Center for Visual Music

 

CVM Screenings, Exhibitions and Related Events

(scroll down for previous years)

2008

Recent Screenings:

August 21 - Legendary Light Shows - Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA. A program of rarely-seen, stunning film and video by legendary light show artists from San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and London. The program showcases light, color and liquid projections layered with film and handmade slides, from multimedia shows originally performed live at rock concerts with the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and many others. (1966-1970, 70 min, 16mm and digital video).

Part of the YBCA series The Stoned Apocalypse - "A look at different approaches to extreme states of consciousness through experiments with light, music, drugs or even filmmaking." 7:30 pm, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA. 94103. Venue info and tickets here.


May 2008 - Two new Essential Visual Music programs curated by CVM

Essential Visual Music: Rare Classics from CVM's Collections includes films by Oskar Fischinger, Hans Fischinger, Mary Ellen Bute, Charles Dockum, John Stehura, Jules Engel, Single Wing Turquoise Bird, Jud Yalkut and more (16mm, most are preserved prints). Images, from left, from Fischinger, Yalkut, Dockum, Stehura films.

May 4 - Australian Cinematheque, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
May 23 - International House, Philadelphia, PA

Full program info. Inquire for booking information - cvmaccess (at) gmail.com

 

Essential Visual Music: New Visions. New Work by Contemporary Artists including Baerbel Neubauer, George Stadnik, Samantha Krukowski, Robert Seidel, Spot Draves, Richard Baily/John Buchanan, Bret Battey, Vivek Patel, Mondi, Scott Nyerges, Jim Ellis and more. May 30 at International House, Philadelphia, PA. Images, from left, courtesy Draves, Neubauer, Seidel, Stadnik, Woloshen, Ellis, Battey

 

May 2008- CVM in Australia! Visual Music Series at Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Queensland. Full Program Info CVM Programs include:

-- May 2 -   Mary Ellen Bute Program (presented in association with Cecile Starr and Women's Independent Film Exchange)
-- May 3 -   Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane
-- May 4 -   Essential Visual Music: Rare Classics Premiere of New CVM Program
-- May 25 - Oskar Fischinger: Optical Poetry
-- May 31 - Time and Tides: Music Paintings by Baerbel Neubauer

Full Program Info This Series beginning in April also included other programs of films by Len Lye, Norman McLaren, Stan Brakhage, Hans Richter and Walther Ruttman, Disney's Silly Symphonies, and New Visual Music from the Netherlands. Australian Cinematheque, Brisbane.

 

Ongoing Exhibitions with films from CVM's Collection:

May 2008 - Two Baerbel Neubauer films in Exhibition at The Drawing Center (Soho), New York, NY. Throughout the summer.

 

Past 2008 Screenings

April 11-13, 2008 - Oskar Fischinger: Optical Poetry. The Oskar Fischinger Retrospective screens at Southwest Film Center, UNM, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 35mm. Featuring his classic Visual Music films Allegretto, Radio Dynamics, Motion Painting No. 1, Composition in Blue, Kreise, Study nr. 6, Study nr. 7, Spiritual Constructions, Spirals, Walking from Munich to Berlin and many more. 35mm prints, preserved by Academy Film Archive, Center for Visual Music and Fischinger Archive; presented in association with The Fischinger Archive. Thanks to the Film Foundation, Sony and Cinematheque quebecois for their support of the preservation of these films. For directions, please visit Southwest Film Center website. Download a Flyer. Visit CVM's Fischinger Research Site

March 11 - A Special program of Visual Music films from CVM was presented during LA County Museum of Art's Evening for Educators Music + Art workshop for K-12 teachers. Program included films by Fischinger, Belson, Engel, Neubauer and others.

Feb 6- John Stehura's Cibernetik 5.3 and Jules Engel's 3 Arctic Flowers (preserved print) in Imaging by Numbers, An Evening of Early Computer Animation at Block Cinema, Block Museum of Art, Northwestern U, Evanston, IL (US)

January 5 - Jordan Belson's Light at The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Special screening accompanying the Turner exhibition.

 

2007 Events and Screenings

Recent Exhibitions and Festivals with films from CVM's Collections:

Zagreb: 25 FPS Festival's "Visual Music" program included a new preservation print of Charles Dockum's 1952 Mobilcolor Performance at the Guggenheim, preserved by CVM. (See Schedule, then click Sept 28)

Milwaukee International Film Festival: Moonlicht by Baerbel Neubauer

New York: Summer of Love at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (included Jordan Belson's Samadhi, John Stehura's Cibernetik 5.3 plus other films preserved by CVM including Jud Yalkut's Turn, Turn, Turn). May 24 - Sept. 16, 2007.

Recent CVM Programs:

March 18, 2007 (London) - CVM presented a Visual Music talk and screening:

Projected Light and Color: Early Visual Music Color Organs and Light Shows, presented by Cindy Keefer of CVM, at the Optronica Festival - "Visual Music on the Big Screen" - in conjunction with the British Film Institute, National Film Theatre, South Bank, London, UK. Program details here. Illustrated Lecture and Screening. Films & videos include work by Oskar Fischinger, Kurt Schwerdtfeger and Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, Thomas Wilfred, Charles Dockum, Jordan Belson, Jud Yalkut, Joshua White and Single Wing Turquoise Bird. Program is 35mm, 16mm, and DVD. Image: Kastner's "Pyrophone", 1872

March 15 (Chicago), 6 pm - Mary Ellen Bute Centennial Program at Gene Siskel Film Theatre, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Illinois, US). Program organized by CVM in association with Cecile Starr and the Women's Independent Film Exchange. Program info here. 16mm. About the Films

February 2 (Frankfurt) - A Tribute to Oskar Fischinger: A performance of Oskar Fischinger's original Lumigraph by Barbara Fischinger was held at the Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt, Germany, plus a screening of Fischinger films from the collections of CVM, The Fischinger Archive and the Deutsches Filmmuseum. Program notes here (pdf, in German) from DFM Kino Calendar. Lumigraph Image courtesy Fischinger Trust

January 28 & 31 (Rotterdam, Netherlands): Charles Dockum's 1952 Mobilcolor Performance at the Guggenheim Museum film document, a new 16mm preservation print, screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Part of Exploding Cinema: Speed of Light programme. This is the first completed film in CVM's current preservation project for the films of Charles Dockum and his Mobilcolor Projector. Image courtesy Greta Dockum

 

2006 Programs

              

 Celebrating Two Pioneer Women Animators: Mary Ellen Bute and Claire Parker

On the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of their Births - 3 separate programs, 16mm, November 16-18, 2006, Los Angeles. Presented at Los Angeles Filmforum and University of Southern California. Organized by CVM, in association with Cecile Starr and Women's Independent Film Exchange. A celebration of the lives and accomplishments of pioneer experimental animators Mary Ellen Bute and Clare Parker, both born in 1906. Three separate programs. Programs introduced by Cindy Keefer, CVM.

Friday, November 17, 2006, 7:30 pm at LA Filmforum (Hollywood CA), Alexandre Alexeieff/Claire Parker Program. Program features a series of their experimental animation shorts (including all of their pinboard films), all 16mm, plus a short documentary, Alexeieff at the Pinboard (1960).

Saturday, November 18, 7:30 pm at LA Filmforum, Mary Ellen Bute Program. Bute is known for her pioneering early abstract films (some of which were screened regularly at Radio City Music Hall, NY in the 1930s). Program features all of her short abstract films. 16mm prints. Rhythm in Light, 1934; Synchromy No. 2, 1935; Dada, 1936; Parabola, 1937; Escape, 1937; Spook Sport (animated by Norman McLaren), 1939; Tarantella, 1940; Polka Graph, 1947; Color Rhapsody, 1948; Imagination, 1948; New Sensations in Sound, 1949 (RCA Commercial); Pastorale, 1950; Abstronic, 1952 and Mood Contrasts. About the Films

Plus: Thursday, November 16, 7 pm at USC School of Cinema-Television, Cinematheque 108. Mary Ellen Bute's rarely-screened feature film, Passages from Finnegans Wake. 1965-67, 97 mins, 16mm, b/w. SPECIAL GUEST: Cast member Peter Haskell ("Shem") speaks about the film and working with Bute.

For information on booking these programs, please contact CVM or Cecile Starr (email for contact info). Review in LA Weekly.

Prints courtesy Cecile Starr, The Women's Film Preservation Fund, and Yale University Film Study Center.

More about Mary Ellen Bute and her films

 

Legendary Light Shows - San Francisco, CA. May 11-13, 2006, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Flashback to the 60s with a program of rarely-seen film and video by legendary light show artists from San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and London. Trip out with light, color and liquid projections layered with film and handmade slides, from multimedia shows originally performed live at rock concerts. Featuring 1960's light show work on film and video by Elias Romero, Joshua White, Tony Martin, Glenn McKay, Boyle/Hills, Single Wing Turquoise Bird, Jud Yalkut, David Lebrun and others. Image from Single Wing Turquoise Bird Film, Courtesy Peter Mays

 

March 24: Oskar Fischinger Retrospective at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. Billed as Visual Music: The Animation of Oskar Fischinger. Image from Allegretto courtesy Elfriede Fischinger Trust

Jan 27 and 29: CVM presented two programs at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Netherlands:

Jan 2, 2006 - The Film Society of Lincoln Center in association with Center for Visual Music presented Oskar Fischinger: Optical Etudes. The Oskar Fischinger Retrospective at Lincoln Center, New York, 5 and 9 pm. Featuring 35mm preserved prints. An IB Technicolor print of An Optical Poem was screened thanks to Warner Brothers. CVM Press Release

 

Other 2006 exhibitions and programs including films provided by CVM:

Exhibition: Two Jordan Belson films (Allures, Samadhi) installed on DVD, at Kunsthalle Zurich's Expanded Eye exhibition (Switzerland). Closed.

Exhibition: Belson (Samadhi) and Stehura (Cibernetik 5.3) films (on DVD) in the Summer of Love exhibition, organized by the Tate Liverpool. The show was at Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna) from May 5–September 3, 2006.

July 6, 7, 8: Visual Effects Society's 2006 Festival of Visual Effects, Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood CA: Xtacism by Richard 'doc' Baily and John Buchanan, and John Stehura's Cibernetik 5.3 - Experimental Animation Program, repeats each day.

June 18: Jules Engel's Accident screened at Los Angeles Filmforum.

May 10: Three Jules Engel films from CVM's collections were presented at UCLA Film and Television Archive, Los Angeles, as part of their "Out of the Past" preservation series: Accident, Celebration and Three Arctic Flowers.

April: George Stadnik's Flame installed at LACMA Artwalk, Spring Arts Tower, Create:Fixate Multimedia Gallery

March 4: John Stehura's Cibernetik 5.3 at National Film Theatre, British Film Institute, London, in their Early American Computer Animation program.

February: Jules Engel's Mobiles screened at The Barry Schrader Retrospective, Redcat Theatre, Los Angeles, CA.

Exhibition: Three Fischinger films (Radio Dynamics, Study no. 6 and Ornament Sound) were included in the ZKM exhibition Light Art From Artificial Light. ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, through August, 2006. Review of exhibition: Blinded by the Light (in German).

 

2005 Events and Screenings

"Visual Music" Exhibition - Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (February 13-May 23, 2005) and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC (June 23 - Sept. 11, 2005). The exhibition featured paintings, installations, and films, videos, color organ and light projections by artists including Stephen Beck, Jordan Belson (Allures, Samadhi, and his new film Epilogue), Mark Boyle and Joan Hills, Charles Dockum, Oskar Fischinger (Study No. 7, Allegretto, Radio Dynamics, Lumigraph film, Ornament Sound), Viking Eggeling, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, Hy Hirsh (Eneri), Len Lye (A Colour Box), Stanton MacDonald-Wright, Elias Romero, Hans Richter, Walter Ruttmann, Dan Sandin, Single Wing Turquoise Bird, Harry Smith (Film No. 3), James Whitney (Yantra, Lapis, Film Exercise No. 4), John Whitney Sr. (Permutations), John Whitney, Jr., Thomas Wilfred, and Joshua White. Exhibition catalog available through the museum bookstores or through amazon.com. Image from Thomas Wilfred, "Study in Depth, Opus 152," 1959, courtesy Hirshhorn Museum.

CVM provided the majority of the films and videos, plus research and consulting for this exhibition.

More about the Visual Music films

Radio Dynamics by Oskar Fischinger at "Visual Music," MOCA

 

Press on the Visual Music exhibition: Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, Artforum (Summer 05 issue), Washington Post (Review #1), Washington Post (#2), New York Times (July 1, 2005), Washington Post (#3), Wall Street Journal, Artforum (October issue), Modern Painters (UK, Jan 06), Symphony Magazine (PDF, Jan/Feb 06 issue).

Hirshhorn/Smithsonian Press Release

More information about the films in the exhibition

 

CVM's Visual Music Screenings accompanying the exhibition:

Epilogue by Jordan Belson (2005)

Saturday, May 14, 2005. CVM and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, are pleased to present the world premiere of Jordan Belson's new videofilm, Epilogue (2005). Epilogue was commissioned by The Hirshhorn Museum for the Visual Music exhibition, produced by CVM, and supported by The NASA Art Program. Belson has distilled 60 years of visionary sound and images into a 12 minute film, synchronized to a symphonic tone poem by the great lyric composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. Epilogue will be presented in a short program with several of Belson's earlier films, including Light and Music of the Spheres. Introduced by Cindy Keefer, Director, CVM. Free with museum admission. (MOCA Grand Ave, Ahmanson Auditorium). Image copyright Jordan Belson, 2005. Epilogue (digital version) screened throughout the Hirshhorn Museum's Visual Music exhibition, June-Sept 2005.

Sunday, May 1, 7 pm. CVM presents Visual Music Films, at Filmforum LA, Egyptian Theatre complex, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood CA. $8. From German pioneers to new work in visual music, including film and video by artists including Oskar Fischinger, Hans Fischinger, Guido Seeber, Storm de Hirsch, John Stehura, Michael Scroggins, Jordan Belson and Stephen Beck, Adam Beckett, Baerbel Neubauer, and new work (2005) by Chris Casady, Richard Baily, Mondi, George Stadnik and others. (More about this show)

Thursday March 24 - An Evening of Visual Music Films curated by CVM, Presented by CVM and MOCA. Museum of Contemporary Art, Ahmanson Auditorium, Grand Avenue, Los Angeles. 6:30 pm. Revelatory moments from the history of visual music, an exploration into the true lives of the kinetochromatic scientists, and a breathtaking leap into the now-and-beyond of an art form passionately devoted to purified sound and light. This event includes film and video by Fischinger, Belson, Bute, Brakhage, McLaren, Dwinnell Grant, Dockum, Neubauer, Baily, Ellis, and others. Opening remarks by Cindy Keefer, Director, CVM. (More about this show)

Additional screenings and events related to the exhibition included: Art Talk by David James (March 31); performance of Stanton MacDonald-Wright's "Kineidoscope" color organ by Randy Sprout.

Other 2005 screenings (films provided by CVM):

Three Fischinger films (Radio Dynamics, Study no. 6 and Ornament Sound) are included in the ZKM exhibition Light Art From Artificial Light. ZKM, Karlsruhe Germany, Nov. 19 2005 to May 1, 2006

Belson (Samadhi) and Stehura (Cibernetik 5.3) films screened in Tate's Summer of Love exhibition, Liverpool, U.K. (May 27 - Sept 25, 2005). The exhibition travelled to Kunsthalle Schirn Frankfurt from November 2, 2005 – February 12, 2006 and then to Kunsthalle Wien from May 5–September 3, 2006. Related article: Tune In, Turn On, Light Up (Tate Online)

June 8: Dockum's 1952 Mobilcolor Performance film screened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in the program "The Non-Objective Moving Image: Reflections on the Art of Film" accompanying the current Hilla Rebay exhibition.

May: Fischinger Retrospective screened at Cinematheque Quebecoise, Montreal (program provided in association with Fischinger Archive and Academy Film Archive). 35mm film.

April 23: Fischinger films at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

2004

Sons et Lumieres: A History of Sound in the Art of the 20th Century. Centre Pompidou, Paris exhibition Sept 2004-January 2005. CVM provided films on dvd (Fischinger, Harry Smith, John and James Whitney) for the "film rooms" on the exhibition floor, and for the accompanying evening film screenings.

June 10-20, 2004, Musee de Louvre, Paris: Du Muet au parlant. Expérimentations sonores au cinéma. Recommended: June 19, "Les pionniers de la synthèse optique" included films by Fischinger and The Whitneys, and June 20, "Expériences sonores et films expérimentaux." CVM is proud to have been one of the co-sponsoring organizations for this film exhibition at The Louvre, along with Archives françaises du film, AFRHC, BNF, Cinémathèque française, CNAM, le CNRS, Gaumont-Pathé-Archives, Gosfilmofond, Library of Congress, ONF, and Radio France.

 

CVM presents an evening of Visual Music, Experimental Animation and Digital Diversions. Part of The Gallery Row Unveiling Event.

Saturday May 15, 2004, 7:30, 600 South Spring Street, Los Angeles. Gallery Row Event sponsored by the Art, Aesthetics and Culture Committee of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Oskar Fischinger Retrospective" and Moritz Book Release Event, in association with California Institute of the Arts, Filmforum and The Fischinger Archive, Los Angeles, CA, March 14 (at Filmforum, American Cinematheque, Hollywood) and March 17 (Cal Arts, Bijou Theatre). Copies of Dr. Moritz's new Fischinger biography will be available for purchase (screenings feature prints preserved by The Academy Film Archive).

"Oskar Fischinger Retrospective," in association with The Fischinger Archive, at Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA, April 13 (featuring prints preserved by The Academy Film Archive)

  Previous Shows: 2003

A Tribute to Jules Engel - Redcat Theatre in Disney Hall, Los Angeles, November 23, presented in association with California Institute of the Arts and curated by CVM. Program included new prints preserved by Center for Visual Music (Coaraze, Accident, 3 Arctic Flowers, Celebration, others) with the support of the NFPF and NEA.

Oskar Fischinger Retrospective - London, Glasgow and Dundee, UK, December
Presented by The Fischinger Archive in association with Goethe Institute, Lux Cinema and CVM (featuring prints preserved by The Academy Film Archive)

Images (c) Fischinger Trust, Jordan Belson, Greta Dockum, Epstein Collection, Kevin Baily, and the individual artists. SWTB image courtesy Peter Mays. Top image from Kreise (Circles) by Oskar Fischinger, (c) Fischinger Trust

 

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