475 Park Ave South, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10016
Monday - Friday
11:00am - 5:00pm
a.k.a. The New American Cinema Group. Est. 1961.
The largest archive and distributor of independent and avant-garde films in the world.
This chronological selection of films from the Film-Makers’ Cooperative archive looks at the ways in which avant-garde filmmaking experimented with different methods of geometric abstraction from 1921 to 1980.
Beginning with Hans Richter’s very first film, Rhythmus 21, the medium was reimagined as a moving canvas onto which the filmmaker could paint their own world of forms, detached from a physical reality beyond the screen. Or, in the case of Marie Menken’s Visual Variations on Noguchi, Shirley Clarke’s Bridges-Go-Round, or Ken Kobland’s Library, the screen became a way to distill the geometric elements of real-life sculpture and architecture into a pure aesthetic experience outside of material function. This sampling closes with a look toward the creative possibilities of computer animation, realized during Stan VanDerBeek’s artistic residency at NASA in Houston.
Curated by Julia Curl. Happening at the Film-Makers' Cooperative Screening Room (475 Park Ave. South, 6th Floor, New York, NY) on SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22nd, at 6pm.
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PROGRAM:
1. Hans Richter, Rhythmus 21 (1921, B&W, silent, 2.5 minutes)
2. Marie Menken, Visual Variations on Noguchi (1945, B&W, sound, 4 minutes)
3. Harry Smith, Early Abstractions (1946, color, sound, 23 minutes)
4. Shirley Clarke, Bridges-Go-Round (1958, color, sound, 7.5 minutes)
5. Barry Spinello, Six Loop-Paintings (1970, color, sound, 11 minutes)
6. Ken Kobland, Library (1977, color, optical sound, 3 minutes)
7. Stan VanDerBeek, Euclidean Illusions (1980, color, sound, 9 minutes)
The Film-Makers’ Cooperative is the largest archive and distributor of independent and avant-garde films in the world. Created by artists in 1961 as the distribution branch of the New American Cinema Group, the Coop has more than 5,000 films, videotapes, and DVDs in its collection.
475 Park Ave South, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10016
Monday - Friday
11:00am - 5:00pm