Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives
ANDY WARHOL’S DURATIONAL CINEMA
August 5 – August 7
This summer we present rare screenings of three of Andy Warhol’s most often-discussed but rarely-screened films, all of which represent bold experiments in durational cinema: SLEEP (1963), EMPIRE (1964), and THE CHELSEA GIRLS (1966). SLEEP and EMPIRE are notoriously minimal works – the former, lasting five-plus hours, records the poet and artist John Giorno sleeping; the latter consists of an eight-hour stationary shot of the Empire State Building – in which the slightest shifts in light, atmosphere, and gesture carry the weight of dramatic plot developments. THE CHELSEA GIRLS, on the other hand, is a comparatively maximalist work: a three-and-a-half hour double-screen epic in which numerous Factory regulars and other Warhol collaborators enact various scenarios, all of which ostensibly take place within different rooms of the Chelsea Hotel. All three are radical and unique filmic experiences.
Special thanks to Katie Trainor (Museum of Modern Art).
This series has been made possible by The Film Exhibition Fund, a new grants-giving 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the screening of celluloid film prints. For more info visit: filmexhibition.org
