Our friends in the UK will connect with the films of David Gatten tonight at the Leeds College of Art.
—-
The Illuminated Room
DAVID GATTEN: Four Films Toward Part V of Secret History of the Dividing Line, A True Account in Nine Parts
- David Gatten in the Rare Book Room, Duke Library. Image by Michael Graziano
Leeds College of Art, Blenheim Walk gallery, LS2 9AQ*
Thursday 21 June 2012, at 5pm
FREE and open to all
Making a connection with the Art College’s exhibition of David Pearson’s
typographic work, The Illuminated Room presents a rare opportunity to engage
with the recent films of the American artist David Gatten.
“Over the last 15 years, David Gatten has explored the intersection of the
printed word and moving image. The resulting body of work illuminates a wide
array of historical, conceptual and material concerns, while cataloging the
variety of ways in which texts function in cinema as both language and image,
writing and drawing. Using traditional research methods (reading old books) and
non-traditional film processes (boiling old books) the films trace the contours
of private lives and public histories, combining philosophy, biography and
poetry with experiments in cinematic forms and narrative structures.” Chris
Stults
The screening includes four works that form part of the fifth film in Gatten’s
ongoing project, Secret History of the Dividing Line, A True Account in Nine
Parts (1996–). Secret History takes as its main character William Byrd II, an
18th-century Virginian aristocrat, plantation owner, and author whose library is
said to have been the largest and most varied in the colonies. The project uses
Byrd, his family, and his library to explore the transmission of knowledge.
Films:
THE MATTER PROPOUNDED, OF ITS POSSIBILITY OR IMPOSSIBILITY, TREATED IN FOUR
PARTS / 2011, 13 min, 16mm
HOW TO CONDUCT A LOVE AFFAIR / 2007, 8 min, 16mm
SO SURE OF NOWHERE BUYING TIMES TO COME / 2010, 9min, 16mm
FILM FOR INVISIBLE INK, CASE NO. 323: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST / 2010,
20min, 16mm
* * *
