After William Kentridge graduated from art school in South Africa, he decided to study theatre and mime in Paris, but “was fortunate to discover that [he] was a bad actor…and was reduced to an artist.” His hopes of acting may not have panned out, but it’s no wonder that performance is such a big part of his work as the latest exhibition at the MoMA highlights. “Five Themes” surveys the last three decades of Kentridge’s work, which includes print, books, collage, drawing, sculpture, animation and performance art. The themes tend to revolve around political movements like the first South African democratic election in 1994 to projects like “The Nose,” Kentridge’s most recent undertaking.
Bruce Weber’s 1988 LET’S GET LOST, one of 30 films in the Film Forum screening at MoMA.
When Film Forum opened in 1970 in Manhattan’s Upper West Side it operated with one projector, 50 folding chairs and a $19,000 annual budget, but when Karen Cooper was hired on as director in 1972, things changed. Now, 40 years later, Film Forum is a thriving 3-screen theatre in Greenwich Village and New York’s only autonomous nonprofit cinema. It’s also one of the most relevant and groundbreaking venues for independent art house film and to celebrate its 40 year anniversary, MoMA’s Department of Film has invited Cooper to curate an exhibition of documentary and nonfiction films that have debuted at Film Forum over the years.
The screenings, which begin Wednesday, February 3rd, will be held at MoMA and run the gamut from the 1994 biography CRUMB to lots and lots on war and politics, to a little known Maysles gem on the Getty Museum and two by Werner Herzog, the 30 minute LA SOUFRIERE (1977) and LESSONS OF DARKNESS (1992). For a full schedule see below.
It is not everyday that you venture to the Museum of Modern Art and you stumble upon work you own. It is ever crazier when the artist is a friend. This happened to me last week. While I strolled through MoMA to see wonderful exhibits on both Tim Burton and the Bauhaus I came towards the elevator. And there lining the wall were four posters designed by my pal James Victore. I was shocked!
Clockwise from upper left: Larry Sultan, “My Mother Posing for Me,” (1984) Henry Wessel, “Southern California,” (1985) William A. Garnett, “Contour Graded Hills, Ventura County, California” (1953) and Ansel Adams, “Clouds, from Tunnel Overlook, Yosemite National Park, California” (1934)
Children growing up everywhere, in the middle of nowhere, middle America or in the backwoods of the Northeast all have specific visions of California. Of all the states in the country, why California? Why do people I meet today tell me how when they were children all they wanted to do was go to California? One reason: photography. Whether their impressions are of the Ansel Adams variety or the vastly more popular surfer/life guard/beach bum/eternal party culture California, they can all be traced back to specific images from photography both low (think neon bikini postcards) and high.
As part of the Tim Burton show at the MOMA (showing through April 26th), they are exhibiting a series of films called “Tim Burton and the Lurid Beauty of Monsters.” These are films that according to the MOMA staff have “… influenced, inspired, and intrigued Burton, and which reflect the motifs, themes, and sensibilities of his work.” Just scanning the list of monsters, mummies and evil villains, one of them caught my eye. THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, a landmark German Expressionist film directed by Robert Wiene in 1920. One of my favorite early films, it’s a visual journey into a bold and hyper non-realistic world, with geometrical and striking high contrast sets. The backgrounds are often absurd and light and shadows are painted on walls and floors. It’s as if we’ve stepped into an insane but brilliant artist’s point of view. No wonder Burton was inspired by this film.
Graphic design has undergone many incarnations in the last century, but before even Alexey Brodovitch’s name rang any bells in the United States, the so-called New Typography movement was taking hold in countries like Germany, Russia and Czechoslovakia. Modernist designers rejected the traditional two or three column layout for text and instead of working from a grid, they began instead from the blank page. Free from constraints, images moved across the plane, often with little adherence to spatial relationships. But before image and line came into play, typography was at the forefront of the design revolution, and leading the pack was designer and author of the seminal book, “Die Neue Typographie” (1928), Jan Tschichold.
Some things never get old. I’ve seen MR. HULOT’S HOLIDAY at least 2 dozen times and I still laugh out loud during the tennis racket scene. The same goes for PLAYTIME, the first of six newly struck and lovingly restored 35mm prints of Jacques Tati’s films, now being screened at MoMA. PLAYTIME was a phenomenal flop when it was first released in 1967, but Tati’s radical use of sound, color and meticulously choreographed, city street chaos make it my personal favorite. By 1967, Tati had been playing the beloved Mr. Hulot for 14 years and he was ready to try something new, but audiences weren’t yet ready to let go. In fact, Tati wasn’t going to include Hulot in PLAYTIME at all, but without him he couldn’t secure much-needed funding for the film, money that Tati quickly blew on his outrageously costly set design.
If you’re still recovering from post-THE ROAD depression, head over to MoMA for a week of Dino Risi’s smart, if bitter, comedies. Kicking things off is SCENT OF A WOMAN (1974) – that’s the original, not the 1992 Pacino remake. If Risi can make light of a blind and angry army captain on a suicide mission across Italy, you can bet his other work, even the ones that don’t have hilarity-invoking titles (i.e. A DIFFICULT LIFE and POOR, BUT BEAUTIFUL) deliver the goods. Risi consistently worked with some of the best actors of his day like Sophia Loren, Vittorio DeSica, Vittoria Gassman and Jean-Louis Trintignant. He possessed a deep understanding of humor – not only what makes something funny, but how comedy can be used to reveal human truths. Risi’s sense of humor is not exactly what you would call fun-loving, but its his cynical, often cruel brand of humor that give his films weight and lasting impact.
It’s a strange thing to reach adulthood and see, for the very first time, a film everyone else saw before they hit puberty. For me that film is PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE. I’m not going to lie; When I was a kid, Pee-wee really freaked me out. I thought he was creepy and weird and unnecessarily loud. But as part of Tim Burton’s retrospective, MoMA is screening all of his films, starting last night with PEE-WEE, his 1985 feature film debut. After Paul Reubens saw FRANKENWEENIE (a full-length remake is due out in 2011) he chose Burton to direct PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, which had, until that point, been a stage-show at the Roxy in L.A. and of course, an HBO special.
Tim Burton fans came out in droves to the opening of his retrospective yesterday at MoMA. Dressed in red and black stripes and lace and crazy hats – even painted on stitches – they were hard to miss. And with the massive collection of drawings, set pieces and video I doubt they left disappointed. To get to the actual exhibit you have to walk through the mouth of one of Burton’s classic freak show creations, down a hallway lit only by TV screens playing his animated series “The World of Stainboy.” At the end of the hallway is a dark room lit by black-lights where some of his glow-in-the-dark pieces are on display.
