From: Adam Hart (email suppressed)
Date: Wed May 14 2008 - 15:15:38 PDT
In Chicago this Saturday:
The Early Films of Bruce Nauman: Between Art History and Film Studies
A One-Day Symposium and Screening
Saturday, May 17, 2008, 10am - 5pm FREE
University of Chicago Film Studies Center (5811 S. Ellis Ave, Cobb Hall 307)
http://filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu
In the late 1960s, when video was gaining ground as a new medium, American
artist Bruce Nauman used 16mm film for his conceptual and philosophical
exploration of the studio, the body, perception, and art making in general.
Rarely screened outside of traditional art exhibition spaces, the symposium
will feature nine short films Nauman made between 1967 and 1969, as well as
a keynote address and round-table discussion of his work. It is a rare
opportunity to discuss the stakes of interdisciplinarity and to see Nauman's
early films in their entirety.
In an epoch of new media and digital art, Nauman's early films are of
particular interest for the very fact that they are, specifically, films. By
the mid-1960s, video, multi-media installation, and experimental television
practice were the most promising, radical forms of moving image practice.
Yet, beginning in 1966, Nauman used 16mm celluloid film for numerous
projects that explore performativity, his body, dance, the creative process,
and the conceptual, perceptual parameters of figuration and abstraction. The
group of scholars and curators who have been invited possess an exceptional
range of expertise in experimental film, video, and new media practice;
mid-century modern and conceptual art; corporeal aesthetics and figuration;
and technology's place in our cultural heritage.
· 10:00am: "Making Up Art," address by Constance Lewallen, adjunct curator
at the UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive; curator of the recent
exhibition "A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s."
· Screening of nine of Nauman's films made between 1967-1969: Thighing
(Blue) (1967); Bouncing Two Balls Between the Floor and Ceiling with
Changing Rhythms (1967-68); Playing a Note on the Violin While I Walk
Around the Studio (1967-68); Violin Film #1 (Playing the Violin as Fast as I
Can) (1967-68); Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a
Square (1967-68), Black Balls (1969); Bouncing Balls (1969); Gauze (1969);
Pulling Mouth (1969).
· Roundtable discussion: Fred Camper (Chicago artist and critic at large);
Gabrielle Gopinath (Ph.D., Yale University); Mark Hansen (Professor, Cinema
and Media, English, University of Chicago), Christine Mehring (Professor,
Art History, University of Chicago), and Jennifer Wild (moderator; Visiting
Assistant Professor, Cinema and Media, University of Chicago).
· Lunch will be provided for those who reserve before May 14. Call
773.702.8596 to reserve.
· This event was made possible by a generous grant from The Terra
Foundation for American Art, and is co-sponsored by the Committee on Cinema
& Media Studies and the Department of Art History.
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.