Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives
ALEXANDER KLUGE ON FILM AND VIDEO
October 21 – October 22
Alexander Kluge in person on Saturday, October 22!
When Anthology opened its doors at 32 Second Avenue in 1988, the first series we presented was an Alexander Kluge retrospective. A central figure in the formation of the New German Cinema, a student of Theodor Adorno, and author across several media, Kluge is one of the most vital postwar European artists. He also remains one of the most active, even if his latter-day work is largely unknown on this side of the Atlantic.
This fall, Kluge returns to NYC for a series of screenings and events, at the Goethe-Institut, the Museum of Modern Art, and Anthology. At AFA we’ll be taking advantage of his presence by organizing screenings of some of his famed feature films of the 1960s-80s, but also by providing the rare opportunity to dip into the vast body of video work he’s created over the past 30 years. In 1987 Kluge founded the Development Company for Television Program (DCTP), which has produced hours of programming for German television, including numerous documentaries and essay films by Kluge himself. Radically unlike conventional television programming – with a dizzying array of visual and historical fragments combined with on-screen text and interviews with figures both real and fictitious – this body of work represents a bold and fascinating attempt to find new, more collaborative and widely accessible ways to communicate through moving-image media. These screenings will provide the best chance to date for NYC audiences to engage with this dimension of Kluge’s rich and uncompromising career.
This program is co-presented with the Goethe-Institut New York. Very special thanks to Alexander Kluge, Jakob Krebs, and Gülsen Döhr (DCTP), and to Wenzel Bilger & Sara Stevenson (Goethe-Institut).
Kluge will also make appearances at the Goethe-Institut on Sunday, October 23, for a special soiree with literature, film, and music with guest Ben Lerner, and at MoMA on Monday, October 24, for an evening of film and conversation as part of the Modern Mondays series.
