BAMPFA Channel

Watch Barbara Stauffacher Solomon's bold Supergraphics—a mix of Swiss Modernism and West Coast Pop—come to life on the BAMPFA Art Wall.

Watch the first four decades of MATRIX at BAMPFA, from 1978 to 2018.

For the second of our Way Bay Days, speakers Dena Beard, Jeffrey Spahn, Jeff Gunderson, and Steve Anker discussed four Bay Area artists: Xara Thustra, Kay Sekimachi, Carlos Villa, and Alice Anne Parker (Severson). Way Bay Days was a multipart program diving deep into Way Bay, a sweeping exhibition of 200 years of Bay Area creative energies.

Al Wong discussed his current exhibition Lost Sister in the context of his other recent photo installations.

In the first event of Way Bay Days, Mark Johnson, Claire Carlevaro, Jack von Euw, and Kevin Killian shared histories and individual stories of four Bay Area artists: Saburo Hasegawa, Ruth Wall, Ludwig Choris, and Harry Jacobus.

Jay Heikes makes magic from material, bringing the "periodic table into the studio" to yield unexpected results. Watch the artist delve into the inspiration and meaning behind his MATRIX 269 exhibition.

Anne Nesbet, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures and film and media at UC Berkeley, lectured on Sergei Eisenstein's OCTOBER (1928).

Explore the breadth of Agony in Effigy: Art, Truth, Pain, and the Body with curator Philippe Pirotte, who shares insights into the exhibition's themes, selected artworks, and its relevance to today.

A lecture by Anne Nesbet, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures and film and media at UC Berkeley, following a screening of Vsevolod Pudovkin’s The End of St. Petersburg (1927).

Anne Nesbet, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures and film and media at UC Berkeley, lectured on Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg’s The New Babylon (1929). Following the screening, Nesbet and film historian, curator, and archivist Peter Bagrov discussed the film in the context of early Russian and Soviet cinema.

Joan Neuberger, professor at University of Texas, Austin, introduced a screening of Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1944). Following, Neuberger conversed with film historian, curator, and archivist Peter Bagrov about the film.

Anne Nesbet, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures and film and media at UC Berkeley, lectured on Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925).

Artist Karabo Poppy Moletsane talks about her creative process, Afrofuturism, and her hope for the future—all while her Art Wall commission comes to life.

William Guynn, author and professor emeritus of art at Sonoma State University, introduced Yaël Hersonski’s A FILM UNFINISHED (2010), which examines an unfinished propaganda film on the Warsaw Ghetto. Following the screening, Guynn and BAMPFA Film Curator Kathy Geritz responded to audience comments and questions.

Actress Liv Ullmann introduced a screening of PERSONA (1966) and reflected on her collaboration with director Ingmar Bergman.

Berkeley resident Country Joe McDonald, who famously performed in the Woodstock Music Festival, and director Robert N. Zagone introduced a a special screening of Michael Wadleigh's documentary Woodstock (1970).

Anne Nesbet, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures and film and media at UC Berkeley, lectured on Lev Kuleshov's THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF MR. WEST IN THE LAND OF THE BOLSHEVIKS (1924).

Filmmaker Bill Morrison introduced DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME (2017), which mediates on a rare trove of silent nitrate film. Following the screening, Morrison and BAMPFA Film Curator Kathy Geritz responded to audience comments and questions.

Anne Nesbet, associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures and film and media at UC Berkeley, lectured on Evgenii Bauer's A LIFE FOR A LIFE (1916).

On December 2, 2017, guest curator Jordan Stein discussed the life and work of Miyoko Ito, exploring the construction of physical and psychological environments in her dreamlike abstractions. He showed and contextualized excerpts from the only known video interview of the artist, made in 1978.

On November 29, 2017, Karabo Poppy Moletsane discussed her new Art Wall project with Ashara Ekundayo, a cultural strategist and independent curator who, in her words, “listens for place-based solutions revealed through artful gatherings, often with unlikely allies.” Their conversation explored issues that Moletsane’s vibrant figurative art embodies, from street art and life in urban South Africa to the concept of Afrofuturism.

On November 11, 2017, Sean Corcoran, Yasmin Ramirez, Barry Blinderman, and Jane Dickson gathered to discuss painter Martin Wong's life and work in the Bay Area and New York. The presenters—most of whom knew Wong personally—touched on themes such as the artist’s Chino-Latino identity, his connection to street art, the context of AIDS, and his relationship with poet and playwright Miguel Piñero.

On October 7, 2017, Mark Dean Johnson, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Sergio Bessa, Marci Kwon, and Charlie Ahearn discussed painter Martin Wong, who began and ended his career in California.

Presented in conjunction with Martin Wong: Human Instamatic (September 20–December 10).

Occasioned by the exhibition Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument, this panel offered an appreciation of the influential photographer and a critical examination of the processes that shaped his first Life magazine photo-essay, “Harlem Gang Leader.”

Moderated by Leigh Raiford, UC Berkeley associate professor of African American studies, the program featured Makeda Best, curator of photography at the Harvard Art Museums; Tina Sacks, assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare; and noted documentary photographer Ken Light, Reva and David Logan Professor of Photojournalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

On September 16, 2017, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive hosted a panel discussion exploring the arresting art of Charles Howard, in conjunction with the artist's first major museum retrospective in six decades. Topics included Howard's stylistic synthesis of chaos and order; his relation to both American and British modernism; and his connections with the San Francisco Bay Area art world of the 1940s.

On Wednesday, September 13, renowned Conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner appeared at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive to discuss his latest work for BAMPFA's Art Wall. In conversation with BAMPFA Director Lawrence Rinder, the New York-based artist described his engagement with the natural landscape, his connection to the Bay Area, and the significance of language in his work.

Communality supported not only counterculture lifestyles, but also new economic and creative ventures. In conjunction with the exhibition "Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia," the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) convened a panel to discuss whether the rural commune model may again offer a template for creative production as the Bay Area's urban spaces become prohibitively expensive for young artists.

Kaleidoscopic reinventions of identity gave the hippie movement propulsive force and permeated its cultural output, as reflected in rock music, performance art, and a flamboyant spectrum of public self-expression. In conjunction with the exhibition "Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia" at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), three panelists came together to discuss the influence of the counterculture's fluid identities on mainstream conceptions of identity today.

From People’s Park to Black Panther Oakland, the notion of liberated territories shaped counterculture politics and their radical geographies. In conjunction with the exhibition "Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia" at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), three distinguished panelists explored this heritage and its relevance for contemporary social engagement. The panel discussion took place on March 11, 2017.

On February 22, 2017, UC Berkeley Associate Professor of Architecture Greg Castillo spoke at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) about the alternative cultural geography of hippie society, whose “liberated territories” converted social critique into lived practice. Greg specializes in the architectural history of interwar and postwar America and Europe, and is also the guest curator of BAMPFA's exhibition "Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia."

In her newly commissioned Art Wall project, Chicago-based artist Caroline Kent presents The Sounds Among Us which activates her unique abstract language as “musical notation for everyday sounds.” Here, Kent discusses her work with BAMPFA executive director, Julie Rodrigues Widholm.

AArt Wall: Caroline Kent is organized by BAMPFA staff and curated by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, executive director, with the assistance of Christina Yang, chief curator. The Art Wall is commissioned by BAMPFA and made possible with major funding from Frances Hellman and Warren Breslau.

In her newly commissioned Art Wall project, Chicago-based artist Caroline Kent presents The Sounds Among Us which activates her unique abstract language as “musical notation for everyday sounds.” Here, Kent discusses her work with BAMPFA executive director, Julie Rodrigues Widholm.

AArt Wall: Caroline Kent is organized by BAMPFA staff and curated by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, executive director, with the assistance of Christina Yang, chief curator. The Art Wall is commissioned by BAMPFA and made possible with major funding from Frances Hellman and Warren Breslau.

In her newly commissioned Art Wall project, Chicago-based artist Caroline Kent presents The Sounds Among Us which activates her unique abstract language as “musical notation for everyday sounds.” Here, Kent discusses her work with BAMPFA executive director, Julie Rodrigues Widholm.

AArt Wall: Caroline Kent is organized by BAMPFA staff and curated by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, executive director, with the assistance of Christina Yang, chief curator. The Art Wall is commissioned by BAMPFA and made possible with major funding from Frances Hellman and Warren Breslau.