PRESS KIT
CVM is a nonprofit archive dedicated to visual music, experimental animation and abstract cinema. CVM is committed to preservation, curating, education, research and dissemination of the film, performances and other media of this tradition, together with related artwork and historical documentation. CVM's films, programs and lectures are featured in museums, archives, festivals, universities and cultural centers worldwide; currently CVM is preserving films by Oskar Fischinger, Jordan Belson and Charles Dockum. Our research library contains the world's largest collection of visual music resources including the papers of Oskar Fischinger and film historian William Moritz.
Press Highlights and Quotes
We’re lucky here in Los Angeles to have a major organization for the promotion of abstract animation–the Center for Visual Music, which restores and exhibits classic titles from an elusive genre, and releases excellent DVDs. --Filmjourney.org, 2009
[On Visual Music]... the Center for Visual Music's extensive Visual Music bibliography, otherwise known as the CVM Library. The Los Angeles-based non-profit film archive are the go-to source on the subject, so go-to-it. -- Rhizome, April 2009
Curious readers can find out more about color/sound experiments past and present at the Center for Visual Music's web site...a treasure trove of images and information on everything from color organs to contemporary art installations. -- Symphony Magazine, 2006
The Center for Visual Music is the Los Angeles based archive dedicated to visual music, experimental animation and avant-garde media. CVM is committed to preservation, curation, education, scholarship and dissemination of the film, performances and other media of this tradition - together with related historical documentation and other material. CVM's talks and programmes have featured in the exhibition "Visual Music" at the Hirshhorn Museum, the MOCA LA, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. Films preserved by CVM have screened at the Pompidou Centre, Guggenheim Museum, Tate Liverpool and other museums and festivals worldwide. -- Optronica Festival at BFI Southbank, London, 2007
Past Press Highlights
June 2009 - CVM & Fischinger in Animation World Network's Headline News and the KCET Blog Blur + Sharpen
Sight and Sound Magazine (BFI, London), reviews CVM's Belson and Fischinger DVDs, Jan. 2008; Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews the Fischinger DVD in Cinemascope
CVM's Jordan Belson DVD named in many reviewers' Top DVDs of 2007 lists
November 2007 - CVM's Oskar Fischinger DVD wins a Willy Haas Award at Cinefest Hamburg
April 2007 - Interview with Keefer about CVM in Digicult magazine (Italy). In English or Italian
Partial List of Museum Exhibitions Featuring Films from CVM
- Visual Music, 2005-06 at MOCA LA and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Smithsonian), Washington, DC. More info here about the exhibition, and About the Films
- Kandinsky, 2009-10 at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Accompanying film series by CVM: Nonobjective Films 1920-1950, A Program of Artists Supported by Hilla Rebay.
- The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989. Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008-09
- Sons et Lumieres, 2003-04, Centre Pompidou, Paris
- Summer of Love, 2005-07 at Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Liverpool, Kunsthalle Wien and Kunsthalle Schirn Frankfurt. Description here on Tate site.
- Light Art from Artificial Light, 2005-06, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
- Notation: Kalkül und Form in den Künsten, 2008-09, ZKM and Akademie der Künst, Berlin
- Expanded Eye, Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland, 2006
- Abstract Cinema, 2009, MOCA Miami, Florida
- See This Sound, 2009-2010, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria
- Le Mouvement. From Cinema to Kinetics, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland, 2010
Partial List of Symposia and Festivals Featuring Films and Presentations from CVM
- International Film Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2006 and 2007
- Expanded Cinema Symposium at Tate Modern, London, 2009
- The Universe Resounds, Kandinsky symposium, Guggenheim Museum, New York, January 2010
- Du Muet au parlant. Expérimentations sonores au cinéma. Musee de Louvre, Paris, 2004
- Animation: From the Avant-Garde to Popular Culture Symposium, San Diego Museum of Art, USC, UCSD, and Calit2, 2007
- European Media Art Festival, Osnabruck, Germany, 2009
- Optronica Festival, Addictive TV and British Film Institute, London, 2007
- UCLA Art Sci Department's Sound and Science Symposium, 2009
- LA County Museum of Art's Evening for Educators Series, 2008
- Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival, Bologna, Italy
- Festival of Visual Effects, Visual Effects Society, Hollywood, 2006
- Visual Music Festival, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle
Consulting
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008-09
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Smithsonian), 2003-05
- Orange County Museum of Art, California
- Terrence Malick, Tree of Life feature film, 2006-07
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