Nonobjective Films at the Guggenheim Museum

Tomorrow, Friday November 6, at 2pm, and again on November 20, in New York, there will be an accompanying program to the Guggenheim's Kandinsky exhibition, called "Nonobjective Films, 1920's-1950's." A program of artists supported by Hilla Rebay and organized by the Center for Visual Music.

In the 1940's, curator and founding director Hilla Rebay planned to establish a film center at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which later became the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, to collect and promote nonobjective films. She awarded grants to artists and presented programs of short experimental films. With the help of Oskar Fischinger, an elaborate film center was planned to include studios and planetarium-style projection capability. Although unrealized, Rebay's support enabled many filmmakers to continue their work in abstract film. This program presents short films by filmmakers whose work was screened and/or supported by Rebay, including Jordan Belson, Mary Ellen Bute, Charles Dockum, Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren, Hans Richter, Harry Smith, among others. Having experimented with nonobjectivity, many of these artists were familiar with the work of Vasily Kandinsky, one of its most famous practitioners.

The films will be projected at 2 pm (16mm films) and 2:30 pm (35mm films), at the New Media Theater, free with Museum admission. And the program is:

16mm:

- "Symphonie Diagonale," Viking Eggeling, 1921-24.

- "Film Studie," Hans Richter, 1926.

- "Tarantella," Mary Ellen Bute, 1940.

- "Film no. 7," Harry Smith, c.1952.

- "Mobilcolor Performance at the Guggenheim Museum," Charles Dockum, 1952.

- "Séance," Jordan Belson, 1959.

35mm:

- "Studie no. 7," Oskar Fischinger, 1931.
- "Loops," Norman McLaren, 1940.
- "Allegretto," Oskar Fischinger, 1936-1943.
- "Radio Dynamics," Oskar Fischinger, 1942.

Almost all are new prints; the Fischingers and Dockum are new prints from the Center for Visual Music's recent preservation projects. CVM also thanks Cecile Starr and Robert Haller.