The Museum of Modern Art Modern Mondays

October 2011
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2

An Evening with Harun Farocki
October 3, 7:00 p.m.
In conjunction with the exhibition Harun Farocki: Images of War (at a Distance), the artist’s first solo exhibition at a U.S. museum, Farocki (b. 1944, German-annexed Czechoslovakia) will present a talk and screening in connection with his prolific oeuvre. Farocki emerged as a filmmaker in Berlin during the international student protest movement, and over the past four decades he has transitioned from “guerrilla cinema” to essay films to video installations.
Farocki’s practice is largely defined by an experimental documentary format integrating his own material with footage appropriated from various sources, including mass media, surveillance, and political propaganda. In analyzing the production and consumption of images, Farocki’s works confront relationships between technology, politics, and violence.

Program 90 min.

Organized by Sabine Breitwieser, Chief Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, and Sally Berger, Assistant Curator, Department of Film.


An Evening with Mohamed Soueid
October 17, 7:00 p.m.
In conjunction with Mapping Subjectivity: Experimentation in Arab Cinema from the 1960s to Now, Part II, Mohamed Soueid (b. 1959, Lebanon), presents his performance and slide lecture Written in the Dust. A pioneer of Lebanese independent and experimental video production, Soueid began his career writing film criticism in the 1970s. He began his filmmaking career as assistant director to a number of filmmakers before he directing his first film, Absence (1990), which is believed to be the first independent video production in Lebanon. He also directed two subsequent features, both screened in the film series, Tango of Yearning (1998) and My Heart Beats Only for Her (2009). Written in the Dust proposes a bold, uncanny coupling of Middle Eastern history—and particularly the Lebanese civil war—with the history of cinema.
Narrated in the first person and woven with autobiographical elements, the work caustically challenges received canons and conventional paradigms, but beyond the humor is a bold proposal for a radical rewriting of regional and personal history.

Program 90 min.

Organized by Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film and Rasha Salti, Senior Director, ArteEast.

An Evening with Bill Basquin
October 24, 7:00 p.m.
The work of San Francisco–based filmmaker, photographer, and installation artist Bill Basquin explores the intersection of rural and urban life, with an emphasis on the processes of growing, farming, and composting. Since 1998 he has focused on the practice of farming and animal husbandry from the valleys of Wisconsin or the streets of San Francisco. For this evening, Basquin will present a selection of works including Deer Census (2008) and one of his most recent works, Horses with Bells in Zugarramurdi, which was shot in the Spanish Pyrenees in late 2010.

Program 90 min.

Organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film.

An Evening with Alejandro Jodorowsky
October 31, 7:00 p.m.
As a coda to the exhibition of his work at MoMA PS1 earlier this year, Alejandro Jodorowsky (b. 1929, Chile) introduces his visionary 1973 cult film The Holy Mountain. Following the screening, which is presented in conjunction with MoMA’s annual festival of newly restored films To Save and Project, Jodorowsky will take part in an onstage conversation Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at MoMA, and Joshua Siegel, Associate Curator, Department of Film, MoMA.
The Holy Mountain is an absurdist and picaresque satire depicting the journey of a Christ-like figure, the Thief, to a symbolic mountain that is said to unite Heaven and Earth. Playing the character of the Alchemist both on and off screen, Jodorowsky immersed his actors in months of preparatory spiritual and occult exercises, and was also responsible for the costume and set designs and for cowriting the musical score.

Program 150 min. Courtesy ABKCO Music & Records, Inc.

Organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large of The Museum of Modern Art; and Joshua Siegel, Associate Curator, Department of Film.

Tickets: $12 adults; $10 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D. $8 full-time students with current I.D. (For admittance to film programs only.) The price of a film ticket may be applied toward the price of a Museum admission ticket when a film ticket stub is presented at the Lobby Information Desk within 30 days of the date on the stub (does not apply during Target Free Friday Nights, 4:00-8:00 p.m.). Admission is free for Museum members and for Museum ticketholders.

Modern Mondays is a weekly program that brings contemporary, innovative film and moving-image works to the public and provides a forum for viewers to engage in dialogue and debate with contemporary filmmakers and artists. Modern Mondays presents new—and newly rediscovered—film and media works with the director in attendance, stimulating discourse, dialogue, and interaction in a social setting.

Organized by the Department of Film and the Department of Media and Performance Art.
Modern Mondays is made possible by Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro. Additional support is provided by The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art.