. Conversations at the Edge (CATE)

More Details on Hollis Frampton’s SOLARIUMAGELANI and Book Signing

Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | October 13, 2009

Images from Frampton's Solarumagelani.
Images from Frampton’s Solarumagelani.

Program Details

Summer Solstice (Solariumagelani) (1974, 16mm, color, silent, 32 min.)

“…the operations that dislocate a film like Summer Solstice–I hope irreparably–from being a movie about the locomotion and eating habits of cows, a dairy farm document, or what have you, are finally of a whole lot less concern to me than the following things: how it looks, the sense that probably it was done deliberately, the pleasure or displeasure–the intrigue, possibly–of attempting to retrieve the manner in which it was done while one is watching.”— H.F.

Autumnal Equinox (Solariumagelani) (1974, 16mm, color, silent, 27 min.)

“…filmed in a slaughterhouse in South St. Paul, MN…Frampton utilizes a shooting strategy that flattens and pictorializes a palpable space of action that includes not only cattle (now seen hanging from huge meathooks), but even on occasion, figures. The abattoir is seen in the fleeting movements of Frampton’s hand-held camera. The shots generally begin and end with swift panning movements which effectively flatten and abstract the objects of this work environment. And although a brief passage of green leader is used to mark each cut, the smearing effect of the rapid camera movements tends to elide the shots, to make the flattened color planes run together.”— Bruce Jenkins

Winter Solstice (Solariumagelani) (1974, 16mm, color, silent, 33 min.)

“Shot at U.S. Steel’s Homestead Works in Pittsburgh,…Winter Solstice is full of outpourings of fire, of smoke, of sparks, of molten metal–all erupting against an otherwise black background in an activated pictorial space. . . .While Winter Solstice pays homage to the work of a number of New York school painters, its steel mill setting represents, as Frampton noted, ‘A pretextual locus dearly beloved by our Soviet predecessors.'”— Bruce Jenkins

Wine and Cheese Reception / Book Signing

Please join us for a wine and cheese reception from 5:00-6:00 pm as Bruce Jenkins signs copies of his latest book. Copies of On the Camera Arts and Consecutive Matters will be available for purchase on site.

Bruce Jenkins is Professor of Film, Video and New Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago having served from 2004-08 as the Dean of Undergraduate Studies. Prior to coming to SAIC, he was the Stanley Cavell Curator at the Harvard Film Archive, where he directed a film archive and a year-round cinematheque program. Dr. Jenkins served as Curator of Film and Video from 1985 to 1999 at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, where he initiated a dialogues program with major filmmakers, organized traveling film retrospectives, and curated gallery exhibitions. Dr. Jenkins has written catalogue essays for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid; and the Guggenheim Museum, among others. His writings have appeared in such publications as Artforum, October, and Millennium Film Journal. He has taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the University of Minnesota, Macalester College, Harvard University, and the University of Cincinnati. In 1999, he was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.