Mon Nov 14 | 8:30 pm
Ernie Gehr: New Digital Works

Tue Nov 15 | 8:30 pm
Ernie Gehr: Early Films

Ernie Gehr’s unsurpassed body of films and videos from the past 43 years combines richly conceived and rigorous cinematic structures with a profound sensitivity for the physical world around him. This two-program series begins on Monday with four recent digital works: Crystal Palace (2002/2011), Auto-Collider IX (2010), Thank You for Visiting (2010) and Abracadabra (2009). The quartet features, according to Gehr, “Lake Tahoeon steroids, aerobic eye exercises in San Francisco, Brooklyn’s Red Hook after midnight, and for those with a special weakness for the baffling mysteries of early cinema: spiritualism, crashing through stone walls, are make of the sinking of the Titanic, and, as a grand finale, the dance-of-the-century!”

Tuesday’s screening revisits Gehr’s earliest 16mm films: Morning (1968), Wait (1968), Reverberation (1969), Transparency (1969), History (1970), Field (1970) and Serene Velocity (1970)—one of the few experimental films included in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry as an American landmark. These rarely screened shorts are elegant, concise and acutely observed explorations of cinematic space, and established Gehr as one of our foremost avant-gardists.

In person: Ernie Gehr

Curated by Steve Anker and Bérénice Reynaud.