Microscope Gallery is pleased to announce Dreamlands: Expanded, a series of expanded cinema events organized in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the exhibition "Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905-2016”. The ten event, two-and-a-half month long series complements and extends the scope of the exhibit, from the installation works on the museum’s fifth-floor and the film screening program in its third-floor theater, across the East River to include historical and contemporary performance works that collectively propose alternative ways to perceive, conceive, and consider the image in motion.
The works in the program - spanning 85 years and ranging from a colored shadow play created through a hand-bulit machine, to a study of complete darkness as experienced through the retinas and body, to the live disintegration of a photographic slide, to the 3D effect recreated by means of outdated technologies - address among others concerns the materiality and ephemerality of the filmic image and the cinematic apparatus, visual and sensory immersion, and a broadening of the concepts of screen, projection, audience, and medium.
Dreamlands: Expanded features long overdue re-stagings of the Bauhaus performance piece Reflektorische Farblichtspiele (Reflecting Color-Light-Play, 1922) by Kurt Schwerdtfeger presented for the first time in nearly 50 years, and of Steam Screens (1979) by Stan VanDerBeek and Joan Brigham, which debuted at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Among other pioneering works are Malcolm Le Grice’s Horror Film 1 (1973), Takahiko Iimura's Circle and Square (1981), and Ken Jacobs' Black Space (mid-1970s to present), performed by each of the three artists on separate evenings. For Subverted Horseplay (1994-97) Bradley Eros and Jeanne Liotta reunite to perform the final work of their decade long collaboration.
Premieres include Barbara Hammer's Evidentiary Bodies (2016), Joel Schlemowitz’s Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy (2016), and New York collective Optipus’ The Owl Flies at Twilight (2017) accompanied by a full orchestra.
Los Angeles-based artist Jennifer West activates, along with audience members, a new iteration of her Filmstrip Flashlight Projections installation. And, younger generations of contemporary artists are represented in Slides & Mirrors Plays, a two-part evening of performances by Gill Arno, Kenneth Zoran Curwood, Rachael Guma, Sarah Halpern, Simon Liu, Raha Raissnia, Karolina Raczynski, and Alexia Welch.
Full program and tickets are available HERE
Programme:
Monday October 31, 7:30pm Malcolm Le Grice Principles of Cinematography and Horror Film 1 Click here for more info
Saturday November 5, 7:30pm Ken Jacobs Black Space Click here for more info
Friday November 11, 7:30pm Kurt Schwerdtfeger Reflektorische Farblichtspiele (Reflecting Color-Light-Play) Click here for more info
Monday November 14, 7:30pm Barbara Hammer Evidentiary Bodies Click here for more info
Friday November 18, 7:30pm Takahiko Iimura: Circle and Square Joel Schlemowitz: Kannon, The Goddess of Mercy Click here for more info
Sunday November 20, 7:30pm Stan Vanderbeek & Joan Brigham Steam Screens Click here for more info
Saturday December 10, 6-9pm Jennifer West Flashlight Filmstrip Projections Click here for more info
Saturday December 17, 7:30pm Bradley Eros & Jeanne Liotta Subverted Horseplay Click here for more info
Monday December 19, 6pm Slides & Mirrors Plays Gill Arno, Kenneth Zoran Curwood, Sarah Halpern, Alexia Welch, Rachael Guma, Simon Liu, Karolina Raczynski, Raha Raissnia Click here for more info
Sunday January 15, 7:30pm Optipus The Owl Flies at Twilight Click here for more info
All Dreamlands: Expanded events take place at Microscope Gallery, with the exception of Steam Screens by VanDerBeek & Brigham and The Owl Flies at Twilight by Optipus, which will both be presented at Knockdown Center in Maspeth, Queens.