October 13, 2024–January 5, 2025
This autumn, Eye Filmmuseum highlights the American avant-garde cinema of the 1960s. The exhibition, accompanied by an extensive film programme, showcases key works by avant-garde filmmakers who embraced film as an artistic medium in defiance of Hollywood’s restrictive and conservative mainstream cinema. These filmmakers engaged in formal experimentation while also taking a moral stance on significant social issues, including consumerism, the role of mass media, the fight for equal rights, the Vietnam War, student protests, and a polarized political climate. Underground will present works by prominent avant-garde figures such as Jonas Mekas, Marie Menken and Stan Brakhage, alongside films by artists such as Bruce Conner, Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono or Andy Warhol.
Set against the backdrop of a changing society, Underground highlights the range of independent and unconventional films that push the boundaries of cinema, using the medium primarily as a form of artistic expression. While important experimental films were already being made in the 1940s and 1950s, a significant turning point occurred around 1960 with the founding of the New American Cinema Group by Jonas Mekas. This group, consisting of filmmakers, as well as painters, performers, and poets, presented a manifesto calling for space for artistic, personal films and denouncing official cinema as superfluous, morally corrupt, and aesthetically outdated. Filmmaker Jonas Mekas, spokesperson and one of the founders of the New American Cinema Group, captures the essence of this wave of filmmakers with one succinct statement in 1961: “We don’t want false, polished, slick films—we prefer them rough, unpolished, but alive; we don’t want rosy films: we want them the colour of blood.”
Underground films were not polished narrative dreamscapes, but often raw, abstract visuals and brightly colored collages. The filmmakers employed rapid editing, flicker effects, and utilized either a dynamic handheld camera or a static camera held in a fixed position for hours. They also experimented with multiple screens, embodying the concept of ‘expanded cinema’. A notable example is the impressive 11-channel installation Movie Mural (1965–68) by Stan VanDerBeek, which will be exhibited in the Netherlands for the first time.
Featured artists: Bruce Baillie, Stan Brakhage, Shirley Clarke, Bruce Conner, Storm De Hirsch, Maya Deren, Yayoi Kusama & Jud Yalkut, Hollis Frampton, Jonas Mekas, Marie Menken, Gunvor Nelson, Yoko Ono, Carolee Schneemann, Stan VanDerBeek and Andy Warhol.
Films, talks & events
The exhibition continues in Eye cinemas, where key works by leading makers from the underground scene will be screened in full and where possible, in their original analogue format. The programmes also look at the international context, assess the lasting impact and influence of New American Cinema outside the United States, and examine the situation today. On election night in America (November 5, 2024), various speakers will discuss how the underground scene of the 1960s highlighted political issues and how that is reflected in the current political climate.
Opening programme
The evening begins at 8:30pm with the opportunity to explore the exhibition at your leisure. At 9:15pm, there will be a special, one-time screening of the iconic split-screen underground film Chelsea Girls (1966, 16mm) by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey in Cinema 2.
