[Frameworks] experimential film in the art world

[marilyn brakhage]

Awhile back, Chuck Kleinhans posted a link to an essay by Erika  
Balsom, about the place of "experimental" cinema within the museum/art  
world context, which I did find interesting and wanted to make some  
response to.  Sorry for the length.  I assume all uninterested can  
just delete now!

Marilyn Brakhage


A Response to:  “Brakhage’s sour grapes, or notes on experimental  
cinema in the art world.”



Erika Balsom’s essay, her “notes on experimental cinema in the art  
world,” explores the place of what she calls “experimental film”  
within a museum context, and how to successfully integrate this body  
of work into the institutions of the art world.  This is a really  
important issue for the future of film.  And she both raises important  
questions and arrives at some interesting and valuable conclusions.   
However, I think she also bases her understanding of the historical  
situation on some questionable premises.  Her essay itself reveals (to  
me) some obvious contradictions in her argument about the how and why  
of the historical exclusion of “experimental film” from the art world  
establishment (and its sometimes half-hearted inclusion now), even  
while coming to some astute assessments of the current situation.



She does insist upon maintaining, from beginning to end, the  
questionable terminology that maintains the false distinction of  
“experimental cinema” and “artists’ cinema.”  I know, of course, what  
she is referring to, historically.  But maintaining this vocabulary  
becomes problematic. “Artists’ cinema” seems still to be understood by  
her as cinema made by people who are artists in other media, and  
“experimental filmmakers” are (apparently) assumed not to be  
“artists.”  That is to say, she never really questions the validity of  
the terminology.  And as she uses Stan Brakhage as a prime example of  
the so-called experimental filmmaker’s “hostility” towards the art  
world, I feel it necessary to point out that 1) Stan never considered  
himself an “experimental” filmmaker, 2) Stan absolutely and without  
question considered himself an artist, 3) he did not want his films  
reserved for “a closed and impenetrable community,” he wanted them to  
be seen by everyone, and 4) the hyperbolic Brakhage quotations she  
references should be understood in a larger context of sometimes  
conflicting thoughts, emotions and issues – which I think she does  
somewhat misrepresent.



The history of artists (i.e. painters and sculptors) who made forays  
into filmmaking is a problematic one – not so much in the early  
decades of the 20th century, and not so much now, perhaps, but in the  
decades in between.  Perhaps it was really those artists from other  
media who were often “experimenting” with film.  (It is more RARE than  
not, I think, for an artist who excels in one medium to also excel in  
another.)  So some very great painters, so I’ve heard, made some  
rather bad – or, at least, not very interesting -- films.  But good,  
bad, or indifferent -- it was their films that would be accepted by  
the art establishment.  (I can remember, when studying Art History in  
the 80s, professors who would tell students it was only okay to write  
about film if one wrote about “a film made by an artist” -- meaning a  
painter or sculptor, for example. They would never say that you could  
only write about a sculpture made by a painter!  But film, as a single  
medium of choice, was not a recognized art form by the academy.   
Someone who ONLY made films could not possibly be a true artist, in  
this view.)



Brakhage’s warnings to Sharits (and others) about the supposed  
“poison” of the museum/art world may have been, in part, a reaction to  
these exclusionary attitudes of the “art world,” and to the dubious  
choices that were being made by the establishment in regard to film;  
they also would have been due, in part, yes, to a fear of loss of  
‘life,’ as it were, from official enshrinement, perhaps; and probably  
also due to his fear of fellow filmmaker-artists being threatened with  
a loss of integrity, of their not being true to the art of film (the  
dangers of fame and money and institutional pressures, etc.), as he  
frequently witnessed the perhaps understandable desire of many to  
‘escape’ from the hardships of being an independent filmmaker and to  
find a more successful alternative.  He likewise warned against the  
‘evils’ of Hollywood.  But Stan didn’t really hate museums and art  
galleries; he did not engage in “totalizing rejection” of the art  
world, as she puts it.  He certainly went to museums and art galleries  
whenever he could.  And he considered himself a part of a long, visual  
art tradition.  In fact, while there might be something to the avant- 
garde artists’ suspicions of the establishment – an honorable enough  
tradition – contributing to their insistent independence, it was  
certainly not a rejection of any true “art world.”  [Furthermore, the  
quoted correspondence with Sharits is from 1974 and 1985.  Meanwhile,  
Stan had major retrospectives of his work at MoMA in 1971 and 1977.   
(So he couldn’t have been all that hostile.)  He went on to have more  
retrospectives in museums, work bought for museum collections,  
inclusion in galleries and so on, IN HIS LIFETIME. Her  
characterization of him, therefore, as “so openly hostile to the art  
world during his lifetime,” is a little misleading.]



Of course the title “experimental filmmaker” is used to cover a wide  
variety of practice, and not all such filmmakers define themselves in  
the same ways.  But as she uses Brakhage as a prime example, I have to  
take some exception.  She writes that “precisely at a time when film  
and video were gaining a foothold in the gallery, experimental film- 
makers and their advocates positioned themselves in opposition to an  
established art world, embracing structures of production and  
distribution very different than those of uptown gallery artists.”   
Again, if the museums and galleries were defining the art of film as  
‘films made by painters and sculptors,’ or as “video-art” (anathema to  
many film artists at the time), if, indeed, the film artists that she  
refers to as “experimental” were not as yet understood or appreciated  
by most of the art establishment, then of course those film artists  
(the ones she calls “experimental”) would “position themselves in  
opposition to” [an established art world].  Or perhaps they would  
accept that, like it or not, they were a force as yet quite separate  
from it and not yet accepted by it.  And yes, as Balsom points out,  
they adopted a different (more democratic) distribution model.  This  
was partly a philosophically based choice (quite opposite to the “self- 
insulating” impulse she claims later), and partly born of necessity,  
perhaps.  This distribution was greatly augmented by the filmmakers  
themselves, constantly on the road, introducing their work to varied  
audiences wherever they could.



But the larger question that the essay addresses is the place of  
moving visual art within a gallery context, and here she states that,  
“The old antagonism that experimental film-makers harbored for the art  
context is significantly weakening” and asks, “What is one to make of  
this integration of the history of experimental film into the art  
world, a sphere of activity many experimental film-makers had for so  
long disdained and/or rejected?” Yet in her following description of  
the lack of respect for the medium specificity of celluloid film (not  
for “artists’” films, which museums will consistently project on film,  
but for “experimental” films which they generally wish to screen as  
digital reproductions), she still doesn’t seem to see that the  
supposed “antagonism” of experimental film-makers has really been more  
about a lack of respect given TO them.  She herself states that “No  
museum would dream of exhibiting a digital copy of a film by Tacita  
Dean, an artist represented by Marian Goodman Gallery, a commercial  
entity that issues her 16 mm films in limited editions that sell for  
upwards of 100,000 dollars.  The practice is, however, quite frequent  
in the exhibition of canonical works of experimental cinema. It can  
result in poor image quality, unfavorable lighting conditions and  
improper aspect ratios – but perhaps most importantly for some members  
of the experimental film-making community, it manifests a blatant  
disregard for the medium-specific properties of celluloid.”



Balsom rightly points out that in the museum world there is a double  
standard “whereby experimental film-makers are treated with less  
respect than ‘artists working in film’ – such as Tacita Dean, Stan  
Douglas or Matthew Buckingham – whose work is never subject to such  
transpositions.”  She goes on to say that “recent exhibition practices  
have demonstrated the persistent vestiges of not considering film to  
be a legitimate artistic medium on a par with, say, painting or  
sculpture -- unless, that is, it is sold in limited editions on the  
art market.  Despite the increasing interpenetration of the worlds of  
art and experimental film, these lasting ramifications of their  
differing models of distribution and acquisition continue to mark out  
a divide between the two realms and their treatment in the  
contemporary museum.”



Exactly.  And so it seems that it was, all along, primarily about the  
rejection BY the art establishment of 1) a newer medium that there  
were few traditional art curators comfortable with assessing (easier  
just to assume that if an acknowledged painter made it, it had  
validity, perhaps), and 2) a medium (reproducible) and a group of  
artists who didn’t easily fit the art world model of purchasing and  
ownership.



My discomfort with some parts of her essay are simply that she makes  
it sound as if the so-called “experimental filmmakers” would have been  
welcomed with open arms, if only they hadn’t been so hostile.  But  
this was clearly not so. (Her description of the ongoing “double  
standard” in presentation would seem to invalidate such a supposition.)



However, Balsom’s assessment of the present situation and the  
important issues that need to be addressed for the successful  
inclusion of film art into the museum setting is very valuable.  As  
she points out, film is not only more accepted in the art world now,  
but it is becoming essential for museums to take on the task of  
preserving and exhibiting this work as it should be seen.  This is  
particularly true as available venues for the presentation of the art  
of celluloid film become fewer and fewer.  And as she also points out,  
it will be essential for museums and art historians to take on the  
task of not only acquiring and exhibiting, but of researching,  
restoring, studying and theorizing this complex body of work.   
[Further to these points, the selling by filmmakers of limited  
editions of their work (on celluloid) to museums may, indeed, become  
more of a norm, as the use of digital reproductions increasingly  
becomes the norm elsewhere.]



As to questions of exhibition, Balsom does point out some of the  
inherent problems that arise with respect to the “quality of the  
spectatorial experience” of film in this context.  But the problems  
are not insurmountable.  While there may indeed be some films that are  
still better viewed “downstairs in the museum auditoria” (or other  
similar venues), there are also many film works that can be  
experienced positively within a gallery space.  It is not so very  
difficult to use loop projectors for short films that can be viewed  
and viewed again by people moving through the museum; and it is not so  
very difficult to set aside small, partitioned, darkened areas with a  
few seats, so that it doesn’t always have to be for a “mobile  
spectator.”  And in the case of a lot of smaller gauge film work, a  
smaller, more intimate experience is sometimes even better than a  
large screen auditorium viewing.



Let’s hope that more museums will increasingly make a serious  
commitment to the long-term preservation and presentation of celluloid- 
based film art, and that it does finally find its proper place within  
the history of the plastic arts.



And at the same time – long live rebellious independents, carving out  
new paths, wherever that may be.








On 23-Feb-12, at 7:39 AM, Chuck Kleinhans wrote:

> Frameworks readers might be interested in this article in a new  
> journal from Intellect books: It's free as an electronic file; the  
> single copy price is US $36.00
>
>
>
> http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=207/view,page=0?utm_source=MIRAJ&utm_campaign=MIRAJ&utm_medium=email
>
>
> Brakhage’s sour grapes, or notes on experimental cinema in the art  
> world
>
> <page1image13984.png>
> Erika Balsom Carleton University

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