First-Person Cinema: Marie Menken, Margaret Tait, and Ute Aurand

October 17–21, 2018

German film artist Ute Aurand joins us to present her lyrical works alongside shorts by American underground filmmaker Marie Menken and Scottish film poet Margaret Tait.

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Lisa
Four Diamonds
Maria and the World
Building Under Ground

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First-Person Cinema with Ute Aurand: Program 1
Wednesday, October 17 7 PM
Ute Aurand in Person
Aurand’s expressive camera technique and editing style imbue her lyrical films with a joyous spontaneity. Tonight’s program also includes two titles by Scottish film poet Margaret Tait, one of her influences.
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First-Person Cinema with Ute Aurand: Program 2
Thursday, October 18 7 PM
Ute Aurand in Person
Tonight’s program includes Aurand’s triptych A Walk/ Im Park/ ZUOZ, shot in Switzerland; Maria and the World, with glimpses of everyday life and rural landscape; and In the Garden (co-created with Bärbel Freund). Plus Marie Menken’s Arabesque for Kenneth Anger and Margaret Tait’s Portrait of Ga.
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First-Person Cinema with Ute Aurand: Program 3
Sunday, October 21 4 PM
Ute Aurand in Person
Marie Menken’s charming animation Dwightiana sets the tone for this program on place, work, and art. The evening also includes Menken’s stop-motion Moonplay, Margaret Tait’s A Place of Work, and Aurand’s Building Under Ground, which follows the expansion of Zurich’s Museum Rietberg.
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First-Person Cinema: Marie Menken, Margaret Tait, and Ute Aurand

October 17–21, 2018

This October, in conjunction with our Alternative Visions series, we have the pleasure of a visit from Berlin artist Ute Aurand (b. 1957), whose lyrical films are part of the vibrant tradition of first-person cinema. Aurand’s expressive camera technique and editing style lend to the joyous spontaneity of her work. Her staccato-length shots flash like bursts of energy, adding a rhythmic dimension to the handheld cinematography. Her films reveal a wide range of interests, from the natural world to art, poetry, history, philosophy, and travel. As an independent curator and teacher, Aurand often presents the works of two women artists who have been highly influential on her filmmaking aesthetic, the American underground filmmaker Marie Menken (1909–1970) and the Scottish film poet Margaret Tait (1918–1999). Aurand joins us to screen and discuss several of their films alongside her own, offering personal insights into the arts of cinematography and montage. Tait once said of her films that they are born “of sheer wonder and astonishment of how much can be seen in any place that you choose . . . if you really look.” This wisdom informs Aurand’s work, too, in her pursuit of celebrating creativity, the visible world, and the fleeting moments of life.

Susan Oxtoby, Senior Film Curator

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Series organized by Senior Film Curator Susan Oxtoby and supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and German Films.

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National Endowment for the Arts

First-Person Cinema: Marie Menken, Margaret Tait, and Ute Aurand

October 17–21, 2018

Past Films

First-Person Cinema with Ute Aurand: Program 1

First-Person Cinema with Ute Aurand: Program 2

First-Person Cinema with Ute Aurand: Program 3