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Art at the Frontier of Film Theory: Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen

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Venue: Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square

No booking required

Curated by Oliver Fuke and Nicolas Helm-Grovas in collaboration with Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image and the Essay Film Festival.

This exhibition uses the gallery space to refract the work of Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen through the prism of art. Primarily known as film theorists and filmmakers, engagement with art and artists has always been a central dimension of Mulvey and Wollen’s activities. Their numerous documentaries and ‘theory films’ about or featuring artists are evidence of this, as well as their role as important interlocutors for artists, together with their critical writings, teaching, artwork, and their curating of path-breaking exhibitions like ‘Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti’ (Mulvey/Wollen, 1982) and ‘On the Passage of a Few People Through A Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International’ (Wollen, 1989).

Art at the Frontier of Film Theory presents moving image works, audio recordings, drawings, diagrams, photographs and archival materials in order to map the co-ordinates of two transdisciplinary, overlapping practices. It includes collaborations, conversations and interactions with figures such as Kathy Acker, Victor Burgin, Emma Hedditch, Mary Kelly, Mark Lewis and Kerry Tribe.

As well as proposing that Mulvey and Wollen can be understood within the broader frame of artists or art theorists influenced by feminism and socialism, the exhibition utilises the university context to suggest their important role as teachers of younger artists and the mutual influence between academic and artistic work.

22 March 2019, 2:30 – 5:00pm Riddles of the Sphinx screening (dir. Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, 1977) Find out more and book your ticket here!

22nd March 2019-  6-8pm Exhibition launch and private view. Find out more and book your ticket here!

23 March 2019, 2:30 – 5:00pm Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons screening (dir. Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, 1974) Find out more and book your ticket here!

25 March 2019, 6-9pm Crystal Gazing screening (Dir. Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen 1982) Find out more and book your ticket here!

The exhibition is accompanied by a film retrospective, discussion events and gallery workshops. The programme as a whole is supported by CHASE, Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England.

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