On Monday, April 4, the Program in Visual Arts welcomes Robert Beavers to present two films — The Mysteries and From the Notebook of… —, followed by a Q&A with Rebekah Rutkoff, Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study and recently named 2016-18 Princeton Arts Fellow. The first film begins at 6:00 p.m. at the James M. Stewart ’32 Theater at 185 Nassau Street, while the second film begins at 8:00 p.m. at the Princeton Garden Theatre, followed by the Q&A and a reception. Free and open to the public.
The Mysteries, Gregory Markopoulos, 1968, 16mm, 80 minutes
6:00 p.m.
James M. Stewart ’32 Theater, 185 Nassau Street
The Mysteries was made in Munich during the same period in which Markopoulos directed two opera pieces for German television. In Artforum, Kristin Jones described the film as “… a mournful work in which, as in many of the earlier films, the rhythmic repetition of imagery evokes poetic speech, and changes in costume emphasize shifts in time, space, and emotion. Here, a young man’s struggles with memories of love and intimations of death are set alternately to deafening silence and the music of Wagner.”
From the Notebook of…, Robert Beavers, 1971/1998, DCP, 48 minutes
8:00 p.m.
Princeton Garden Theatre, 160 Nassau Street
Often considered Beavers’ first masterpiece, From the Notebook of… turns inward to reveal its own structure as it reflects on the practice of making art in general. Inspired by the notebooks of da Vinci (as well as Vasari’s and Valery’s writings on the artist), the film combines shots of Beavers’ own notes, instructions and tools with locations in Florence depicted in da Vinci’s notebooks. A unique self-portrait of the artist at work in a city as famous for invention as it is for beauty.
Sponsored by Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, the Gauss Seminars in Criticism, and the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Visual Arts.
ROBERT BEAVERS (b. 1949) is an American avant-garde filmmaker best known for My Hand Outstretched to the Winged Distance and Sightless Measure, an epic cycle comprising 18 of his films (many later re-edited) made since 1967. Born in Massachusetts, Beavers has spent much of his life in Europe, where he moved with his partner Gregory Markopoulos in 1968. Retrospectives of his work have been presented at institutions including the Whitney Museum, the Tate Modern and the Austrian Film Museum.
GREGORY MARKOPOULOS (1928-1992) was an American avant-garde filmmaker, a co-founder of the New American Cinema Group and a prolific writer. After leaving the US for self-imposed exile in Europe, Markopoulos withdrew his films from circulation and his work went largely unseen for almost 30 years. Since 2004, portions of his 80 hour magnum opus, Eniaios, designed for exclusive screening in Arcadia, Greece, at an event and site called the Temenos, have been presented every four years. The next iteration will be presented in June 2016.
REBEKAH RUTKOFF is a 2015-2016 Member in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study and a recently named 2016-18 Princeton Arts Fellow.
