“Time, space, breakup, past, future, bits and parts of concepts and still photographs” is how Bruce Conner once described the films he wanted to make. His film Report is an obsessive memorial that lays waste to television's coverage of John F. Kennedy's assassination. In Conner's hands history stutters and falls to pieces. This program memorializes Conner's recent passing by presenting works in which historical documents are recovered, reanimated, and read in new ways. In The Meaning of Various Newsphotos to Ed Henderson, John Baldessari asks Henderson to divine the meaning of photos taken out of context. Ken Jacobs's Perfect Film rescues a lost reel of outtakes from a report of Malcolm X's assassination. In The Dead Weight of a Quarrel Hangs, Walid Ra'ad offers a meditation on the Lebanese wars in which historical documents are not always visible or available to memory. Sylvia Schedelbauer presents two recent works, Memories and Remote Intimacy, in which the convulsions of world historical events unsettle the silences of her family's past.

Report is just one of many works by Bruce Conner in the BAM/PFA collections, which include examples of the artist's assemblages, drawings, and photographs as well as prints of most of his films. For more on Conner's life and work, please visit bampfa.berkeley.edu/art/AN0310.

Report (Bruce Conner, U.S., 1965, 13 mins, B&W, 16mm). The Meaning of Various Newsphotos to Ed Henderson #2 (John Baldessari, U.S., 1973, 13 mins, B&W, Beta SP). Perfect Film (Ken Jacobs, U.S., 1986, 22 mins, B&W, 16mm). The Dead Weight of a Quarrel Hangs (Walid Ra'ad, U.S., 1996–99, 17 mins, Color, Beta SP). Memories (Sylvia Schedelbauer, Germany, 2004, 19 mins, In German with English subtitles, B&W, Beta SP). Remote Intimacy (Sylvia Schedelbauer, Germany, 2007–2008, 14.5 mins, In English and Japanese with English subtitles, B&W, Beta SP)