Tuesday 9 December 2008Stunning visual exploration of the impact of Cinema on contemporary art

The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image, published by London-based fine-art publisher D Giles Limited in association with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, is a thought-provoking journey through contemporary moving image art.

The Cinema Effect Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image offers the first in-depth exploration of the influence of cinema on contemporary artists using moving image technology, and explores the way in which this medium has blurred cultural distinctions between reality and illusion. Cinema was the unrivalled art form of the twentieth century; in the art world the use of film and video and the appropriation of cinematic language and devices for works in a range of media have been growing since the early 1960s. In the realm of popular culture, the influence of this technology and its vocabulary (and of subsequent incarnations like television and the internet) has grown to the point where the boundaries between “real life” and make-believe are at the least blurred and at most indecipherable.

This volume opens with an overview by Kerry Brougher of the cultural, social and psychological issues raised by the project, before dividing into two parts which reflect the opposing poles at the core of cinema and its role in art and contemporary culture. In her essay Projecting Dreams, Kelly Gordon discusses how and why moving-image work has shifted from the margins to the center of art production. She considers the analogous relationship between cinema technology and the psychology of dreams and the ways in which artists compel or challenge the suspension of disbelief, encouraging viewers’ awareness of their participation in this process. Addressing film’s ability to transport us out of our everyday lives and into a dream world, a series of artists’ works move us through the different stages of consciousness and dreaming, from those moments between wakefulness and sleep to the darker recesses of the imagination and fantasy.

Part II, Realisms, shifts the focus to the larger societal impact of cinema’s pervasiveness and looks at the work of emerging artists. In Man and the Movie Camera Kristen Hileman explores the complex issue of authenticity in art, film, and culture, whilst Anne Ellegood, in Character Driven: Subjectivity and the Cinematic, examines how the interplay between reality and fiction informs artists’ explorations into subjectivity, individuality and character. At the heart of Realisms is the irony that, while over the course of the 20th century moving-picture media have become dominant modes for documentary and distribution of factual imagery, and it has become easier and easier to capture real life in real time, the moving image is also understood to be a powerful vehicle of illusion and distraction. The difference between fact and fiction has become increasingly complicated and difficult to determine.

This striking volume highlights moving-image artworks by a range of influential and emerging international artists whose works use film language and technology to explore the ever-increasing impact of the cinematic on our perceptions. Also featured is Timestream, an illustrated chronology of the moving image by renowned international video artist Tony Oursler

The Authors:
Kerry Brougher is Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. He has organized numerous exhibitions, including Hall of Mirrors: Art and Film since 1945 (1996), Notorious: Alfred Hitchcock and Contemporary Art (1999), Visual Music (2005) and Hiroshi Sugimoto (2006); Anne Ellegood is Curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, where she recently organized The Uncertainty of Objects and Ideas (2006); Kelly Gordon is Associate Curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and organized the recent exhibitions in the Museum’s Black Box, including those for Hiraki Sawa, Jesper Just, Francis Alÿs and Magnus Wallin; Kristen Hileman is Associate Curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and has organized Directions–Oliver Herring and Directions–Cai Guo-Qiang. Tony Oursler is an internationally renowned video artist, whose recent exhibitions include Dum-Dum, Metalbreath, Wadcutter, (Galleria Emi Fontana Milan 2007) and Sound Digressions in Seven Colors (New York 2006)

THE CINEMA EFFECT: ILLUSION REALITY AND THE MOVING IMAGE
176 pages, 11” x 9 ½” (240 x 280mm)
150 colour illustrations, hardback
Text: Up to 47,000 words
ISBN: 978 1 904832 50 8 (13 digit)
ISBN: 1 904832 50 4 (10 digit)

Price: US$65.00/UK£27.50
Publication date: February, 2008
Publisher: D Giles Limited, London

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About the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is the Smithsonian’s museum of modern and contemporary art, located on the National Mall in the heart of Washington, D.C. The Museum and its collection are the result of the generosity and enthusiasm for art of one man, Joseph H. Hirshhorn (1899–1981), who immigrated to the United States from Latvia with his parents at the age of eight and began collecting at an early age. Although originally attracted to traditional nineteenth century art, he became a devotee of contemporary art and eventually donated over 12,000 works to the institution that bears his name. Chartered by an act of Congress in 1966, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, opened the doors of its distinctive circular building designed by Gordon Bunshaft in 1974. It is now one of the leading collections of international modern and contemporary art in America. It seeks to enhance public understanding and appreciation of contemporary art and create meaningful, personal experiences for a diverse range of visitors, through acquisitions, exhibitions, educational programmes, and research.