Blindspot: film in the gallery
Can
it be, after all these years, and in this century which is marked by cinema,
that film is still not an accepted part of the art world? Is film too new—or is
it already obsolete? Surely the
technology isn't intimidating? Or is
this discrimination by medium?
Perhaps
galleries feel that film is more than adequately covered - we're a society
saturated with movies. But the films I'm concerned about are almost invisible,
not even falling comfortably within the mandates of the few cinematheques
we have in
Where
does film stand in
And
yet, I maintain that experimental film is 'at home' in an art gallery and
benefits from being seen within an art context. The histories of film and
visual art frequently intersect and share critical and materialist concerns:
surrealism, expressionism, abstraction, structural/materialist, semiotics, spiritual.
Issues of memory, history, identity, and representation are shared
between the disciplines, as well as related questions of framing, criticality,
deconstruction and intertexuality. Contemporary
theory bearing on these questions has often originated in film studies and is
carried over into visual arts. This is particularly the case with feminist
theories of cultural production.
Cinematic
structures reappear in visual art, at the levels of sequencing of units or
parts, narrative coding, text/image relations. Those who grew up with film and
television have been influenced, whether consciously or not. For many visual
artists, media has displaced nature as environment and source of imagery. I
don't think that it is hyberbolic to call the 20th
century the Age of Film. How ironic that, in the main,
curators of contemporary art turn a blind eye to film, unaware of
artists who work exclusively or primarily in film.
Film
does seem to be making a comeback in galleries, however, in the form of
installations that utilize film loops—the work of Stan Douglas, for example. (I
say come-back because there was a time in the late 60's that films were
screened in theatrical mode in galleries; for instance, Michael Snow's films at
Leo Castelli's in N.Y.C. ) I
think this distinction between continuous loop installations and theatrical
presentation especially of a film of some length, points to a problem with
showing films in a gallery context; namely, the viewing habits of gallery
visitors.
Films of any duration that require the viewer to sit and watch a
work from its beginning ideally to its end, are asking something different in
gallery-viewing patterns. There are a number of different possible ways of
dealing with this from posting scheduled screening times to viewing-on-demand.
The wishes of the artist, the resources of the institution and the will and
ingenuity of both can provide solutions that work for varying situations. (I note that in a year-long video project at
the Art Gallery of Ontario, one program is a 55 minute tape.) There are no real
obstacles to film being a part of the contemporary art mandate of a gallery.
Yet, the sense of obligation and the will of directors and curators to make it
so does not seem to be there. Why?
Curators
are unfamiliar with film and filmmakers. In art schools and university art
departments, film is not included. Often there are separate film departments
(where experimental film is marginal at best) and the history of cinema is the
history of the American industry or National Cinemas. Hence future curators and
art gallery directors are not familiar with film art and artists and see film
as a separate field. But the mainstream narrative film industry is not the
cinema of which I speak and whose many wonderfully rich expressions should be
available to those interested in seeing art.
The
acquisition of films by collecting institutions needs to be occurring with
regularity and attention. Nowhere is experimental film being collected—what
will happen to its history, and how does this affect its continued existence
and strength? There are many great film artworks, which deserve to be collected
and exhibited, valued and valorized alongside contemporary art in other
media—diverse films made with passion, integrity, intelligence.
May
I add in passing that art magazines need not wait for experimental film to be
embraced by galleries before they review film screenings and feature articles
on film artists! I call upon you
directors, curators, writers, editors all to rectify this unnecessary
oversight, and to do it now. Put on your Nikes. Be first; lead the way!
(This
article written in 1998 has not been published)
Richard
Rhodes, Editor
Canadian
Art Magazine
70
the Esplanade 2nd floor
March
26, 1999
Dear
Richard Rhodes,
Enclosed
please find a submission on the subject of artists' film which I hope you will
find a place for in Canadian Art magazine. If you don't see it as an article (I
can expand on it if need be), then please receive it as a letter-to-the-editor.
Thank
you for your consideration and I await your reply.
Respectfully,
Barbara
Sternberg
(416)
489-8406