Films from the 80s

James Stirling was once known as Britain's most original architect. In this video he tours his three major museums--the New State Gallery in Stuttgart, the Sackler Museum at Harvard, and the Tate Gallery extension in London. He describes his formative years, influenced by the work of Le Corbusier. Critics and colleagues comment on Stirling's projects and style. Stirling's brilliant career was brought to an abrupt halt by his premature death in 1992.

Filmed during the design and realization of the Sainsbury extension to the National Gallery in London, Venturi speaks of the revelatory experiences with classical architecture that led to his revolutionary re-appraisal of modern architecture and his landmark text of 1966, Complexity and Contradiction. Wife/partner architect Denise Scott Brown describes their formulation of post-Modern principles in Las Vegas and elsewhere. Architectural historians both attack and defend the National Gallery extension and Venturi and Scott Brown's work. The video surveys the couple's major works. Filmed with architects in Las Vegas, Rome, Venice, Philadelphia, and at his mother’s house in Pennsylvania.

Featuring: Robert Ryman, Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg
Concept, Interviews and Narration by Joan Simon

4 Artists: Robert Ryman, Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg acts as a collective portrait of creators linked only by their stated intention of expressing ideas through art. Unconnected to traditional concepts of beauty, storytelling or pictorial representation, the artists discuss the context of their art and how their work and the public's perception of it have changed over time. This film offers the rare opportunity to see a large body of work in their studios.

michaelblackwoodproductions.com/project/4-artists-robert-ryman-eva-hesse-bruce-nauman-susan-rothenberg/

vimeopro.com/blackwoodfilmcollection/films-from-the-80s

Art Films by Michael Blackwood Productions

Stephen Petronio, Molissa Fenley, Diane Martel, Wendy Perron, Blondell Cummings, Jim Self, Johanna Boyce, and Bill T. Jones and Arne Zane. Curated by Sally Banes. Narrated by the choreographers.

The 1960s and '70s saw an analytic exploration of pure dance by the first generation of post-modern choreographers, such as Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, David Gordon, and Lucinda Childs. In the 1980s, a new choreographic impulse burst through this formal austerity. Dancers began to wrestle and juggle, dance to pop music and poetry, tell stories, play characters, wear elegant or outrageous costumes. The nine choreographers featured in Retracing Steps eloquently illustrate the eclecticism found in American dance. Made in 1988, Retracing Steps mirrors the best of the New York dance scene.