Focus Pull: Onion City Off Screen
a collaborative exhibition with The 20th Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival
June 17-July 5, 2008
Opening Reception: June 18, 2008
Expanding the scope of the festival into the gallery, Focus Pull includes works in collage, film installation, and single channel video. Drawing attention to other creative outlets by artists in the experimental film and video community, this exhibition demonstrates that the long tradition of cross-medium investigation by avant-garde filmmakers is still strong and growing. All the works in Focus Pull display a subtle simplicity that benefits from a form of viewing distinctly unlike that of the movie theater.
Featured projects:
- At Play in the Fields of the Lord [NEBRASKA]
Single channel video projection
Jon Jost, US
“At Play in the Fields of the Lord [NEBRASKA] is a meditation piece, an homage to the American plains and the Omaha tribe of Nebraska. It was made while living in Lincoln, Nebraska, and working on a project in the Nebraska Sandhills, around Valentine.” - Jon Jost
- Hanky Panky January 1902
Single channel video
Ken Jacobs, US
Jacobs “animates” a turn-of-the-century stereoscopic photograph to bring life to a frozen moment of Victorian-era titillation. "This film marks the invention of human sexuality and as such figures as an important turning point in the course of human affairs." - Ken Jacobs
- Basket
Single channel video
Nicky Hamlyn, UK
“Characteristic of Nicky Hamlyn's work, Basket is a transformative representation of an everyday object. A yellow clothes peg basket hanging on a washing line moves steadily in the wind, the permutations of its twists and turns being optically intensified by the low resolution camera it was recorded on.” - William Rose
- PIN WHOLE SERIES Application 1: Bulb
16mm projector installation
Jorge Lorenzo, Mexico
“When this handmade film is screened, the lens of the projector is off. It is a 16mm magnetic sound film-loop, pinholed frame by frame. Every pinhole is made in a different place within each frame... Thus, the reflection of the bulb comes through the holes producing the effect of animation, a live one, that is.” - Jorge Lorenzo
- Collage works from films
Paper collages
Lewis Klahr, US
Eight collage works from films by acclaimed animator Lewis Klahr, whose work is haunted by the ghosts of mid-century America, a place where Playboy-chic meets film noir paranoia.
Companion Film Screening
Sight-Lines
Wednesday, June 25, 7:00pm
Featuring: Pistrino (2003, 9:00) by Nicky Hamlyn; Jerry Takes a Back Seat, Then Passes Out of the Picture (1987, 11:00) by Ken Jacobs; Spectre Mystagogic (1957, 8:00) by Larry Jordan (showing in a brand new restored print); Soft Ticket (2004, 7:00) and Engram Sepals (2000, 6:00) by Lewis Klahr; and Muktikara (1999, 11:00) by Jeanne Liotta.
And don't miss
The 20th Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival
Thursday-Sunday, June 19-22, 2008
The 20th Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival is a production of Chicago Filmmakers. Contact Chicago Filmmakers for times and locations, 773-293-1447.
Gallery Text