IN CINEMA
Made In Harlem: The Lafargue Clinic Remixed
THE CRAMPS AND THE MUTANTS: THE NAPA STATE TAPES
Tickets: $15 General Admission / $7 Reduced Price
Thursday, April 18th at 7PM
“Somebody told me you people are crazy, but I’m not so sure about that…. you seem to be all right to me.” So says lead singer Lux Interior of The Cramps, challenging the mainstream stereotype of the crowd assembled before him at the Napa State Hospital.
On June 13, 1978, The Cramps went to play Napa State, a psychiatric hospital in the small town of Napa in Northern California. Opening for them was The Mutants, an eclectic septet of art school punks from nearby San Francisco. Also there was seminal Bay Area art collective Target Video, to capture the show using one of the first video cameras available to the public, democratizing a medium controlled by mainstream media outlets. The resulting VHS tape of the show is one of the most legendary music documents in history and a cult classic tape.
THE MUTANTS AT NAPA STATE
Joe Target Rees, 1978, 22 min.
Remastered from the original 1/2” open reel videotape by Dino Everett at the Punk Media Research Collection, University of Southern California, HMH Foundation Moving Image Archive.
WE WERE THERE TO BE THERE
Mike Plante and Jason Willis, 2021, 27 min.
THE CRAMPS AT NAPA STATE
Joe Target Rees, 1978, 23 min.
Post-screening discussion with Kazembe Balagun!
Made In Harlem: The LaFargue Clinic Remixed
Founded by Reverend Sheldon Hale Bishop (Pastor of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church that housed the clinic in Harlem) with co-founders Richard Wright (author of “Native Son” and former Harlem bureau chief for the Communist Party’s Daily Worker) and Fredric Wertham (German psychoanalyst who emigrated to the United States after the rise of the Nazi Party), The Lafargue Clinic was the first of its kind in Harlem: a pay-as-you-wish anti-racist mental health clinic, staffed largely by volunteers. Operating 1946-1958 out of the basement of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, The Lafargue Clinic pioneered a form of social medicine that linked patients' medical needs with the struggle for housing and economic justice. MADE IN HARLEM: THE LAFARGUE CLINIC REMIXED is a series of films, talks, and seminars on the legacy of this groundbreaking Harlem institution and its impact today on radical healthcare organizing, mutual aid, and collective wellbeing.
Curated by Kazembe Balagun
This series is made possible with the generous support of the West Harlem Development Corporation (WHDC)
