Seaver, and XSV will precede the screening at 6:15 pm | Viewers can enter and exit at will, "sleeping bags are strongly encouraged"