Motion Pictures
Curators Mary Lea Bandy and Klaus Biesenbach
Malba presents a renowned group of works by Andy Warhol, produced between 1963 and
1964, as well as his screen tests, filmed portraits made from 1964 to 1966, in an
exhibition conceived and produced by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
From 1964 to 1966, in The Silver Factory, Warhol filmed hundreds of screen tests. In
these films, which are on average three minutes long, Warhol portrayed his friends:
models, artists, intellectuals, actors and musicians. Klaus Biesenbach, co-curator
of the exhibition, calls this period “a laboratory of fameâ€. And adds: “The images
on display seem to link the classical museum prortrait gallery with the early days
of motion picturesâ€.
Filmed with a still camera, the screen tests attempt to capture the glamour and
personality of Warhol’s friends. The artist would afterwards alter the film speed:
16 frames per second instead of 24, which produced a sort of slow motion effect
similar to very early cinema. These films are silent, black-and-white portraits of
"Baby" Jane Holzer, Cass Elliott, Dennis Hopper, Gerard Malanga, Beverly
Grant, Edie Sedgwick, Susan Sontag, Salvador Dalà and many others.
The show at Malba also includes some of Warhol's most celebrated films: Sleep
(1963), Kiss (1963), Blow Job (1963), Eat (1964) and Empire (1964), through which
the artist greatly contributed to experimental cinema.
As was Warhol’s original intention, these two groups of works will be seen in the
exhibition space, and they have been transferred to DVD format from the original
16mm prints.
Mary Lea Bandy, co-curator of the exhibition, wrote “... to young artists and
enthusiasts who are growing up in a post-Warhol era of vast and varying means of
manipulating and fragmenting images and sounds (...). one has only to look at the
work being made today to realize we will not easily become ‘post-Warhol’ any time
soon†(Andy Warhol. Motion Pictures. Curated by Mary Lea Bandy, edited by Klaus
Biesenbach, KW Intitute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany, 2004).
“This exhibition dedicated to Warhol’s films is very important for both Malba and
the Latin American audience. It is the first show organized at Malba by The Museum
of Modern Art with the collaboration of the Andy Warhol Museum. It belongs to a
program of exhibitions developed by Malba that connects the fields of art and film.
It also introduces a complex, intriguing and less known period of Warhol’s
production, when he experimented with the cinematic image, producing an influential
group of works that combine film and photography, documental and fiction,
traditional portrait and performanceâ€, states Eduardo F. Costantini Jr., Executive
Director of Malba.
Curators: Mary Lea Bandy (The “Celeste Bartos†Chief Curator of Film and Media
Department of Film and Media, The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York) and Klaus
Biesenbach (Chief Curator of PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, a MoMA affiliate, and
Curator, Department of Film and Media, The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York).
This exhibition was organized by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, with
the collaboration of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. It was made possible thanks
to the generous contribution of The Museum of Modern Art’s International Council and
the unconditional support of Patricia Cisneros Travel Fund for Latin America.
To purchase the catalogue, please visit Tiendamalba at
http://www.malba.org.ar/web/latienda.php or call 5411 4808 6550.
Press: Elizabeth Imas / Guadalupe Requena. T +54 (11) 4808 6507/6520 | F +54 (11)
4808 6599 prensa@malba.org.ar
Malba – Coleccion Costantini, 3415 Figueroa Alcorta Avenue
C1425CLA, Buenos Aires, Argentina