A key figure in the Los Angeles scenes since the 1970s, Morgan Fisher is the subject of a retrospective of film works. The exhibition includes a rare showing of his film installation Color Balance (1980, remade in 2002), as well as 9 films, made from 1968 to 2003, that reflect his dual interest in maintaining a critical relationship to Hollywood cinema while exploring the materials and structures of film.
Film Works by Morgan Fisher 1968-2003
A key figure in the Los Angeles art and film scenes since the 1970s, Morgan Fisher is the subject of a retrospective of film works at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The
exhibition includes a rare showing of Fisher's film installation Color Balance (1980, remade in
2002), as well as nine films, made from 1968 to 2003, that reflect Fisher's dual interest in
maintaining a critical relationship to Hollywood cinema while exploring the materials and structures
of film. Standard Gauge: Film Works by Morgan Fisher 1968-2003 remains on view through
February 12, 2006.
The exhibition is organized by Whitney curator Chrissie Iles, who notes, “Fisher's early films are all
constructed according to Conceptual, or ‘structural' principles rather than narrative sequences,
reflecting the shift away from conventional narrative and readings of sculptural and painterly
space, materials, and time that were occurring elsewhere in the art world at the beginning of the
1970s."
In Color Balance, three projectors superimpose identical images of a constantly moving Ping-Pong
ball, filtered red, green, and blue. The installation enacts additive color mixing, but the projectors
are not synchronized, resulting in an ever-changing play of primary colors.
Production Stills (1970) uses the equipment of Hollywood studio filmmaking to document its own
production with a series of Polaroids whose repeated shape recalls the uniform modules used by
Carl Andre and Donald Judd.
Projection Instructions (1976) tells the projectionist to do such things as turn off the sound and
throw the image out of focus, acts that ordinarily would be disruptive. These actions by the
projectionist connect the screen and the viewer back to an invisible performer attending to the
invisible machine that is the origin of the image.
Fisher, a friend of the late artist Jack Goldstein, addressed Hollywood most directly in Standard
Gauge (1984). An autobiography mainly about Fisher's brief time as a film editor in Hollywood, the
film presents scraps of found footage as a series of objects that reflect the history and technical
aspects of the commercial motion picture industry, while also alluding to Fisher's peers in
independent filmmaking such as Paul Sharits and Hollis Frampton.
In Fisher's most recent film, insert shots taken from Hollywood films (for example, a close-up of
a wristwatch) are "liberated" from their original, marginal role as conveyors of information essential
to their stories, and given a central role, reassembled to form a chance succession of enigmatic,
sometimes ominous, moments.
ABOUT ARTIST
Morgan Fisher (born 1942) lives and works in Santa Monica. Fisher has recently exhibited a group
of paintings at Adamski in Aachen, Germany, and a series of mirror works called “The Aspect Ratio
Pieces" at Greene Naftali Gallery in New York. His work is in the collections of the Museum of
Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
ABOUT THE WHITNEABOUT WHITNEY
The Whitney Museum of American Art is the leading advocate of 20th- and 21st-century American
art. Founded in 1930, the Museum is regarded as the preeminent collection of American art and
includes major works and materials from the estate of Edward Hopper, the largest public collection
of works by Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, and Lucas Samaras, as well as significant works by
Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman, Georgia O'Keeffe, Claes Oldenburg, Kiki
Smith, and Andy Warhol, among other artists. With its history of exhibiting the most promising and
influential American artists and provoking intense debate, the Whitney's signature show, the
Biennial, has become the most important survey of the state of contemporary art in America today.
The Whitney Museum is located at 945 Madison Avenue, New York City.
Museum hours are: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., closed Monday and Tuesday.
The Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria is located at 120 Park Avenue at 42nd Street.
Gallery hours: Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursdays 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Sculpture Court Hours: Monday through Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays and holidays 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Whitney Museum at Altria is funded by Altria Group, Inc.
Admission is free.