Kimball Art Center breaks down the cinematic attraction of ‘Moving Pictures’
Dec 13, 2024
If the old adage states “A picture is worth a thousand words,” then what is a movie worth?That question and more are addressed with “Moving Pictures,” a new exhibit that opens this weekend at the Kimball Art Center.“Cinema, when it emerged in the late 19th century, revolutionized visual storytelling,” said Kimball Art Center Curator Nancy Stoaks. “By blending moving images with sound and narrative, it created an immersive, emotionally powerful experience for viewers and quickly developed into a highly consequential art form — one that has ultimately influenced our shared cultural consciousness and perception of reality in today’s world.”The exhibit, which is open through Feb. 23, features installations created by Rosa Barba, Matthew Barney, Iñaki Bonillas, David Brothers, Spencer Finch, Gary Hill, Sky Hopinka, Lisa Oppenheim and Alex Prager, according to Stoaks.“It’s an incredible group of internationally recognized artists,” she said. “These are foundational artists who have worked in film and new media for the past several decades.”The exhibit brings together and juxtaposes artwork throughout the Kimball Art Center, and Stoaks decided which pieces would complement each other.“One of my favorite parts of the job is figuring out how to tell the stories throughout our space, while thinking about the relationship between different works and how they can speak to each other, while bringing out different ideas through placement,” she said.“Moving Picture” threads a couple of themes throughout the installations, according to Stoaks.“In one of the spaces, we put up works by different artists who think about the materiality of film — celluloid, camphor and other materials that are tied to the history of making film,” she said. “In other spaces, we gather artists who draw attention to perception and how we see. So there are a couple of works that go together nicely that way.”Two of those works are by Rosa Barba and Matthew Barney, Stoaks said.“Rosa sees film’s potential as a medium, and in her work called ‘Poised Compression,’ she uses 35 mm film, steel, glass, motors and aluminum to create an animated display running on a loop,” she said. Barba describes the work as a “cinematic painting,” according to Stoaks.“I’m so excited about that piece because it’s really beautiful and moving,” she said. “It asks the viewer to slow down and spend time with it, and it also has the impact of making you see the subtleties of the colors around you in the world.”Barney’s work, on the other hand, explores narratives beyond the big or small screen, Stoaks said.“The works in this exhibition focus our attention on the histories and conventions of film, but also draws us into meditations on time, memory and perception in deeply resonant ways,” she said. “Film is something that tells stories in such a powerful way, and the ways that these artists think about that, and the ways they transform this media, makes us think about film. But it also makes us think about other things like memory and how we perceive the passage of time.”Rosa Barba’s “Poised Compression,” which is part of the Kimball Art Center’s new exhibit “Moving Pictures,” uses 35mm film, steel, glass, motors and aluminum to create an animated display running on a loop. Barba describes the work as a “cinematic painting,” according to Kimball Art Center Curator Nancy Stoaks. Credit: Photo courtesy of the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin/Paris/SeoulThen there’s Gary Hill’s installation titled “Is A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky,” which features French actress Isabelle Huppert, Stoaks said.“He did this beautiful, moving portrait of her from two different perspectives,” she said. “So you see her shifting her gaze between the two cameras, and that brings the viewer into the installation in different ways.”Another work Stoaks looks forward to showing is Spencer Finch’s “West (Sunset in my Motel Room, Monument Valley, 5:36 p.m.-6:06 p.m. Jan.26, 2007),” a synchronized video installation that utilizes nine, old-school TV monitors.“I love how he uses the heavy and massive monitors,” she said. “He measured the light of the sunset at Monument Valley from a hotel room he was staying in and recreated the fading light. Then he meticulously matched the colors from stills of John Ford’s 1956 Western ‘The Searchers’ to capture the emotional resonance of twilight, bridging the gap between film and the lived experience.”In addition to the installations, “Moving Pictures” will include some interactive programs, Stoaks said.Those programs are as follows:Free screening of Matthew Barney’s “Redoubt,” 6 p.m., on Jan. 31, at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, 20 S. West Temple in Salt Lake City. Redoubt unfolds as a series of hunts in the wilderness of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. The characters communicate a mythological narrative through dance, letting movement replace language as they pursue each other and their prey. RSVP by visiting kimballartcenter.org.
Movie Watchers Club Workshop, 3:30 p.m., Feb. 7, at the Kimball Art Center, 1251 Kearns Blvd. Participants will examine films with a critical lens through the basics of storytelling, genre, style, cinematography, production design, sound and editing. The event, tailored for students in grades two through eight, is presented in partnership with the Utah Film Center and led by Weber Griffiths, whose short films have been featured in major festivals and received numerous awards from across the country. RSVP at kimballartcenter.org.
Book Discussion: Charlie Kaufman’s “Antkind,” 6:30 p.m., Feb. 19, at the Kimball Art Center. “Antkind” is the debut novel from Kaufman, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Synecdoche, New York.” The discussion will be led by Seth Taylor, a filmmaker and film professor at Utah Valley University. His short film, “Silas,” was featured in the SeriesFest Film Festival in 2023.Iñaki Bonillas’ “Los ojos de Sol,” is a work that captures eyes of actors in classic films. Credit: Photo by Carl Henrik TillbergStoaks has been thinking about pulling together “Moving Pictures” for a few months.“Our community has so many deep connections with film, with our partnership, with the Sundance Institute and Utah Film Center, so this is a chance for us to share something from the perspective of contemporary artists who work with film in interesting ways,” she said. “We’ve been developing this list of artists who are making great work around the theme for quite a while, so it’s an honor to have their work here at the Kimball.”‘Moving Pictures’When: Through Feb. 23, 2025
Where: Kimball Art Center, 1251 Kearns Blvd.
Phone: 435-649-8882
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