MoMA Starts Modern Mondays a Screening Series

Saturday, 20 October 2007 03:24

NEW YORK CITY - The Museum of Modern Art has launched Modern Mondays, a thought-provoking weekly screening series that engages viewers in dialogue and debate with filmmakers. This dynamic new initiative brings contemporary, innovative film and moving-image works to the public each week. 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. Modern Mondays is an interdepartmental program organized by MoMA’s Department of Film and Department of Media.

Michael Haneke, whose work was the subject of a recent two-week retrospective, presented his 1997 film Funny Games on October 15, and discussed his oeuvre after the screening. Ernie Gehr appears on October 29 in conjunction with two current exhibitions of his work: Panoramas of the Moving Image: Mechanical Slides and Dissolving Views from Nineteenth-Century Magic Lantern Shows and Ernie Gehr: Moving-Image Minimalist. Other upcoming Modern Mondays presentations feature Kevin Everson (October 22), a documentarian whose films focus on the working-class culture of Black Americans and people of African descent, animators Michael Sporn (November 12) and Joshua Mosley (November 26), and German director Birgit Moeller, who presents her debut feature Valerie (2007) on November 5.

The Museum has a long history of exploring experimentation through previous programs such as Cineprobe, Video Viewpoints, and MediaScope. Modern Mondays allows audiences to continue to engage with artists’ recent work and to rediscover landmark works. Selected programs coincide with current film exhibitions, while others function as stand-alone presentations, but all explore diverse aspects of the moving image.

“The Modern Mondays series provides a new opportunity for New York audiences to experience cutting-edge moving image work and the artists who create them, building upon MoMA’s tradition of innovative film and video presentation,” says Rajendra Roy, Celeste Bartos Chief Curator, Department of Film. “Our goal is to propel filmmaking into the future by embracing its greatest risk-takers and celebrating the work of the pioneers of contemporary avant-garde cinema.”

Modern Mondays is supported by The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art. Media sponsorship of Modern Mondays is provided by Artforum.