As part of Canyon Cinema’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations, Ernie Gehr, one of the leading figures of the American avant-garde, makes a rare trip to the Bay Area to present a selection of his recent digital films. For New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, his imagery is “abstract, beautiful, mysterious, invigorating, utopian.” In Picture Taking, our perspective on a Manhattan intersection is radically and beautifully altered; in Autumn, Gehr chronicles changes to Manhattan's Lower East Side. A train museum in Germany is placed in context in Transport, while A Commuter's Life (What a Life!), shot during train trips between New York and Boston, is deliriously abstract.

Ernie Gehr reflects, "Over the years, there have been some external rewards for the works I have created, such as opportunities for teaching, opportunities to show the work, as well as befriend a few individuals near and far that otherwise I would never have met. For all of this I am very grateful, but the reasons for continuing to 'work' to this very day have been the same as they were at the very beginning."

The Exploratorium presents a second program of films by Ernie Gehr on Thursday, July 20; more information at exploratorium.edu/arts/cinema-arts. On Friday, July 21, a third program at the Little Roxie features 16mm films by Gehr; for information, go to http://www.roxie.com. These events are presented in conjunction with Canyon Cinema 50, a yearlong celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Canyon Cinema’s incorporation. Canyon Cinema 50 has been generously supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Owsley Brown III Foundation, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, and The Fleishhacker Foundation.