March 3, 2013
Join us for a special New York evening of screenings and conversation with the legendary filmmaker Agnès Varda, introduced by Molly Nesbit.
As the only female director of the French New Wave and a key member of the Rive Gauche (Left Bank) cinema movement, Agnès Varda became a force in art cinema. She describes her style as cinécriture (writing on film), and conceived many of her films as political and feminist statements, often crossing genres as she proceeded, always formally daring her viewer to look where before they had only overlooked. The results, whether fictional or actual, produce radical documents of unforgettable people. Her most well-known works include: Cléo from 5 to 7, Happiness (Le Bonheur – Silver Bear at Berlin Film Festival), Vagabond (Sans Toit Ni Loi – Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival), Jacquot (Jacquot de Nantes), and the autobiographical documentaries; The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse – Golden Prize Chicago) and The Beaches of Agnès (Les Plages d’Agnès). In the past decade she has turned as well to installation work and has been exhibited widely.
Molly Nesbit is Chair and Professor in the Department of Art at Vassar College as well as a contributing editor of Artforum. She has written the books Atget’s Seven Albums (1992) and Their Common Sense (2000), and since 2002, together with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Rirkrit Tiravanija, Molly Nesbit has tri-curated Utopia Station, an ongoing book, exhibition, seminar, website and street project. Her new book, The Pragmatism in the History of Art, will be published this spring by Periscope Press.
This evening has been organized in conjunction with Agnes Varda’s forthcoming appearances at the Slought Foundation, Philadelphia:
Agnes Varda in conversation with Molly Nesbit, Wednesday, March 13
Things That Quicken the Heart—Chris Marker: A Symposium, March 15-March 16