Andy Warhol - Motion Pictures

Malba presents a renowned group of works by Andy Warhol, produced between 1963 and 1964, as well as his screen tests, filmed portraits made from 1964 to 1966, in an exhibition conceived and produced by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

From 1964 to 1966, in The Silver Factory, Warhol filmed hundreds of screen tests. In these films, which are on average three minutes long, Warhol portrayed his friends: models, artists, intellectuals, actors and musicians. Klaus Biesenbach, co-curator of the exhibition, calls this period “a laboratory of fame”. And adds: “The images on display seem to link the classical museum prortrait gallery with the early days of motion pictures”.

Filmed with a still camera, the screen tests attempt to capture the glamour and personality of Warhol’s friends. The artist would afterwards alter the film speed: 16 frames per second instead of 24, which produced a sort of slow motion effect similar to very early cinema. These films are silent, black-and-white portraits of "Baby" Jane Holzer, Cass Elliott, Dennis Hopper, Gerard Malanga, Beverly Grant, Edie Sedgwick, Susan Sontag, Salvador Dalí and many others.

The show at Malba also includes some of Warhol's most celebrated films: Sleep (1963), Kiss (1963), Blow Job (1963), Eat (1964) and Empire (1964), through which the artist greatly contributed to experimental cinema.

As was Warhol’s original intention, these two groups of works will be seen in the exhibition space, and they have been transferred to DVD format from the original 16mm prints.

Mary Lea Bandy, co-curator of the exhibition, wrote “... to young artists and enthusiasts who are growing up in a post-Warhol era of vast and varying means of manipulating and fragmenting images and sounds (...). one has only to look at the work being made today to realize we will not easily become ‘post-Warhol’ any time soon” (Andy Warhol. Motion Pictures. Curated by Mary Lea Bandy, edited by Klaus Biesenbach, KW Intitute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany, 2004).

“This exhibition dedicated to Warhol’s films is very important for both Malba and the Latin American audience. It is the first show organized at Malba by The Museum of Modern Art with the collaboration of the Andy Warhol Museum. It belongs to a program of exhibitions developed by Malba that connects the fields of art and film. It also introduces a complex, intriguing and less known period of Warhol’s production, when he experimented with the cinematic image, producing an influential group of works that combine film and photography, documental and fiction, traditional portrait and performance”, states Eduardo F. Costantini Jr., Executive Director of Malba.

This exhibition was organized by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, with the collaboration of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. It was made possible thanks to the generous contribution of The Museum of Modern Art’s International Council and the unconditional support of Patricia Cisneros Travel Fund for Latin America.

Curators: Mary Lea Bandy (The “Celeste Bartos” Chief Curator of Film and Media Department of Film and Media, The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York) and Klaus Biesenbach (Chief Curator of PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, a MoMA affiliate, and Curator, Department of Film and Media, The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York).

Pressetext

Andy Warhol - Motion Pictures / Cuadros en movimiento
Kuratoren: Mary Lea Bandy, Klaus Biesenbach