[Frameworks] Fischinger's Raumlichtkunst, West Coast premiere in SF

[C Keefer]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

*Weinstein Gallery Celebrates 25th Anniversary with the West Coast premiere
of *

*Oskar Fischinger’s Raumlichtkunst (c.1926/2012) *

*Three-projector Reconstruction by Center for Visual Music*

*"Dazzling...an exhilarating phantasmagoria of abstraction and metaphor" -
New York Times *



*December 16 — January 20, 2018 *

Weinstein Gallery - SOMA

444 Clementina Street, San Francisco, CA

www.weinstein.com

Exhibition Hours: Tuesday—Saturday | 10AM—5PM



Weinstein Gallery is pleased to announce the celebration of its 25th
Anniversary with the West Coast premiere of the extraordinary avant-garde
film experience

*Raumlichtkunst *(c.1926/2012) by German-American artist Oskar Fischinger,
as an HD three-projector reconstruction by Center for Visual Music.
Versions of these groundbreaking immersive multimedia performances were
originally performed circa 1926 in Weimar Germany by Fischinger, and in
2017 the acclaimed reconstruction will be presented under Weinstein’s
PUBLIC programming umbrella at its SOMA warehouse space.
*Raumlichtkunst, *which
translates to Space Light Art, is a large-scale immersive black box
installation with Fischinger’s looped abstract imagery accompanied by
avant-garde music. The work is considered an early precursor to expanded
cinema, immersive media environments and 1960s psychedelic light shows.



Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) was a German-American filmmaker, animator and
artist who began performing multiple projector cinema shows in Munich in
the 1920s with up to five 35mm film projectors, reels of his abstract
films, color filters and slides. His early shows represent some of the
first known attempts at creating immersive cinematic environments.
Fischinger’s early abstract experiments push aside narrative and reduce
cinema to pure plane, scale, motion and color. Many of his other abstract
films were screened worldwide, and some are among the first music videos.
As the rise of the Third Reich plagued Germany and abstract art became
classified as degenerate, Fischinger made contact with studios in Hollywood
who sponsored his relocation to America. In the late 1930s Fischinger would
go on to contribute and influence films like* Fantasia *but ultimately
broke with the studio system in order to return to his personal artistic
vision. *Raumlichtkunst *(c.*1926/2012*) is an HD black box installation,
meticulously restored by the Center for Visual Music (CVM) from
Fischinger’s original 1920s 35mm nitrate film, and then digitally
reconstructed for exhibition with accompanying music by Varese and John
Cage and Lou Harrison. Because few records of the original events exist,
this reconstruction captures the concept and experience of the performances
rather than representing one particular show. Since the restoration of the
work, *Raumlichtkunst *(c.1926/2012) has been presented at the Whitney
Museum, New York in 2012 and again 2016-17; the Tate Modern, London;

Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane,
Australia.



While *Raumlichtkunst* was created at a pivotal stage in Fischinger’s
career, Weinstein Gallery will also exhibit selected works from
Fischinger’s practice in order to present a snapshot of the artist’s
creative production and his exciting contribution to Modernism. On view
will be drawings from his pioneering experiments in synthetic, “ornament”
sound in the early 1930s; small paintings used to create the well known
short film* Radio Dynamics *and other paintings made later in his life.
Alongside these works, viewers will also be able to view ephemera including
correspondence with Hilla Rebay (who sponsored Fischinger in the early
1940s), plus various ephemera from throughout his animation career.

On Rowland Weinstein’s decision to present* Raumlichtkunst* (c.1926/2012)
for the 25th anniversary of the gallery, he states: Over the past 25 years
Weinstein Gallery’s program has tracked the movement of Surrealism and
Abstract Expressionism from Europe to North America. The story of art from
interwar Europe with Surrealists and nonobjective painters has been at the
heart of what we exhibit. We want to invite the public to see this seminal
work of art from Oskar Fischinger as a way to appreciate the brilliance and
innovation that came out of such a fraught time in our global history as a
reminder of what the human spirit is capable of, even — and maybe especially
— in dark times. Notable for its recent exhibition history in New York and
all over the world it made sense to bring this work to the West Coast in a
time when our community needs inspiration.

Further detailed information on Oskar Fischinger can be found at Center for
Visual Music, *www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger
<http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger>*

About Center For Visual Music:

Center for Visual Music (CVM) is a nonprofit archive dedicated to visual
music, experimental animation and abstract media. CVM is committed to
preservation, curation, education, scholarship, and dissemination of the
film, performances and other media of this tradition, together with related
historical documentation and artwork. CVM’s films and programs are featured
in museums and cultural centers worldwide. CVM owns Fischinger’s films and
papers, which they continue to preserve, promote and distribute.
www.centerforvisualmusic.org

About Weinstein Gallery:

Weinstein Gallery was established in 1992 and specializes in non-objective
and Surrealist art from pre-war Europe through the New York School and
Abstract Expressionism. The gallery represents the estates of Enrico
Donati, Gerome Kamrowski, and David Hare, as well as Rudolf Bauer and
Hassel Smith. Additionally, the gallery is recognized for its collection
and commitment to the women of the Surrealist movement with an extensive
collection of Leonor Fini and signature works by Leonora Carrington, Kay
Sage, Stella Snead, Juanita Guccione, and Dorothea Tanning. The Surrealism
collection includes major works by Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Roberto Matta,
Oscar Domínguez, Gordon Onslow Ford, Wolfgang Paalen, and Kurt Seligmann.



www.weinstein.com
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(end)

Cindy Keefer

*Raumlichtkunst* curator/archivist

cvmaccess (at) gmail.com
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