21 Films

Stuart Sherman

1978-1986, 50 min, b&w and color, silent and sound, 16 mm film on video

21 Films, which actually contains 25 titles, is a compilation of 16mm and 8mm shorts assembled by the artist. In these works, Sherman combines the hallmarks of his "Spectacle" performances—metaphoric juxtapositions and visual puns—with a fluency in film grammar. Through exquisite storyboarding and montage, Sherman transforms the mundane into the magical, blithely manipulating colossal forms (landscapes, bridges, chili parlors, skyscrapers, rollercoasters, escalators, and airplanes) like weightless props.

Backyard Economy I

Martha Rosler 

1974, 3:26 min, color, silent, Super 8mm film on video

Set in the arch-American "home movie" context of a sunny suburban yard, Rosler's early Super-8 film Backyard Economy I documents the products of mundane domestic chores. Silently depicting scenes of laundry hanging out to dry in a suburban backyard, Rosler points up the labor that allows leisure...

Calligraphic

Dan Asher 

1997, 1:08 min, color, sound

EAI 40th Anniversary Intro

Takeshi Murata 

2011, 1:04 min, color, sound

EAI commissioned artist Takeshi Murata to create a special introductory piece for EAI's 40th anniversary programming, which will take place throughout 2011. Murata's creation is a stunning homage to forty years of experimentation by artists. With his intricate and lush interventions into archival footage from the 1960s and '70s (including glimpses of EAI founder Howard Wise), Murata initiates a vivid dialogue between the analog past and the digital now.

Hand and Face

1961, 1:42 min, b&w, silent

MTV: Artbreak

Dara Birnbaum 

1987, 30 sec, color, sound

Produced for an Artbreak segment on MTV Network, this dynamic "thirty-second spot" presents an abbreviated history of animation according to the representation of women, from the cell imagery of Max Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell series to the contemporary digital effects of television.

Objects With Destinations

Gary Hill

1979, 3:57 min, color, silent

Silent or with minimal sound, Hill's early formalist works explore the manipulation of electronic color and image density through the camera obscura and image processing devices. Of these works, Hill has written that "much of the subject matter and the expressionistic method of working underline...

Rock Video: Cherry Blossom

Shigeko Kubota

1986, 12:54 min, color, silent

A single-channel version of Kubota's installation of the same name, Rock Video: Cherry Blossom is a lyrical fusion of nature and technology. Branches of pink cherry blossoms etched against a vivid blue sky are the starting point for this sensual visual haiku. Through a fluid application of...

Selected Works: Reel 6

William Wegman

1975-76, 19:38 min, b&w and color, sound

Reel 6 includes vignettes featuring Man Ray, as well as those that focus on Wegman's deadpan monologues. Wegman also uses appropriated material, such as television soundtracks and New Yorker cartoons, as comedic elements. The irony lies in the gap between what is seen and what is heard,...

Suitcase/Not Suitcase

Phyllis Baldino 

1993, 40 sec, color, sound

The artist packs a suitcase, only to reveal that it has large holes cut into both sides.

Three Frame Studies

Vito Acconci 

1969-1970, 10:58 min, b&w and color, silent, Super 8mm film on video

In one of his earliest films, Acconci performs a series of actions — running in a circle, jumping, pushing another man — in which the physical limits of the action refer to the boundaries of the film frame itself.