"La Fruta"
an experimental film
by artist Rolando Chang Barrero
re-emerges after 28 years.
The allegorical conceptual film "La Fruta" produced and directed by artist Rolando Chang Barrero in 1990 has recently surfaced as an mp4 after 28 years.
"To call Rolando Chang Barrero just “an artist” is an understatement. He is an outspoken activist for the South Florida arts scene, especially in Palm Beach County, where he has resided for the past several years." SFGN
"La Fruta", originally shot as an 8mm black and white 3 minute film (the mp4 is 15 min. includes credits and soundtrack), was an in camera edited film. "La Fruta" is metaphor of a very personal and intimate account of the coming of age as a gay man in the height of the AIDS pandemic. Using "papaya" "plantano" and "huevo" interchangeably to represent vagina, ovulary/ testis and penis the artist uses symbols from his native language specifically to address the broader cross cultural reality during the AIDS pandemic that did not discriminated, nor targeted anyone in a time of mass confusion and mass death. Due to ignorance and bias of the gay community the AIDS pandemic is still erroneously associated with gay men, and in certain sectors as the "gay plague."
Filmography:
By author Alan Goble
Alan Goble is unique. It is not too much to say that in the whole history of the cinema he is unequalled for the extent of data he has gathered and recorded, single-handed. His vast filmographical volumes and CD-ROMs can only be compared with the Herculean enterprises of the great pioneer bibliographers, like Alexander Cruden who compiled the first concordance of the Bible in the eighteenth century.
New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, the longest-running queer film festival in
New York City held annually at the
Anthology Film Archives in New York City (1991 Catalogue).The Mix Collection contains the paper and media files for the Mix: New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film and Video Festival. Started in 1987 by filmmaker Jim Hubbard and novelist Sarah Schulman, Mix is the longest-running experimental film festival and the largest queer film festival in the United States. The Festival has been instrumental in both launching the careers of filmmakers such as Todd Haynes and Sadie Benning and in providing an exhibition space for and preservation of the work of older filmmakers such as Barbara Hammer and James Broughton. Mix was also one of the first film festivals to embrace installations and online artwork to showcase the depth and breadth of queer digital media. The Festival has traditionally been held annually at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City.
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La Fruta, (VHS format) was preserved in the Fales Library and Special Collections, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University, New York
Fales Library & Special CollectionsWe collect, preserve, and provide access to a wide range of primary research materials in their original formats, including books, manuscripts, sound recordings, film & video, archives, artworks and other items to support teaching and research.
Collection processed by / collection processed by Joseph Gallucci, 2005-2006, Joe Ketner, 2005. Megan Wacha, 2006, Luke Martin, 2008, Brent Phillips, 2008, and Cristina Vignone, 2013.
This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit on June 17, 2016 Description is in English. Edited by Molly Davy to reflect updated box numbers, March 2016
Credits:
Special Thanks to
PhD, Duke University, 2016. MFA, University of Iowa, 1992.
Interdisciplinary Artist, Writer, Curator, and Fulbright Scholar.
