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Series CROSSOVER
Photo by Francesca Woodman. Untitled 1977-78
(Rome): courtesy of Lorber Films / Betty and George Woodman
THE WOODMANS (DV, 82 min., 2010, USA) by C. Scott Willis
Preceded by
THE FANCY (DV, 36 min., 2005, USA) by Elisabeth Subrin
Thursday, March 8th at 7:30pm
Saturday, March 10th and 7:30pm (repeat screening)
THE WOODMANS:
Francesca Woodman in a self-portrait. Untitled 1977-78
(Rome): courtesy of Lorber Films / Betty and George Woodman
"Then at one point I did not need to translate the notes; they went directly to my hands."
– Francesca WoodmanFrancesca Woodman's haunting B&W images, many of them nude self-portraits, now reside in the pantheon of great photography from the late 20th century. The daughter of artists Betty and Charles Woodman (she a ceramicist and he a painter/photographer), Francesca was a precocious RISD graduate, who came to New York with the intention of setting the art world on fire. But in 1981, as a despondent 22-year-old, she committed suicide. THE WOODMANS beautifully interweaves the young artist's work (including experimental videos and diary passages) with interviews with her parents who have continued their own artistic practices while watching Francesca's professional reputation eclipse their own. The film grapples with disturbing issues, among them: parent-child competition and the toxic level of ambition that fuels the New York art scene.
Winner, Best New York Documentary – Tribeca Film Festival
See the trailer here: www.thewoodmansmovie.com
THE FANCY:
The Fancy by Elisabeth Subrin: courtesy of the Video Data Bank"Sadly, THE WOODMANS (2010) seems most successful at pointing to the psychic risk of being a daughter." – Elisabeth Subrin, Film Comment
In this speculative, experimental video essay, Subrin radically reorganizes information drawn from the published catalogues of Francesca Woodman's work—both the photographs themselves and the critical writing about them—to raise questions about the parameters and ethics of biography, the boundaries between history and fantasy, and problems of female representation. The few catalogues published on Woodman's art are exhaustively referenced, yet, Subrin's video hints at conspiracy, calling attention to the Woodman family's unwillingness to make the bulk of her body of photography available, as if they were intent on collapsing the artist's chosen channel of communication.
See an excerpt from THE FANCY: www.vdb.org/node/3277
Tickets: Adults $10.00 | Students (full-time w/ ID) / Seniors (65+) $8.00
2011-2012
