Thwarted Representations Joyce Wieland and the Filmic Portrait (1)

Canadian artist and filmmaker Joyce Wieland (1931–1998) played a key role in the New York structural film movement in the 1960s, while her combination of national and feminist issues and concerns made her a major protagonist in the Canadian art scene from the 1970s. Over two evenings, we will focus on Wieland’s films, which address both a political and public realm and the artist’s own private autobiography. This program attempts a genealogical definition of Wieland‘s portrait films in the context of the New York film avant-garde of the 1960s and beyond, and also wishes to show the relevance of these films for art today.

Curated by Bettina Brunner

„…what we understood as something we understood something about together.“ (Joyce Wieland)

The first evening revolves around Wieland‘s 1972 film Pierre Vallières, which shows the French-Canadian journalist and leader of a politically radical separatist movement in an extreme close-up, proclaiming his polemical program for an independent Québec. Including a lecture, a short film program, and a talk with the British film scholar Lucy Reynolds, this evening will reflect upon the significance of Wieland‘s work for the development of the genre of the filmic portrait somewhere between political documentation and the media-reflective film avant-garde

Program
Joyce Wieland, Pierre Vallières, 1972, 33 min
Lecture: Bettina Brunner, ‘Pierre Vallières’ and the filmic portrait
Response: Lucy Reynolds

Joyce Wieland, Solidarity, 1973, 11 min
Luke Willis Thompson, Cemetery of Uniforms and Liveries, 2016, 9 min
Joyce Wieland, Handtinting, 1967–1968, 6 min
Laure Prouvost, It, Heat, Hit, 2010, 6 min

Presented by Bettina Brunner and Lucy Reynolds

The event will be in English.

Bettina Brunner works at the interface between curatorial practice and academic research in the field of avant-garde film and contemporary art. In 2017 she completed her dissertation at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna titled Eine durchkreuzte Geschichte des strukturellen Films (A Thwarted History of Structural Film), also dealing with Wieland’s works from the perspective of the New York film avant-garde.

Lucy Reynolds (University of Westminster, London) is a researcher, curator and artist focusing on questions of the moving image, feminism, political space and collective practice.