Walker Art Center Presents Expanding the Frame, a Six-Week Series Featuring Experimental Film and Video Works and International Filmmakers
From January 19–February 24, the Walker Art Center presents the series
Expanding the Frame
, a six-week showcase of established and emerging directors who are breaking the boundaries of film and video. From avant-garde innovators who transformed film history, such as Kenneth Anger, to the visionaries of today, each of the artists presented in this series challenges conventions—from an exhilarating real-time portrait of soccer superstar Zinedine Zidane to a raw narrative documentary capturing life in post-Katrina Louisiana to a contemporary masterpiece by the Quay Brothers. Expanding the Frame concludes with visits by four European filmmakers—celluloid archaeologists, demolition experts, visual poets—who discuss their extreme approaches and revolutionary techniques.
Highlighting Expanding the Frame are the area premieres of two theatrical releases: Stephen and Timothy Quay’s The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, January 19–21, which mixes live action and animation to tell the story of a piano tuner summoned to a mountain village to work on strange musical machines for a diabolical opera, and Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle), which traces the movements of international soccer superstar Zinedine Zidane during a complete match between Real Madrid and Villareal, February 9–11. The series also features programs with visiting filmmakers, including avant-garde film pioneer Kenneth Anger’s first visit to the Walker since 1980 on Friday, January 26, 7:30 pm, in a forum moderated by Siobhan Craig, Institute for Advanced Study Film Collaborative at the University of Minnesota, and Brent Green introducing Paulina Hollers fresh from its premiere at Sundance, Thursday, February 15, 7:30 pm. Programs of short films include New Orleans Revisited, featuring films by Ryan Trecartin, Liza Johnson, and Chris Larson that look at life in post-Katrina Louisiana, on Wednesday, February 21, 7:30 pm.
Screenings are in the Cinema. Unless otherwise noted, tickets are $8 ($6 Walker members and University of Minnesota students with ID). Tickets for free programs are available one hour prior to screening at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk.
EXPANDING THE FRAME
January 19–February 24
Friday–Sunday, January 19–21
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
Directed by Stephen and Timothy Quay
Friday and Saturday, 7:30 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 2 pm
This breathtakingly beautiful and long-awaited second feature by the Quay Brothers mixes live action and animation to tell the story of a piano tuner summoned to a mountain village to work on strange musical machines for a diabolical opera. The Quay Brothers’ live-action films incorporate the same arresting use of weathered materials that give their darkly fascinating animated shorts a mythic sensibility. 2005, 35mm, 99 minutes.
Thursday, January 25
Cut-n-Paste and Draw, 7:30 pm FREE
Mining images from pop culture and children’s books to 19th-century engravings, Martha Colburn, Run Wrake, Takashi Ishida, and Larry Jordan animate clippings into such clever films as Cosmetic Emergency, Rabbit, Poet’s Dream, and Ema-EmakiII. Program length 45 minutes.
Friday, January 26
An Evening with Kenneth Anger, 7:30 pm
Moderated by Siobhan Craig, Institute for Advanced Study Film Collaborative at the University of Minnesota
In his first visit to the Walker since 1980, pioneering American avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger introduces and discusses the UCLA Film and Television Archives’ new 35mm blow-up restorations of his original films Fireworks, Rabbit’s Moon, Scorpio Rising, and Kustom Kar Kommandos as well as Invocation of My Demon Brother, a recent gift to the Walker. Program length 2 hours. Copresented by the Institute for Advanced Study Film Collaborative at the University of Minnesota.
Thursday, February 1
Investigating Landscape, 7:30 pm FREE
Olivo Barbieri creates disorienting cityscapes using a tilt-shift lens. By shooting from above, he drastically manipulates scale and perspective, transforming major cities—Shanghai, Las Vegas, Sevilla—into geometric reliefs. Investigating the urban environment, Diane Bonder’s If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home by Now pairs landscape stills with small town stories questioning the use of public space. Program length 54 minutes.
Thursday, February 8
In the Spirit of Big Brother, 7:30 pm FREE
In an era that revels in the voyeuristic cult of celebrity and celebrates surveillance on reality TV, these works sharply critique our society under watch: Rebecca Baron’s How Little We Know of Our Neighbors; Deborah Stratman’s In Order Not to Be Here; and Julia Meltzer and David Thorne’s It’s Not My Memory of It. Program length 107 minutes.
Friday–Sunday, February 9–11
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle)
Directed by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno
Friday and Saturday, 7:30 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 2 pm
Glorious in its simplicity, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait traces the movements of international soccer superstar Zinedine Zidane during a complete match between Real Madrid and Villareal. Using 17 synchronized cameras, the film tracks the world-class athlete from the first kick until he leaves the field, resulting in a mesmerizing real-time portrait of a man and the full range of his actions, emotional intensity, and unwavering concentration during the game. The scenario is set to a sound track that combines music by the Scottish band Mogwai, the cheers of 80,000 fans, commentary by Spanish television announcers, and Zidane’s own internal thoughts as voiced by the legend himself. 2006, 35mm, in Spanish and French with English subtitles, 92 minutes.
Thursday, February 15
Paulina Hollers and Other Shorts by Brent Green, 7:30 pm FREE
Introduced by director Brent Green
Fresh from its premiere at Sundance, Paulina Hollers is a contemporary Appalachian folktale of a wayward boy who dies and finds himself on the way to hell. His desperate mother kills herself to help him escape his fiery fate. Above ground, the story plays out with stop-action figures constructed from rabbit bones and bird’s wings, while below ground the scenes are hand-drawn animations. Program length 75 minutes.
Wednesday, February 21
New Orleans Revisited, 7:30 pm
Introduced by director Chris Larson
Displaced from his home in New Orleans, video artist Ryan Trecartin creates an underground tour-de-force in A Family Finds Entertainment. Liza Johnson and local filmmaker/visual artist Chris Larson delve into the class and racial divide of post-Katrina Louisiana. Program length 63 minutes.
Hyperfootage
How does contemporary experimental cinema respond to the challenges of the digital age? Four acclaimed European filmmakers present their answers. As celluloid archaeologists, demolition experts, and visual poets, each has transformed familiar genres—Hollywood westerns and melodramas, political documentaries, early cinema, and abstract films—to create hyperfilmic works that redefine cinema. Their investigations transform our common history of visual imagery, music, sound, and signs as well as the way we receive culture through moving images. Copresented by the Institute for Advanced Study Film Collaborative at the University of Minnesota.
Thursday, February 22
An Evening with Peter Tscherkassky, 7:30 pm FREE
Moderated by Rembert Hüser, Institute for Advanced Study Film Collaborative at the University of Minnesota
By manipulating both found footage and original material beyond recognition, Austrian filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky combines his studies on the aesthetics of cinematography with the dissection of experimental techniques. Originally working in small-gauge film, he established his reputation as one of the foremost figures in the field with his arresting 35mm CinemaScope works that evoke a dreamlike state. Program length 90 minutes.
Friday, February 23
An Evening with Frédérique Devaux, 7:30 pm
Moderated by Christophe Wall-Romana, Institute for Advanced Study Film Collaborative at the University of Minnesota
For French-Algerian experimental filmmaker Frédérique Devaux, cinema is a plastic art. She takes each image or cell as her aesthetic focus rather than the sequence. Through scratching and marking the film as well as overlaying and reshooting sometimes five or six times, she weaves images and sounds (some from her Berber ancestry) into striking new personal and musical layers. Devaux currently teaches film at Marseille-Aix University in France and at Bejaia University in Algeria. Program length 90 minutes.
Saturday, February 24
Screenings with Matthias Müller and Christoph Girardet, 3 and 7 pm
Moderated by Christophe Wall-Romana and Rembert Hüser, Institute for Advanced Study Film Collaborative at the University of Minnesota
Filmmaker, photographer, and installation artist Matthias Müller embodies the trajectory of German experimental film of the past 20 years—from Super 8 to found-footage work to the more recent merger of film and digital art in cinematographic installations. Hollywood cinema and experimental techniques coexist in his films, resulting in works that depart from the logic of genre to form something radically new. Cutting-edge German experimental artist Christoph Girardet works with found footage and creates film/video installations, thereby often transforming film sequences into rhythmic loops. Their collaborations include The Phoenix Tapes, an encyclopedic dissection of Alfred Hitchcock’s films (on view in the Walker’s Lecture Room in February), and the 2006 Cannes prize-winning short Kristall, a melodrama composed of appropriated footage of mirrors. Program length 105 minutes. A dialogue with the directors follows the 7 pm screening.