Barbara Rubin

Barbara Rubin
Barbara Rubin, London, May 1965, by Allen Ginsberg (copyright Peter Hale)
Born	1945 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	1980 Paris, France
Occupation	Filmmaker
Known for	Christmas on Earth

Barbara Rubin (1945 – 1980) was an American filmmaker and performance artist. She is best known for her landmark 1963 underground film, Christmas on Earth.

Barbara Rubin grew up in the Cambria Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York City. In the spring of 1963, she was hired by Jonas Mekas to work for the Film-Makers' Cooperative, a non-profit organization co-founded by several artists to distribute avant-garde films. The cooperative was frequented by many notable artists, including Robert Frank, Allen Ginsberg, Salvador Dalí, Ron Rice, Jerry Jofen, Jack Smith, and Andy Warhol. Rubin soon became indispensable to Mekas, organizing local and international events. "Her contributions are so many and different," Mekas said in 2003. "....Her life story still has to be written because she was very, I think, important."

Originally titled Cocks and Cunts, Christmas on Earth features several painted and masked performers engaging in a variety of gay and straight sexual acts. The film's two separate black-and-white reels are projected simultaneously, one inside the other, with color filters placed on the projector lens, and, originally, an ad hoc soundtrack of contemporary rock radio. Performers included, among others, the underground star Gerard Malanga. The 29-minute film was inspired by Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures, over which Rubin clashed with censors alongside Mekas and P. Adams Sitney. Rubin's use of superimposition, and her decision to slice the original footage into "dynamic fragments," may have been influenced by the films of Jerry Jofen and Gregory Markopoulos. Rubin, only 18 when she began filming in 1963, shot the film using a borrowed 16mm Bolex camera, in New York City, in the Ludlow Street apartment of John Cale and Tony Conrad.