American Art in the 1960s

Japan's establishment as an economic superpower led to a Golden Age of Japanese architecture. Six innovators stand out particularly, fusing Japanese traditions with modern materials and technology.

As an architect, educator, and philosopher, Louis Kahn played a prominent role in the history of 20th century architecture. An examination of six of his most significant buildings: The Salk Institute; the Kimbell Art Museum; the Center for British Art; the library at Philips Exeter Academy; the Indian Institute of Management; and the Parliament Buildings of Bangladesh.

A film essay contrasting the modern metropolis with its "golden age" from 1830-1930, with the participation of some of New York's leading political and cultural figures. Made at a time when the city was experiencing unprecedented real estate development on the one hand and unforeseen displacement of population and deterioration on the other. Empire City is the story of two New Yorks. The film explores the precarious coexistence of the service-based midtown Manhattan corporate headquarters with the peripheral New York of undereducated minorities living in increasing alienation.

"Butoh: Body on the Edge of Crisis" is a visually striking film portrait shot on location in Japan with the participation of the major Butoh choreographers and their companies. Although Butoh is often viewed as Japan's equivalent of modern dance, in actuality it has little to do with the rational principles of modernism. Butoh is a theater of improvisation which places the personal experiences of the dancer on center-stage. By reestablishing the ancient Japanese connection of dance, music, and masks, and by recalling the Buddhist death dances of rural Japan, Butoh incorporates much traditional theater. At the same time, it is a movement of resistance against the abandonment of traditional culture to a highly organized consumer-oriented society.

A visit to the studio of Ernst Wilhelm Nay, a remarkable, if somewhat solitary German artist, who established his status at age 30, just before the advent of the Nazi takeover. Nay belonged to the persecuted generation of German artists who, just as their work began to blossom, were forced out by Hitler's art dictatorship. Labeling the art "decadent", the Hitler regime called for the removal of Nay's paintings from museum collections and the artist was banned from showcasing his new work. After the end of World War II, Nay returned to painting and worked tirelessly to make up for lost time, producing new pieces year after year and quickly becoming one of Germany's leading painters. Ernst Wilhelm Nay died in 1968 at the age of 65 yet his studio, still intact, offers a retrospective of his work starting from the 1920s. His wife, Elisabeth Nay walks us through the studio, offering insights into her husband's process and creative intent.

Crewdson is observed and questioned closely during his work on ten new images in as many different sets.

Made in 1980, this film explores the contemporary dance scene through the work of seven New York-based choreographers. They discuss the nature of dance and the evolution of their own work. Filmed at rehearsals, performances, and during interviews, the film is a unique primary source. The artistic roots of these seven artists can be found in Martha Graham's concern with modern life as a subject for dance and in Merce Cunningham's emphasis on the nature of movement. In the 1960s, the interaction of art forms generated choreographic innovations. Especially influential was John Cage, whose radical ideas served as a point of departure for much of the new choreography. Each of the choreographers in Making Dances draws inspiration from the Graham/Cunningham tradition, yet each makes a highly distinctive statement. Structure, movement in non-fictive time and space, and the nature of movement itself are recurring themes.

No understanding of the modern movement in architecture is possible without knowledge of its master builder, Mies van der Rohe. Together with documentation of his life, this film shows all his major buildings, as well as rare film footage of Mies explaining his philosophy. Phyllis Lambert relates her choice of Mies as the architect for the Seagram building. Mies's achievements and continuing influence are debated by architects Robert A.M. Stern, Robert Venturi, and Philip Johnson, by former students and by architectural historians. Mies is seen in rare documentary footage.

Description by D.A Pennebaker: "This movie is something of a mystery. Timothy Leary was getting married to a model named Nena Von Schlebrugge up in Millbrook, New York at the Hitchcock house, where Leary had been carrying on his hallucinogenic revelries for the past year or so after leaving Harvard. It was rumored that this was going to be the wedding of the season, the wedding of Mr. And Mrs. Swing as Cab Calloway put it. Blackwood took me downtown to meet Monte Rock III who was singing at Trudy Heller’s but who was also a very pricey and off-the-wall hairdresser and was in fact going to be doing the bride’s hair. Nena’s brother, Bjorn, known as the “Baron” was a friend of the Hitchcock’s, as was I, and the idea of going along and filming the wedding seemed not unwarranted. I’ve always wanted to film someone getting married."

4 Artists: Robert Ryman, Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg acts as a collective portrait of creators linked only by their stated intention of expressing ideas through art. Unconnected to traditional concepts of beauty, storytelling or pictorial representation, the artists discuss the context of their art and how their work and the public's perception of it have changed over time. This film offers the rare opportunity to see a large body of work in their studios.—Michael Blackwood Productions

A portrait of the eminent Nobel Prize winning physicist who greatly advanced our knowledge of the atom. Bethe discusses the milestones of his career: his student work in Germany, his flight from the Nazis, his work on the Los Alamos Atomic Bomb project under Robert Oppenheimer, and his research on the energy production in stars. In working to help solve the energy crisis of the 1970’s, Bethe established himself as one of the country’s leading spokesmen for a safe way to use nuclear energy. Speaking in support of a sensible use, he represents a side of this controversial issue that deserves more attention. The film provides crucial insight into this complex issue by one of the world’s authorities.

George Segal constructs a type of human form and vulnerability that feels rare in the world of sculpture. As we follow his process at the isolated New Jersey farmhouse that serves as his studio, the intimacy between Segal and his art is contagious. He casts people who he knows, respects and admires, making the final outcome of the piece seep with personality and humanity. Segal is focused on creating a mold that does not necessarily subscribe to society’s notion of beauty. Originally released in 1979.

This documentary explores the creation of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as designed by architect Peter Eisenman. Reaction of the German public to the completed memorial is also shown.

Critic Kenneth Frampton is a masterful commentator on the architecture of our time. At the start of his long-spanning career Frampton worked as an architect in London before settling into his writing and teaching, which mainly took place at Columbia University. Over the past fifty years Frampton has certified himself as a prolific and influential contributor towards a progressive interpretation of the role of architecture in modern society. In "Kenneth Frampton: A Critical Voice", architect Stan Allen interviews the renowned critic and questions him about his architectural contemporaries, notable past projects, and published writings.

Beginning with their small wrapped objects of 1958, this portrait examines the continuously bold and ambitious artistic ventures of the enigmatic duo, CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE. Though their large scale environmental projects, such as Running Fence and Wrapped Coast, are often met with distress and concern from the surrounding community, perceptions of the project are likely to shift when it comes time to interact with the grand, finished piece. Neither permanent nor purchasable, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s works exude the essence of freedom and exist only for the sake of existing.

The multiple means of making art after the end of illusionism led these artists to create performances, sculptures, earthworks, tableaux, furniture, shaped canvases, and more, using unusual materials. They explore the process of making forms and giving meanings to those forms. In this idea art, their focus is as often social and psychological as artistic. Some of their activities enlist engineering and construction techniques, others compose texts or scripts that are central to their art. Some cast the viewer in the role of a spectator, while the others demand active participation. The sources for their concepts and art works are equally diverse; the delicate proportions and balance of Early Renaissance painting, the exploration of the surface of the moon, the structure and inventions of vernacular architects, to name only a few.