Fales Exhibition Explores ‘Preserving Downtown’s Time-Based Works’

An exhibition entitled “Moving/Images: Preserving Downtown Time-Based Works” opens at the Fales Library (3rd floor of Bobst Library, 70 Washington Square South) on March 26 and will run through July 31. 

      The exhibition comprises moving image works and their supporting archival documentation and features selected works from the Jaime Davidovich Collection and the papers of Richard Foreman, Richard Hell, Frank Moore, and David Wojnarowicz, which have been preserved with the support of the New York State Council on the Arts, a co-host of this event, the NEA, and the National Film Preservation Foundation. 

      The moving image works consist of Super8, 16mm completed works and works-in-progress; performance documentation; early public access TV; and video art.  Supporting materials, such as scripts, outlines, sketches, photographs, publications, and other archival documents illustrating the process of creation of the works, will be shown along side the film and video works.  This exhibition explicates the complex ethical and technical questions that arise when preserving artists’ moving image and time-based works.

      Accompanying the exhibition are a screening of works by Hell, Moore, Foreman, Wojnarowicz, and others on Thursday, April 3, at 7 p.m., and two panel discussions on Friday, April 4;  at 12 noon, “Signal Loss: Saving Downtown Video,” and at 2 p.m., “Not Your Home Movies: Downtown Film.” Speakers include Jaime Davidovich, Chris Straayer, Peggy Ahwesh, Andrew Lampert, and Nick Zedd. These events take place at the NYU Cantor Film Center, 36 8th Street.

-Barbara Jester