Release Date: October 5, 2016
Film Series on Virginia Dwan, Barbara Kruger, and Umberto Eco: Premieres; Portrait of Ellsworth Kelly; Rich Legacy of the Silk Road; Early Works by Buñuel; Annual Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture with Historian Tom Gunning; Selections from the International Festival of Films on Art; and Ciné-Concerts Highlighted in National Gallery of Art Fall Film Season
![Still from Soundhunters — A Musical Expedition, to be screened as part of the International Festival of Films on Art-1, Friday, November 25, 12:00 p.m., National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Image courtesy of International Festival of Films on Art. Still from Soundhunters — A Musical Expedition, to be screened as part of the International Festival of Films on Art-1, Friday, November 25, 12:00 p.m., National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Image courtesy of International Festival of Films on Art.](/content/ngaweb/press/2016/fall-films/jcr%3acontent/parmain/image.img.jpg/1475697059317.jpg)
Still from Soundhunters — A Musical Expedition, to be screened as part of the International Festival of Films on Art-1, Friday, November 25, 12:00 p.m., National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Image courtesy of International Festival of Films on Art.
Washington, DC—The fall film season opens with the series Film, Video, and Virginia Dwan, organized to complement the exhibition Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971. The four-part series Ipersignificato: Umberto Eco and Film honors the legacy of the late Italian philosopher and aesthetics specialist Umberto Eco. Dunhuang Projected, shown in association with the Freer Gallery of Art while the Freer theater is closed for renovation, is an eclectic mix of cinematic works illustrating the rich legacy of areas once comprising the Silk Road.
Other programs this fall include the film series Barbara Kruger Selects, relating the cinematic inclinations of this conceptual artist who analyzed the messages disseminated through mass media. The Gallery will screen two early works by Luis Buñuel as part of the citywide project Objects of Desire: The Films of Luis Buñuel. The annual Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture features a discussion by historian Tom Gunning titled The Innovations of the Moving Image. Selections from the popular International Festival of Films on Art, several ciné-concerts, and Steven Spielberg's first feature-length film, Duel, add to the fall film schedule at the National Gallery of Art.
Film, Video, and Virginia Dwan
October 8–30
Virginia Dwan was instrumental in the development and exhibition of
artists' work in all mediums, including the motion-picture arts. In
conjunction with the National Gallery of Art exhibition Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971 (on
view September 30, 2016–January 29, 2017), this eight-part series
features archival materials, documentation of happenings and
installations, contemporary films, and documentaries—some produced and
directed by the gallerist Virginia Dwan herself. With special thanks
to Anne Kovach, Doug Dreishpoon, Tom Martinelli, Richard Shebairo,
Whitney Museum of American Art, Canyon Cinema, Electronic Arts Intermix,
LUX, and Video Data Bank.
Dwan Los Angeles
October 8 at 2:00
East Building Auditorium
Niki de Saint Phalle: An Architect's Dream
October 8 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
Dwan New York City
October 9 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
Ongoingness: Smithson and Holt Films
October 15 at 2:00
East Building Auditorium
casting a glance
October 15 at 3:30
East Building Auditorium
Nancy Holt Film and Video
October 16 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
Of Minimalists and Land Artists
October 29 at 2:00
East Building Auditorium
Produced by Virginia Dwan
October 30 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
Special Events: Fall 2016
Ellsworth Kelly Fragments
Introduced by Harry Cooper, head of the department of modern art, National Gallery of Art
October 9 at 2:00
East Building Auditorium
Festival del film Locarno: O Cinema, Manoel de Oliveira e Eu (Cinema, Manoel de Oliveira and Me)
October 23 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
For Florence (Per Firenze)
November 4 at 12:30
November 6 at 5:30
East Building Auditorium
Objects of Desire: Ciné-concert: Un chien Andalou, followed by L'Age d'or
November 12 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
Olga
November 20 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
International Festival of Films on Art—I
November 25 at noon
East Building Auditorium
International Festival of Films on Art—II
November 27 at noon
East Building Auditorium
Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture: The Innovations of the Moving Image by Tom Gunning
December 4 at 2:00
East Building Auditorium
Ciné-concert: Little Match Girl (La Petite marchande d'allumettes)
December 17 at 2:00
East Building Auditorium
Archie's Betty: Celebrating a Pop Icon at 75
December 17 at 3:30
East Building Auditorium
Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art
December 29 and 30 at 12:30
East Building Auditorium
Dunhuang Projected
November 12–27
Dunhuang is the Gobi desert oasis town in northwestern China that was,
for one thousand years (400–1400 CE), an important nexus of the Silk
Road and the gateway for Buddhism from India into China. The town's
mile-long complex of caves holds the largest extant collection of
Buddhist mural art and sculptures in the world and is recognized as a
UNESCO World Heritage site. The migration of ideas and cultures through
trade and conquest finds exemplary expression in The Cave of the Silken Web, Stage Sisters, and A Better Tomorrow, while Saving Mes Aynak chronicles
the urgent struggle to rescue an imperiled Greco-Buddhist past in a
Western counterpart of Dunhuang on the Silk Road. Today, that site lies
in Taliban-threatened territory in Afghanistan. "Each film is a hallmark
of its own filmmaking era, yet collectively they emanate the cultural
syncretisms of the Chinese treaty ports of Shanghai and Hong Kong in the
twentieth century"—Cheng-Sim Lim, chief curator, China Onscreen
Biennial. Dunhuang Projected is a multiyear, interdisciplinary
media arts project of the UCLA Confucius Institute presented in this,
its pilot year, as an affiliated program of the China Onscreen
Biennial. Presented in association with the Freer Gallery of Art.
With special thanks to San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Tom Vick, and
Cheng-Sim Lim.
Ciné-concert: The Cave of the Silken Web
November 12 at 1:00
East Building Auditorium
Stage Sisters
November 26 at 1:30
East Building Auditorium
A Better Tomorrow
November 26 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
Saving Mes Aynak
November 27 at 4:30
East Building Auditorium
Ipersignificato: Umberto Eco and Film
November 13–December 28
A literary and cultural giant whose influence reached all facets of
our rapidly evolving media, Umberto Eco (1932–2016), through decades of
interdisciplinary writing, moved seamlessly from semiotics to
aesthetics, popular culture, philosophy, fiction writing, and informal
cultural commentary. Cinema informed his own theoretical approach to his
work in semiotics and in turn, the field of cinema studies has been
enriched by his versatile contributions. He was a founding father (along
with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Christian Metz, and Roland Barthes) of the
concept of film language. This program of two divergent film pairings
evokes Eco's philosophy of the cinema. For supplementary notes on
Umberto Eco and film, with references to this program, see
nga.gov/film. With special thanks to Umberto Varricchio.
Amarcord, followed by Teorema
November 13 at 2:00
East Building Auditorium
Casablanca
December 18 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
L'Avventura, followed by Stagecoach
December 28 at 12:30
East Building Auditorium
Barbara Kruger Selects
December 3–31
Barbara Kruger is a conceptual artist who, beginning in the early
1980s, empowered the female subject through a resistance to the gaze.
Her art developed at a time when the critical discourse questioning
power structures dominated visual practice. An investigation into the
way in which viewer identity is constructed and how meaning is embedded
and disseminated through mass media led artists such as Kruger to
challenge the dynamics of what it means to look and be looked at. This
extended naturally to film and television. Indeed, she wrote as a critic
on these topics for Artforum. Kruger's concerns have taken on
increasingly broader meaning, to explore the nature of human
relationships. In conjunction with the exhibition In the Tower: Barbara Kruger, the artist has selected four favorite films for this series.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
December 3 at 1:00
East Building Auditorium
Anomalisa
December 10 at 1:00
East Building Auditorium
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
December 24 at 1:00
East Building Auditorium
Duel
December 31 at 2:30
East Building Auditorium
Commedia dell' Arte—Reprise
December 10–11
Two Italian filmmakers contrive contemporary, but very different,
roles for two of the popular masked figures of Commedia dell' Arte. Io, Arlecchino, while reviving the traditional character of
Harlequin, underscores the Commedia's reliance on ensemble playing and
comic technique, and its fondness for predictable scenarios. Bella e perduta, on the other hand, reworks the ancient symbol of Pulcinella to form a metaphysical statement about loss and decay. With special thanks to the New Italian Cinema Event, Florence, and the Italian Cultural Institute, Washington.
Io, Arlecchino
December 10 at 3:30
East Building Auditorium
Bella e perduta (Lost and Beautiful)
December 11 at 4:30
East Building Auditorium
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