A-Z Licensing and broadcast

Artifacts, an online platform “connecting viewers with the cultural architects of the avant-garde, LGBTQ+, and underground arts and culture via intimate, long-form interviews,” launched at Anthology Film Archives on November 25th, 2024. For the event, GME licensed a clip from Martina Kudláček’s 2006 documentary NOTES ON MARIE MENKEN.

GME provided clips from Jonas Mekas’ ZEFIRO TORNA (1992), LOST LOST LOST (1976), SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1992), and RE: MACIUNAS AND FLUXUS (2011), as well as  from Gideon Bachmann’s UNDERGROUND NEW YORK (1968), for this documentary feature by Amanda Kim on the father of video art.

GME provided scenes from Gideon Bachmann’s UNDERGROUND NEW YORK (1968), Peter Emmanuel Goldman's ECHOES OF SILENCE (1964), Jonas Mekas’ AWARD PRESENTATION TO ANDY WARHOL (1964), SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1963-1990), and WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES, AND SKETCHES (1969), and Warren Sonbert’s AMPHETAMINE (1966) to Todd Haynes and Swish Productions for the Apple TV+ broadcast of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND.

GME provided scenes from Gideon Bachmann’s UNDERGROUND NEW YORK (1968) featuring scenes of Jonas Mekas for director KD Davison’s intimate look at Mekas’s life and work. It is a story about finding beauty amidst profound loss, a story of a man who was also the most significant force behind the evolution and promotion of the American Avant- Garde film movement, and who tried to make sense of it all… with a camera.

GME provided scenes from Gideon Bachmann’s UNDERGROUND NEW YORK (1968), Peter Emmanuel Goldman's ECHOES OF SILENCE (1964), Jonas Mekas’ AWARD PRESENTATION TO ANDY WARHOL (1964), SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1963-1990), and WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES, AND SKETCHES (1969), and Warren Sonbert’s AMPHETAMINE (1966) to Todd Haynes for the Apple TV+ broadcast of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND.

GME provided scenes from Jonas Mekas’ film REPORT FROM MILLBROOK (1965-1966) and SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1990, from THE SIXTIES QUARTET, 1990-1999) for director Nancy Buirski’s documentary about a dark and difficult masterpiece and the deeply gifted and flawed people who made it. It is about New York in a troubled era of cultural ferment and social change.

GME provided footage from Gideon Bachmann’s UNDERGROUND NEW YORK (1968), Jack Waters’ BERLIN/NEW YORK (1984) and THE MALE GAYZE (1989), Jackie Raynal’s NEW YORK STORY (1980), and Warren Sonbert’s AMPHETAMINE (1966) as B-roll for the Radical Media production CONVERSATION WITH A KILLER: THE JOHN WAYNE GACY TAPES.

WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES, AND SKETCHES (1969) is a 3-hour masterwork included in the collection JONAS MEKAS: THE MAJOR WORKS avialable from GME. Mekas’ footage of the Velvet Underground’s maiden performance at the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry appears in an episode of the 3 part BBC series.

GME provided scenes from Jonas Mekas’ film REPORT FROM MILLBROOK (1965-1966, part of his magnum opus WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES, AND SKETCHES, 1969) to Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris for his documentary about Leary’s whirlwind romance with Joanna Harcourt-Smith. The film began broadcasting on Showtime in December 2020.

GME provided footage from Jonas Mekas’ films, including SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1963-1990) and WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES, AND SKETCHES (1969), to acclaimed director Martin Scorsese for his Peabody Award-winning portrait of Bob Dylan, originally released on PBS in 2005.

GME provided Ric Burns and Steeplechase Films a sequence from Helen Levitt’s short, NYC street photography classic, IN THE STREET (1948) for inclusion in the 8 episode PBS release NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM. Levitt’s film appeared in episode 7, "The City and the World (1945–2000)" which originally aired on October 1, 2001.

Photographed by James Agee, Helen Levitt and Janice Loeb, and edited by Levitt, IN THE STREET (1948, 16 minutes), listed on the United States National Film Registry preservation program, is a classic example of NYC street photography. GME licensed the film in its entirety for inclusion in the French series in 2012.

GME provided scenes from Jonas Mekas’ film AWARD PRESENTATION TO ANDY WARHOL (1964), the films of Marie Menken and others to Steeplechase Films (WNET) for their 4 hour, 2006 PBS broadcast and DVD release of ANDY WARHOL: A DOCUMENTARY FILM.

GME provided scenes from Jonas Mekas’ film HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOHN (released 1995), which includes scenes of Lennon’s 1972 birthday party in Syracuse, NY, including scenes at Yoko Ono’s art opening and celebrations at a local hotel. Also licensed to Lost Weekend LLC for this production are scenes from Mekas’ ZEFIRO TORNA OR SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF GEORGE MACIUNAS (released 1992) containing informal picnic scenes with Lennon and friends. THE LOST WEEKEND: A LOVE STORY is currently in production.

GME provided scenes from Jonas Mekas’ film WALDEN (1969) and Marie Menken’s ANDY WARHOL to VH1 for the 2009 production of LORDS OF THE REVOLUTION, episode 4: “Timothy Leary”.

GME provided scenes from Jonas Mekas’ film SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1963-1990) and Marie Menken’s ANDY WARHOL to VH1 for the 2009 production of LORDS OF THE REVOLUTION.

WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES, AND SKETCHES (1969) is a 3-hour masterwork included the collection JONAS MEKAS: THE MAJOR WORKS avialable from GME. Mekas’ footage of the Velvet Underground appears in program 2 of SEVEN AGES OF ROCK, "“White Light, White Heat”.

GME provided scenes from Jonas Mekas’ THIS SIDE OF PARADISE (1999) for WDR’s 2007 German television release, LEGEND: JACKIE O.

GME provided scenes from Jonas Mekas’ film SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1963-1990) and THIS SIDE OF PARADISE (1999) for this upcoming documentary project by Patrick Jeudy (BOBBY KENNEDY: THE MAN WHO WANTED TO CHANGE AMERICA, MARILYN, DERNIÈRES SÉANCES, ect.) from No School Productions.

Two stills from Warren Sonbert’s debut film AMPHETAMINE (1966) will appear in Dr. Maurice Nagington’s forthcoming book The Moral Lessons of Chemsex: A Critical Approach, due to be published in 2025 by Routledge. The stills from Sonbert’s film that have been licensed from Gartenberg Media Enterprises — which depict young gay men using intravenous drugs — are well-suited for Nagington’s book, which “explores how gay and bi men’s lived experiences of chemsex intersect with its cultural representations.”

For Lisa D’Apolito’s 2023 documentary SHARI & LAMB CHOP, GME licensed Raimondo Borea’s photograph of famed ventriloquist, puppeteer, and children’s entertainer Shari Lewis appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the mid-1960s with her beloved anthropomorphic sheep sock puppet Lamb Chop.

Raimondo Borea’s photograph "African students at Friends World College”, taken on August 9th, 1963, appears on page 192 in Darren Newbury’s book COLD WAR PHOTOGRAPHIC DIPLOMACY, published in 2024 by Pennsylvania State University Press.

The above photo of experimental filmmaker Warren Sonbert was licensed to film scholar John Powers for an aritcle in the book “Sixteen at 100: Histories of a Radical Film Format,” Gregory A. Waller and Haidee Wasson, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2023).

MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow Deborah Willis updated her 2000 comprehensive history of Black photographers and groundbreaking pictorial collection of African American life, “Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present.” The new edition “ReFraming: REFLECTIONS IN BLACK,” includes work by Hugh Bell, among other notable black photograhers, and is published by Liveright Publishing Corporation, a wholly subsidiary of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Raimondo Borea’s photos of the founding host and anchor of NBC’s Today from 1952-1961 appear on the cover and within Jodie Peeler’s book “Peace: The Wide World of Dave Garroway, Television's Original Master Communicator.”

Raimondo Borea’s iconic photograph of educator Kenneth B. Clark was included in the 2021 PBS American Experience documentary THE BLINDING OF ISAAC WOODARD directed by Jamilia Ephron, produced by Ark Media.

This photo for the cover of The Shangri-Las debut album from 1965 is one of many commercial photos by Hugh Bell, whose photographs appeared on many album covers throughout the period. They primarily featured jazz artists, including Sarah Vaughn, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Cannonball Adderly, Houston Person, Bill Hardman, Larry Coryell, and the Nat Dixon Quartet. Director Nagy included this cover in her upcoming Roadside Attractions release CALL JANE, starring Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, and Kate Mara, about a 1960s housewife (Banks) who joins the Jane Collective to fight for women's rights as she struggles to cope with her need for an abortion during a time of limited social or political support.

Hugh Bell’s photograph Early Morning, 1964 (from his collection of more than two dozen Afro-Caribbean photographs), was licensed by BuzzFeed News for their 2021 Black History Month feature article “The Black Photographers Who Paved The Way For The World We Live In Now”.

Hugh Bell’s was an American photographer of Caribbean descent, most well known for his photographs of jazz clubs and musicians. Born and raised in Harlem, he also captured Pride marches and demonstrations like Wigstock during the 1980s and 1990s. Bell influenced a generation of photographers, as well as documenting a different time for #pride. BuzzFeed News looked back in June, 2021 at LGBTQ history and representation through the years in the US and abroad.

Raimondo Borea’s iconic photograph of educator Kenneth B. Clark was included in the 2021 5th edition of Teachers, Schools and Society: A Brief Introduction to Education college textbook from McGraw Hill by David Sadker and Karen Zittelman.

Gartenberg Media, the exclusive representative of the Estate of Hugh Bell, licensed several powerful images Bell took of the famed singer backstage at Carnegie Hall to this feature production.

Over the past several years, Gartenberg Media Enterprises (GME) has worked diligently to further the legacy of talented African-American artist Hugh Bell, whose photography career began in the early 1950s. We are pleased to announce that the Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the Department of Art, University of Minnesota, will feature Hugh Bell’s work in their forthcoming exhibition projected for September of 2021, entitled “ A Picture Gallery of the Soul,” which will celebrate the work of African American photographers.

Several photographs by Hugh Bell were included in The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art exhibition "Art of Jazz: Form/Performance/Notes."

Raimondo Borea's photograph of the Juilliard School's acting program, taught by John Houseman, was featured as the frontespiece in the recently published book, "Acting in the Academy: The History of Professional Actor Training in US Higher Education," by Peter Zazzali, published in 2016 by Routledge.

GME takes special pride in announcing the featuring of Hugh Bell's iconic photographs of jazz legend Sarah Vaughan on a United States Postal Service Commemorative Forever Stamp.

In 2020, The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) acquired six lifetime silver gelatin prints from the GME’s Hugh Bell archive for their permanent collection.

Raimondo Borea’s iconic photograph of educator Kenneth B. Clark has been placed on permanent display as part of a wall text at the entry to the Kenneth B. Clark Auditorium at the New York State Museum in Albany.