Film Group

70 Gretchen Bender, Jo Bonney, Sarah Charlesworth, Vera Dika, Nancy Dwyer, RoseLee Goldberg, Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Barbara Sukowa, Sandy Tait, Lynne Tillman

JO BONNEY Over several decades, starting in our twenties, we came together with a group of amazing female friends to talk, eat, and share stories and support in between watching and discussing films.

CINDY SHERMAN I don’t know how we decided to do this. Maybe we just all wanted to go out dancing. We never got into the clubs we wanted, so we decided to throw our own dance party. We had meetings about it. We found a space. Then some of us continued meeting. We wanted to make film together and we all expressed interest in the history of film. In the beginning, we rented the film from the Donnell Library with the projector and screened them in my loft on Walker Street. That became the Film Group.

ROSELEE GOLDBERG So many incredible conversations go on when we get together. Sarah and I were fairly intense with one another. My conversations with Sarah were always based on work, hers and mine. Always very focused. Lots of questions, especially from her, that often sounded more like statements—definitive and querulous—but they did the trick and caused strong responses.

VERA DIKA Sarah could be caustic—you could sense the wry New England humor beneath it. One time, at one of her shows, I approached her with my critical explication of her work. I mentioned Deleuze. Sarah quipped, “Oh Vera, just because you read a book…” But when my mother died it was Sarah who called to ask how I was. And it was Sarah who offered to meet for coffee to talk so that I could feel better. When I came back from L.A. after 15 years in 2002, I remember when the doorbell rang—I opened the door and there she was—arms extended.

JO BONNEY I am not a naturally easy host. Sarah decided that she should come to my rescue. I was grateful although a little intimidated. I always loved that she was so smart and funny but she was also a strong, opinionated individual. Sarah turned up with an entire kitchen’s worth of utensils and produce in three huge bags and proceeded to take over with the joy and vigor of Julia Child. Sarah’s creativity and perfectionist eye is clear in her art, but that combination was really something to witness in my kitchen. In those two hours I kind of fell in love with Sarah.

ROSELEE GOLDBERG The Film Group made each strand of friendship solid and concrete. We look carefully at the threads and understand how each of us—so different—has a particular place in the group. There is extraordinary love and generosity, clear-eyed analysis as to what each of us is doing, will do, and—at the beginning and the end of it all—each one of us is incredibly analytical and perceptive about what we singly and as a group mean to one another.

LOUISE LAWLER To quote Peanuts: “Friends are to multiply your joys and divide your sorrows.” Sarah did.

I took this picture at Leo Castelli’s 20th Anniversary party. Jackie Winsor is standing in the back. I’m pretty sure that is the back of Liza Béar’s head, Alice Weiner, Poppy Johnson, and Sarah. LOUISE LAWLER

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